Window Washing in the Rain

When my friend Barnett and I were driving back to Corinthian Gardens the other day, and we were stopped at the intersection of Quezon Ave and Agham Road, I noticed a little girl, couldn't have been more than eight years old, dash up to a Toyota Prado and start wiping its windows with a makeshift squeegee.

My first thought was, 'Oh Lord, here come these pesky kids again.  They wipe their dirty sponges and basahans on your windows in exchange for money.  Even if you don't want to, they still go at it.'

I told Barnett, who was driving, to leave some space between him and the car in front, so that, if the kid goes up to us we could move ahead to signal to her that we don't want her services.

Anyway, back to the girl.  She was pesky alright.  She kept on wiping the Prado's left windows even if the driver didn't want to.

After she realized she wasn't getting any barya from the car, the little girl walked away and ran back to the center island.

And at that moment, from feeling irritated I started feeling sad.

Because it was raining.  It was raining hard.

And she was trying to clean windows.

How stupid, di ba?  Sino ba may gusto magpalinis sa isang batang kalye with a rag that leaves your window dirtier than it was before, much more kung umuulan?  In other words, it was useless.  Kahit ba sabihin mo malinis yung pampunas, umuulan pa rin, di ba?

But it was exactly that.

Ganun siya kadespirado.

She needed the money so bad, she'd do something useless just to get it.

Ganun niya kelangan yung pera.

At naawa ako sa kanya.

p.s.: I wonder if she even knew, at her age, that what she was doing was something stupid, given that the rain would wash away her work.