The cobbler, an important fellow

The shoemaker, frowning and glasses on the tip of his nose, looks at a ramshackle bunch of shoes he must repair on this day. Old shoes with stories that he stores in his workshop. Each day, before work begins, as he drinks his coffee on the table await –scattered – the tools of his trade: a hammer (with a design resembling a dancer), anvil (the iron foot where shoes rest when they are spiked), key (blade), pliers, nails, glue, sandpaper, laces, thread …

The hammer strike of nails creates an almost four-by-four musical beat. The radio is heard from very early: Music, the news, the weather, a baseball game, a speech… blare between the hammering and the motor that turns the sandpapering wheel. It is the soundtrack of his workshop.

The cobbler is gone extinct. Luckily in Cuba these characters can be found in the neighborhoods.

(Photos by a shoemaker from the city of Holguín)