i elicited a rather shy smile from this peddler at the beach back when my bestie and i vacationed in the old country and went to boracay island for a week of R&R. ironic that we were on vacation and we still needed R&R, eh?
talk about the resilience and the strength of the human spirit. these people are hard up, i would reckon this lady has 3 to 4 children all under the age of 12, her husband fishes for a living or does manual jobs at below minimum wage. she augments their income by selling tiny stringed up shells that she sells to the tourists. then she encounters the "locals" from abroad like me and bestie. we look at her wares, tell her the prices are too high, we haggle for the best price. i am good at haggling, i read people's eyes and body language, i know when to go for the kill to get the best price. she gives in. the difference between me and the other locals is that i would give her a tip that is twice the amount i paid for the shells. then the other peddlers would insist i buy from them, too, despite the fact they wouldn't agree to my asking price. but no matter how much i want to help, funds aren't enough. plus really, i am rewarding her for being honest because the shells are free as they just gather them off the shore during low tides, her labour is her own so she doesn't have overhead costs, except for the thread. but she is willing to sell at a low price because that would mean actual money in her hand. as she wraps the shell bracelets you could see that she is trying to count in her head how that money would be spent. the prize for me is the shy smile of relief, perhaps, when i tell her to keep the change, twice the amount of what she sold the shell bracelets for.
and then i take her photo, she holds that shy smile. a photo she will never see again, beyond looking at the screen of my camera. she doesn't know that years later people from many parts of the world would see her face, and know the story behind that smile.
i ask for her name and talk to her for a few minutes about life in general. she's anxious as a few more "local tourists" arrive at the beach and the other peddlers are rushing to them in the hope of making a sale. she tells me her name but frankly, by the time i walk back to the hotel, i would have forgotten it.
smile is an oldie, originally sung and popularized by nat king cole. but here's a rendition by jermaine jackson, brother of michael jackson, during a concert by andré rieu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEeJM_7Xv_w if you don't want to cry, don't listen.
You and JackieR ( @30pics4jackiesdiamond) must have been on the same wavelength with your music selection.
I don't know how old this woman may be now... how she lives... is she still alive at all...
When I look at my old travel photos, I often wonder what happened to the people I met. Very often I think to myself that I could have done more for them; open my heart further.