My Almost-New Shoe

My Almost-New Shoe

A few days ago, my shoe broke. It wasn’t a huge deal; I mean, the shoe was cheap, almost a year old, and it wasn’t broken so badly that I couldn’t walk in it. But, as I now have less than two months left here, I didn’t want to have to buy another pair of shoes. And I can’t wear my flip-flops in monsoon season because 1) they are too slippery and 2) when they do that flip-flop thing, they kick mud up onto your pants, which you then have to take home, soak in a bucket, then scrub the life out of if you want to get the mud off. Not fun.

Well, the good news is that it’s pretty easy to just go and get a shoe fixed here. I guess I’m not the only one with a problem, because shoe repair is quite a business here. And it’s the absolute coolest thing. Men set themselves up at random locations on the side of the road. (There’s one that sits in front of the college, one that sits by the big gas station in Aluva, and a few more that sit on various locations along Aluva’s busiest street). These guys come each morning with their mats to sit on and their tools to work with, and then they just wait for some poor passerby with a broken shoe. Many of them fix umbrellas too, but this time it was my shoe I was worried about.

So today I found a shoe repairman (it was the one next to the big gas station in Aluva) who didn’t have a lot of customers at the moment. I handed him my shoe with a “poor-me” look on my face, and, just five minutes later, my shoe was like new! He had glued the straps back in place, then stitched them up for reinforcement, all while I stood in the hot sun watching him with in amazement. (I simply had never seen anything like this, especially from the side of the road.)

I was so impressed and so happy with his work that I was ready to dump my entire purse and all its contents into his lap. But he asked for a mere 10 rupees. 10 rupees! Can you even believe it? This little old man sitting on the side of the road fixed my broken shoe in a mere five minutes for less than a quarter.

It’s not a brand-new shoe, but it was a brand-new experience. And now I have an almost-new shoe as well as a good story.