Being a cobbler is no easy task

MARANYANE NGWANAAMOTHO
Staff Writer | Friday August 27, 2010 00:00

My mother used to tell my sisters that they spent money on shoes unnecessarily since she could not understand how someone would have a whole bag full of unused shoes even though they were not that old; neither did I understand how they could have so many shoes to give away.

At the time I had only three pairs of shoes, one of them being school shoes, the second one I used to wear while working with my mother at home while my mother kept the other ones for special occasions. I was allowed to wear them only when we went to town, a party or a wedding ceremony. 

I remember my mother used to keep the shoes my sisters brought in big bags for women who used to come by asking for piece jobs, and would accept anything for payment, be it food, clothes, shoes or money.  In most cases they preferred clothes because their wages would not be enough to buy new clothes.  So they knew my mother specialised in those nice shoes, which were not even that old.  They came specifically for the shoes, and they still do.  

I realise now that they were shoes that only needed to be mended with just glue, or needed a new lace, or a heel replaced and would look as good again. 

Now I have many pairs of shoes in my wardrobe, which need to be repaired. I know a number of people, especially women, who also have a pile of shoes, some old, some with just a small defect in their shoe cabinet or packed somewhere in the house. 

We all make good clients for those men who usually sit under trees, along the road and fix shoes all day.  I looked at a certain cobbler's workload of repairing shoes and realised that in fact there are a lot more people out there looking for a cobbler to repair their shoes.

Along almost every road or next to a building or a shopping centre there is a man, busy with a shoes that are to be collected that evening or the following day. 

Usually they have a pile of shoes in front of them and seem to still be receiving more on a daily basis. 

Out of interest, I visited two cobblers yesterday in Gaborone to talk about this business, which is not really attractive but seems to have so many clients.  Around him there is nothing fancy but some black pieces of what looked like a tyre, nails, glue, knives and some other metals, which he uses to mend shoes.

Johannes Mokobo, 63, has been a cobbler since 1968, when at 21 he gave up his formal employment in South Africa. However, repairing shoes was not the main source of income for young Mokobo, but he would always fall back on it whenever he lost a job.

He says that even then he still found people who worked as cobblers.  'Tiro e ga e simologe, e tswa kgakala le nna ke gola ke e fitlhela,' he narrated.  Even though there were customers then they were not as many as they are today, he says. 

Today, Mokobo starts work as early as 7am so that his clients can drop their shoes by his spot before they go to work. He then gets busy all day aiming at repairing a good number of shoes so clients could find them ready for collection.  However, he is unable to finish his daily load because 'there are so many shoes coming in at a time'.

Apparently, even though clients are mainly women, men and children also make a good number of Mokobo's customers. He says that this business is brisk now because the number of people in formal and informal employment has increased.

He says that now most people work and therefore can afford to buy more pairs of shoes than their counterparts did in the past. 

It appears that Mokobo is doing this job out of passion because even when he had permanent employment, he would still work in the evenings, during weekends and holidays.  'Even before I retired from Way Guard Security I used to work during weekends when I had more time.  I still earned that extra money to spend on other things that I needed before month end,' he explained.  Again, he thinks that in this job, it is easy to make money because sometimes he does not spend a lot of time on one shoe.  Though he is now old and cannot afford a physically demanding job anymore, being a cobbler is what Mokobo prefers. 

However, even though this job puts bread on the table for Mokobo, another cobbler in Gaborone, Marcos Ndlovu, is considering quitting simply because 'there is just no money in the business'.

He started only in 2007 but feels enough is enough and will soon be packing his bags, needles and other tools. He says the biggest problem is when clients do not collect their shoes, and thus cannot pay for the job already done.  Again, he is not physically fit and therefore cannot cope with the demands of the job.  I guess because this job is not such a glamorous one, you need to have the passion and patience to keep going.