TEN PESOS

Ten pesos. That's all it took for the little girl, no more than ten years old, to finally go home after hours of peddling pamunas.

On our way to PGH last Thursday night, my wife asked me for ten pesos to pay a streetkid selling pamunas, those scraps of cloth sewn together to make a small rag. And being the bad me, at first I just made an excuse that I couldn't find any coins. Reluctantly, I handed her a handful of coins. After getting the ten pesos, she asked for this small girl to come over and she bought her ten pesos worth of rags.

What happened next struck me speechless.

The small girl got her ragged bag from the curb, turned to smile at us, then walked away. We knew then she was going home already. It was close to 10:30 in the evening. Slightly drizzling. All she needed was ten pesos more to finally dispose of her rags.