sandals or not, here i come

‘Working’ is essentially exploring these days. My job for these couple days is to hop on chapas (pronounced SH-apa) and get my knowledge and bearing about Beria, the second (Maputu is the first) major city developed in Mozambique. So I went around and did more walking then anything, and explored to find many cute little cafés as I love to do. As I was making my trip back, I noticed my sandal was rubbing one of my poor feet the wrong way, making yet another sore on my beat up little foot. I bent down and tugged at it, hoping helplessly that it would make some kind of a difference. In fact, it sure did. My sandal strap snapped in between my toes and therefore became useless. I took it off and wondered if it was better walking with a sandal that rubbed my skin raw and irritated, or being humiliated by walking with one sandal and the other foot bare in the dirt. Local woman obviously thought it was a must I not be humiliated, and within only 13 steps of being sandal-less some woman came to me and pointed me to the conveniently placed man who sat under a tree repairing shoes and sandals, only another 13 steps away. For one metical (equivalent to about 3 cents), and a couple minutes he fixed my sandal and I was on my way.