Dropping from the bus my sandal breaks. The repair shop is right in front of me. Dave seizes the opportunity and makes place on his bench under a tree. While stitching my sandal, the discussion moves back and forth between the six or seven guys around him. Street vendors that keep their tangerines in Dave’s eyesight, a guy selling cigarettes per piece from Dave’s pack, others seemingly just sitting there advising Dave on the stitching methods.
“Who taught you to fix shoes?” is one of my curious questions to the young Rastafarian. “Njaa, hunger is the best teacher” is his simple answer “I just knew”. The alternative was pick pocketing. But the idea of being caught by enraged citizens who would wrap him in car tires and pour petrol over his head before setting him on fire didn’t attract him much. This is the cruel answer of society to small crimes and the absence of trustworthy police.
Dave can afford his own room now, and food. Before I know he is stitching my other sandal too, preventing it from breaking tomorrow. The discussion moves back and forth still, and the vendors run off and on between the cars, everybody surviving.
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