The Other Side of a Coin~

Sometimes we can't easily put our judgement on things that we can only see. There might be something that actually good or might be beneficial behind the worse. Even though the appearance of something or somebody are not as good as what you expect, but it doesn't mean that they're bad. Just to put a simple example in the story below:

One day, a woman was doing a big clean-up in her house and her kids were helping. As one of her son rummaged through the boxes and bags suddenly he came across a knotted handkerchief with an old dark brown coin nestled inside. Then he said " can I play this with my cash register?" She took a look at the coin and immediately transported to another time back to 1991. " You can play with other coins but not with this one" she replied. This coin means a lot to me as it can't be compared with its monetary value.

Back in 1991, she spent about 5 months in an African country. Ravaged by a sandstorms and blistering heat. There are many things that she found very difficult to deal with, especially with all the beggars. Street urchins were continuously thrust their hands into your face asking for money. " cadeau! cadeau! (gift). After she finished her nursing there, she was moving out with her friend to a land of Burkina Faso. Its much better there, and even the coke taste better. Arriving there by a taxi, she began to unload their luggage. She brought one big luggage with a small day pack. Out of the darkness in the night, a motorcycle with two men approached slowly to them. Without any warning, one of the men grabbed her day pack and were out of sight, swallowed by the night.

The bag contains all her passport, money, traveller's cheques, airline tickets. She was in a big trouble as the nearest Australian consulate was in Ethiopia. She endured interrogations by the authorities with thinly veiled frustration. All she wanted was to leave that hellhole. One day she was walking along the street in Burkina Faso and an old woman was approaching with her hand into her face asking for cadeau! cadeau! "I'd had enough. I was sick and tire of this country, its poverty, corruptions, its thieves, heat an dust" she said to the old woman. "I have no money A thief stole all my money and now I can't get out of here. I can't give you anything". The old woman look at her face attentively and pondered her words. Then her face crumpled into a toothless grins as she reached into the folds of her dress.

"Then I'll give you cadeau" she said. Kindly she placed an old, dark brown into her palm. It was a minuscule amount of money but for this old woman it represented a meal. She felt the shame of affluence and the humility of charity. She had given me a disproportionate to anything that I had ever donated. "In the midst of her poverty, she was able to give me something priceless. With one small token, she turned her perceptions upside down.

taken from Reader's Digest -Cathay Watson.