precious mineral water

a small bottle of chilled mineral water may mean nothing to many of us. but to someone who earned little and had to save every cent to send back to his family, such a bottle of mineral water would be a luxury. and it was with this thought that i decided i would get a bangladeshi worker a bottle yesterday to cheer him up.

you see, i had gone to the coffee shop to buy lunch after my cardio appointment yesterday. and after i parked my car, i made my way down the stairs and i came across this bangladeshi labourer sitting on the floor and patching a crack on the wall by the stairwell door. he was so engrossed in patching the crack that he didn't see me approaching. and when i uttered "excuse me", he looked up, a little shock, quickly opened the stairwell door for me and apologised to me for blocking my way. i simply smiled at him, thanked him and proceeded to the coffee shop downstairs. i have always felt thankful to these workers for doing all these little things. things that didn't seemed important, but when put together, made a huge difference to our quality of life.

i decided i should get the bottle of chilled water for him. it felt right, it was a warm day and a chilled bottle of water would be just nice. he was totally surprised when i passed it to him and he accepted it with a broad smile. as i drove off, he stood up and waved goodbye to me, his face grinning broadly, his set of white teeth against his dark complexion was such a huge contrast. his broad smile made my day.

:-)