Before the workers closed last month, I visited a on going building site with a colleague just to check out the on going work that is nearly completion. Entering into the building, one of the rooms was very dusty and had no ceiling yet, the wall wiring too were not done. And that particular room was still far from being completed and no one can call it beautiful even though some rooms were completely ready.
As I was moving out of the main entrance, I came across one of the site workers who was carrying a plastic bucket of a used paint. He has filled it with a clean water and put it right beside the banana tree that was grow around the house. The banana tree has some bananas on it already but not yet ripe. Most of the leaves were already torn, and some learned towards the little space where sun light entered.
I approached him and asked why he watering the banana tree when the areas would soon be cleared up. He shrugged and told me he had been doing that since he started working on the site few weeks ago, without anyone telling him. A woman nearby selling snacks and food had already told him earlier before I noticed him even though she sometimes gives him water to wet the banana. He never knew it would soon be cleared out before the whole construction thing is over, he just knew he wants to be watering it, so he continued.
Some couple of minutes after, she arrived with some snacks, two plates of rice. She handed one over to the boy and poured some water in the bowl he was using. The talked briefly about the heat that has gotten everywhere hot, the work on site, and whether the fruit on the banana will be ready to get harvested before the clearing out. Nothing extraordinary happened. Both of them simply made room for something small in the middle of a busy day.
Last month, what type guy did was one of the most beautiful things I was and recalled easily seeing this prompt. Not the banana plant itself, but what the agreement between the woman selling food and the boy to keep something alive without knowing what the next plan for that thing is.
Few minutes after, I left the site with my colleague and both of us were discussing about how easily look away from moments like that just because they do not announce themselves. The work on the site is still on going, the work can get tiring sometimes and both of them also have their own worries. Yet they had found a reason to take a pause every evening.
What I saw that day was something unusual especially in that line of work. And that made me think beauty does not necessarily mean a finished thing. Sometimes, it is that little act of caring that someone shows even when everything surrounding is still being built.
Thank you for reading.
