Fixing my shoes

Airplanes in west Africa are like buses, a friend once said to me. They can't help stopping when they pass a place with people. Flying back from Abidjan, making my way northwards, we passed over endless green and rivers, battling through thick heavy rain cloud.

"This is Sierra Leone," said my neighbour, glancing out of the window. "We must be arriving in Conakry soon." He said it as if he were on the bus and we had just passed through East Croydon.

Arriving in Conakry, a whole lot of people got off and another lot got on. Through the window I saw a motorised luggage truck ramming a suitcase and destroying its front end. The man in charge of luggage shouted to the driver to reverse, which he did, but no amount of thumping the case would get it back in shape. I was glad it wasn't mine.

Finally getting to Dakar, I realised that I would have to face the mean taxi men at the airport. From the plane I called Sow, my faithful taxi man, and told him I was at the airport.

"I missed you," he said, and added he'd be there in a flash.

When I finally got out of the airport, I saw Sow coming towards me in a smart new shirt, waving. He had had a haircut too, and looked younger. After he had put my stuff in the boot, he climbed into the taxi, but not into the driver's seat: there was already someone driving the car.

I asked him why he wasn't driving his own taxi.

"It's my day off today. My friend's using the car instead."

He had left his home to come to the airport to make sure that I found the car alright. We dropped him off home again before we went to my place. Sow is a rare gem.

**************

Dakar. The first thing I did, of course, was to visit Omar the tailor. I had brought him some fabric from Abidjan and I wanted him to get to work on my trousers. On the way to Omar's, I passed a young guy fixing shoes. My high heels broke at the Queen's Birthday Party and I wasn't sure if it was the kind of thing one of the 'shoe doctors' who fix shoes by the side of the road could fix. I was sure I would have to take my favourite shoes to the man who actually makes shoes, so he could replace my heel tip.

Abdou the shoe doctor was about 17 and didn't speak any French. I showed him the shoes and one of his customers, a young girl, translated for me from Wolof. He would replace the shoe tips for such-and-such a price. I whistled through my teeth and loked unsure.

"OK, donne" he said, agreeing to my price.

I realised, it being evening, that I would have to leave my favourite shoes with him overnight, and suddenly felt unsure. Having size 9 feet, high heels are not something that for me are easy to find. But Abdou said he would do it in half an hour. Somehow I thought that was unlikely.

On my way back from Omar, I saw that the little street where Abdou had set up his table was empty. The man with the pousse-pousse cart of fruit had gone home and the peanut sellers had disappeared too. I had visions of Abdou hawking my size 9s around Dakar, up and down traffic jams on the corniche calling out "bon chaussures, grand chaussures" as he thrust them in people's faces through car windows.

But there he was, waiting for me, my shiny fixed shoes sitting on a little stool where his table been earlier.

"Donne cadeau" said his friend who wandered over to watch me hand over the money.

I told his friend that I had just given my tailor a ream of beautiful Ivorian fabric. If Abdou became my regular shoe fixer, then I would give him a cadeau too.