ZULULAND LETTER: Fixing shoes and the country’s problems
Poor people’s shoes, because the rich stopped having shoes fixed, well, when they became rich
HIS white people’s name is Alfons and he mends shoes for a living under a tree behind the court.
Poor people’s shoes, because the rich stopped having shoes fixed, well, when they became rich.
They will never throw broken shoes away though.
They donate them.
Then they can tell their friends about their tremendous act of goodwill, and how the gardener should change his name to ‘Lucky’, while prancing around in their latest foot fashions.
Only then do the rich’s old shoes find their way to Alfons, under his tree behind the court.
By that time they usually smell like someone died in them, but Alfons says his eyes stopped watering years ago.
Occasionally I buy loose cigarettes from him, not because I want to smoke more, or less, but purely for the opportunity to pick his mind.
He sells that and loose sweets for when the shoe business is slow.
He’s a 68-year-old looking 55-year-old and has been sitting under the same tree since 1984.
That fascinates me – how anyone can make a living from fixing shoes in an age which asks for the colour of your Nikes to match your Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt and your inflated attitude.
Monkey business
What does Alfons think of the president, and does he know the man built himself a huge swimming pool with taxpayers’ money?
He’s not sure if he likes the president because people say he’s a thief, but he doesn’t believe the swimming pool story because, although he’s never met him, ‘there’s no chance the Mkulu can swim’.
He reckons only white people and Mozambicans can swim.
And what does he think about the uproar on Facebook about the Coolest Monkey in the Jungle hoodie?
He doesn’t know what Facebook is and the last time he saw a monkey in Empangeni was when people still wore brown Grasshoppers.
Those were good shoes.
Does he want an RDP house? No!
A RDP house is very small and not strong, and the toilet is inside.
A Chilly Beef Knorrox fart will crack the blocks and you will meet with the ancestors (said with a toothless grin).
Does he want some land back?
He doesn’t know. Will have to consult with the ancestors first.
He’s got a pretty decent sized plot in the rural area and some cows.
But already three of them were stolen last year, and another fell into a neighbour’s toilet, so he doesn’t think having a big farm is such a good idea.
Lazy people
Alfons doesn’t talk much and I really have to prod him for answers.
As he sits under his tree, while patiently trying to get a bit more distance out of a tired shoe, he looks at the world going past and makes his own conclusions.
Void of the interference and agendas of others.
He’s never browsed the Internet and doesn’t have an email address.
He still writes letters (the paper inside an envelope kind) to relatives living far away.
He thinks all whites are either Van der Merwes or Bothas.
Politicians are lazy people who figured out a way not to work.
The best cars ever made were Valiants.
He thinks that I should stop smoking even though he will then lose my business.
And he wants people to start wearing Grasshoppers again because those shoes last forever and then they will have one less problem in this country full of problems.
