Friday Find: Shoe Shine

The first time I came to Tanzania, I dressed as if I was going camping. I wore very casual clothes and chose things that were easy to wash and dry. I put hiking boots on my feet.

This was very practical. Things are usually very dusty – or muddy – and if you wash your own clothes it is in the sink.

But it was a mistake. Most of the people I met were dressed very elegantly. They often put on their best clothes to meet me. As a result, I always felt out of place – and that my apparel was somehow insulting to them. This time, I came better prepared. I look the way they expect me to look – as a western business person. You may have noticed this in many pictures from this blog. I actually fit in better this way. A few times for very casual weekend get-togethers, I have donned my Indiana Jones cowboy hat, an African style tunic shirt, and blue jeans for fun. People always laugh and they admire the cowboy hat and love to try it on. On these few occasions I wish I had my orange colored ostrich cowboy boots.

It’s ironic. I usually dress in business casual in the USA. But not here; I wear a coat and tie to nearly every meeting. But I brought permanent press shirts and micro-fiber wash and wear pants.

And dress shoes.

After a couple of days, the shoes are always in terrible condition, especially when I have been in a village tramping around in a field or visiting a pig farm. I think you get the picture.

Not to worry. There are plenty of shoe shine stands. Why? Most people are wearing their dress shoes and need to get their shoes shined, too.

You can drop your shoes off and come back in a half hour. Better, you can take a break and have them done while you wait. Many of these people specialize in only women’s or men’s shoes. Not only that, they will do some basic cobbler work at the same time.

In the pictures below, you can see that there are two men that have placed their operations close to each other. The one in the foreground does men’s shoes and the one the background, women’s. They have a piece of linoleum to keep your feet clean while you wait and they will also offer a pair of tongs, if you like. You can see the bare feet of some other patrons in the picture. My driver had a sole reattached to his shoe while we were there and that is what the man in the front is working on at the moment. Although it’s difficult to make out, the man in the background is using a hacksaw to turn an old piece of tire rubber into a shoe sole.

A shoe shine goes for thirty to forty cents and it’s a nice break in the day. I recommend it!