COLUMN: VELLIES

wearing a pair of Veldskoen Shoes with orange soles and laces. I love it. If only everything in South Africa could endure and prosper like a vellie!

The vellies I’m wearing today are made from kudu leather. They were once blue but have faded to a grey rhebok hue. The leather has worn so thin and slipper soft that I’ve retired this pair from active travel duty.

Throwing them away is not an option: Every velskoen becomes a friend and I walked a long road with this pair, from the Sagole Baobab in Limpopo through the jukskei sandpits of Kroonstad, past sheep being sheared in Williston, to the very top of Paarl Rock. They’ve stood on the white crust of Etosha Pan, played among bulbinellas in the Bokkeveld, crushed pepper tree fruit into the roads around Calvinia, danced at a sokkie in Stampriet, walked with a farmer through his burnt-down mielie field in southern Angola, prevented a coconut crab from pinching my toe in Madagascar, and even climbed the 699 steps of Jacob’s Ladder on St Helena Island.

When the time does come to get a new pair, I always follow the same process: I slip my left foot in and do the toe test – yes, there’s enough space to wriggle them around. The right foot also gets a shoe. I tie the laces, sit back and look at them, tapping the soles on the floor like a drummer keeping a beat.

Usually, if you’re buying a pair of shoes, you walk up and down the shop a bit, but not with vellies. I’ve had enough pairs to know: A velskoen is seldom comfortable on the first day. You have to work for it. But once the shoes have worn in… bliss! Creases form in the leather and it folds around your foot like a second sock.

I look at the price on the shoebox one last time – not cheap, but this is a longterm investment, made from full-grain cow leather. Here they are, then: my shoes for the next three or four years.

They’re perfect now, but soon they will be scratched and stained. My vellies go everywhere I go, and they soon start to resemble a pair of wild dog pups, marked by stains left by wood glue and hand sanitizer, marmalade and gemsbok blood (long story). But vellies can take it. If only we were more like vellies!

I believe that vellies can unite people. For many years, I have been taking photos of my shoes when I travel. It started when I snapped a pic of a small tortoise next to my feet on a dirt road near Beaufort West, and I simply continued doing it. Before long, my vellie photos – and my vellies – started making me friends.

Most often, those friends are canine. Dogs love sniffing my shoes. I always try to photograph them, too: snouts jutting into frame. There’s Josephine from Smithfield; Meg from Loxton; tiny, one-eyed Muggie from Philippolis; Nella from the Waterberg; Vlooi from Rosendal; Trixie from Marnitz; Kollehond from the farm Kangnas in Bushmanland; Rita from Groot-Marico; Joe the pug from Moolmanshoek; Tokkelos from Williston…

My most notable human-vellie encounter was with poet Breyten Breytenbach. I was at indie bookshop The Book Lounge in Cape Town, for the launch of his poetry collection called op weg na kû. There were so many people I couldn’t even see Breytenbach where he sat in an armchair reading his poems. But through all the legs, I did manage to get a glimpse of his velskoens – red ones, each with a buckle on the side.

Afterwards, my friend and I joined the queue for him to sign our copies. When we got to the front, Breyten greeted us and held out his hand for my book. But instead, I complimented him on his shoes. When he told me he’d bought them from Redemption in Wellington, I started to ramble on about how I used to drive there from Paarl with my mom when I was a girl, to buy school shoes, and how I had actually come to the front to talk to him about vellies. He was kind enough to say something polite about my own pair. My friend had to nudge me to remind me to hand over my book to be signed.

Two other meetings will also stay with me. I once got the opportunity to speak to Arnold Gertse, a velskoen maker from the Cederberg village of Wupperthal, in his workshop among pliers and shoe lasts. I took a photo of our feet together – it’s special.

I also have a photo of me and Stefanus Joseph, a man I met on the side of the road in Springbok. We didn’t know each other, but we simply had to stop and shake hands as we passed, both of us in red velskoens.

In a way, a vellie fan is like a Volksie fan or a Vespa fan or a Land Rover fan. If I could, I’d greet fellow vellie wearers with my hand on the hooter.

If you’re not yet a vellie fan, I think you should make a New Year’s resolution and buy a pair. Wear them with pride and be reminded that South Africa is still full of wonderful surprises. Be grateful that you have shoes on your feet. They can take you far.

My vellies go everywhere I go, and they soon start to resemble a pair of wild dog pups, marked by stains left by wood glue and hand sanitizer, marmalade and gemsbok blood (long story). But vellies can take it.

*Read Sophia’s profile on Gustav Nortjé on page 34.