- "7.5 pounds, mister", says the 8 year old street vendor in Al-Hussein.
- For this silly toy? Are you trying to rob be? You're not getting more than 5 pounds.
- Six?
- No, five. [me giving him a stern and serious look.]. Here's a 10, give me change.
[He gives me four, then five pounds of change].
- Thank you.
- Hey mister, mister! [Hands me some other plastic toy]. Take this too. [He giggles - a perfect, luminous, crystalline child's giggle. A kid's laugh.]
- What is that for?
- It's for you - because I made you pay too much for the other one!
More giggles.
I give him back the second toy and leave.
Street vendor honesty, Ramadan style? Well, the kid had a good laugh. And I'll admit, so did I.
Ramadan Kareem, everyone.
11 comments:
Still like your toys :)
This one was quite funny.. one of those soap bubble things. Felt very adult doing that on the streets.
I love it :D
Not so sure if its Ramadan Style.. but may be a child's honesty :)
Hehehe.. true, Lasto! :)
It's earned a smile from me too.
I'll inform the boy when I see him.
Are there many children on the street forced to work ?
Sad.
There are, yes. This said, kids working at selling toys or so are probably doing that with their family - unlike street children, those kids have somewhere to go home to. It's totally possible that this kid does go to school and has, generally speaking, a normal life. Of course I'd prefer for the kid to be playing in the park with kids rather than selling toys; but it could be worse.
Not to say there isn't a decent amount of child labour who work in worse conditions. But just to keep things in perspective and dig deeper rather than just looking at the surface.
Ramadan karim, ya habibi.
:-)
Un abrazo.
R
Gracias, mi vidita. :)
I love this post.
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