What Remains of a Tyre: Craftsmanship, Material and Everyday Life in Uganda
“One person sees waste. Another sees the beginning of something useful.”
The Corner of the Market
The first time I noticed the craftsmen of the handmade sandals in Uganda, I was not looking for them. Like many markets across Uganda, Masindi felt busy and loosely organised at the same time. Stalls selling vegetables stood beside clothing vendors, while mechanics worked on motorcycles nearby. Conversations drifted through the market as people moved between the different sections.
Tucked away in one corner sat a group of young men surrounded by tyres. Finished sandals covered rough wooden tables, while strips of rubber lay scattered across the ground. At first glance, it seemed like just another market stall. Nothing suggested I would return there again and again over the following years.
The sandals themselves are common throughout East Africa. They can be found in villages, towns and cities, worn by farmers, market traders, students and travellers alike. Across Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, they have become part of everyday life. Familiar enough that most people rarely stop to consider where they come from.
One of the makers invited me closer and began explaining the process. What started as a brief conversation gradually became something more familiar. Over several visits, I returned to the same corner of the market and spent time observing, asking questions and listening. The sandals became less interesting as products and more interesting as evidence of a particular way of looking at the world.
“The material had reached the end of one purpose, but not the end of its usefulness.”
A Material With Another Life Ahead
The tyres surrounding the workshop had already lived one life. They had travelled roads across Uganda, carrying trucks, motorcycles and cars through dust, rain and heat. Their original purpose had long since ended. Most people would have considered them finished.
Here, however, they represented something entirely different. The workshop was filled with possibilities disguised as discarded materials. Old tyres waited to become sandals, while others would eventually become chairs, stools or planters. Nothing seemed to be viewed as waste in the way many people might define it.
That perspective fascinated me. In many places, value is closely tied to an object’s intended purpose. Once that purpose disappears, the object itself often becomes disposable. Here, value seemed to operate differently.
The material remained useful long after its original function had ended. The tyres themselves had not changed. Only the way they were being viewed had changed. And that small shift in perspective seemed to make all the difference.
The Most Valuable Piece of Cardboard
Among all the tyres, tools and finished sandals, the most interesting object was not made of rubber at all. It was a simple piece of rubber. Worn by years of use, it served as the template from which new sandals were created. Without it, the process could not begin.
The maker carefully stored the templates when they were not being used. Different sizes required different patterns, each developed through experience and repetition. To an outsider, they looked almost insignificant. To the people using them, they represented knowledge accumulated over many years.
Watching him trace the outline onto the rubber felt strangely familiar. Coming from a background in fashion, I immediately recognised the importance of the pattern. In clothing, a pattern often determines everything that follows. Here, the same principle appeared in a completely different form.
“The pattern was simple. The experience behind it was not.”
It reminded me that craftsmanship often begins long before making itself becomes visible. The finished object receives most of the attention, while the knowledge behind it remains hidden. Yet without that knowledge, the object would never exist in the first place.
From Tyre to Sandal
Once the outline had been traced, the real work began. Sections of rubber were carefully cut from the tyre using simple hand tools. The process looked straightforward at first, but quickly revealed its complexity. Every cut needed to be controlled and precise.
One detail surprised me more than anything else. The rubber was not simply cut into shape and left untouched. The makers gradually reduced its thickness, transforming a heavy tyre into something much lighter and more comfortable to wear. By the end of the process, much of the original material felt completely different.
Straps were cut from narrower sections of rubber and fitted into the sole. Holes were created by hand and secured with remarkable accuracy. The work required strength, but also patience. Small adjustments were made continuously until everything sat correctly.
The finished sandal still carried traces of its previous life. The tread pattern remained visible beneath the sole, quietly revealing where the material had come from. Yet at the same time, it had become something entirely new. A tyre remained present, but only in fragments.
“Every sandal began long before it took its final shape.”
“Creativity often begins with understanding what a material can still become.”
More Than Footwear
The sandals were only one part of the story. During my visits, I discovered that the same material was used for many other objects as well. Chairs, stools and planters stood between the stacks of tyres, demonstrating what else could be created from the same source material.
What impressed me was not the complexity of the designs, but the mindset behind them. The makers constantly looked beyond an object’s original purpose. Materials were approached for what they could become rather than what they had been. Creativity emerged through adaptation rather than abundance.
In many ways, the workshop reflected a broader reality across East Africa. Resources are often limited, but ingenuity rarely is. Solutions emerge through practical knowledge, experimentation and experience. The result is a form of creativity deeply connected to everyday life.
Nothing here was being created for galleries or design exhibitions. The objects existed because people needed them. Yet that practicality made them no less interesting. If anything, it made them more so.
What Remains
Looking back, it would be easy to describe this story as one about sandals. It would be equally easy to describe it as a story about recycling. Yet neither explanation feels complete. The deeper story lies somewhere else.
What stayed with me most was the way the makers looked at the materials surrounding them. Where others might see something finished, they saw a beginning. Where others saw waste, they saw potential. The tyres themselves became secondary to the perspective behind them.
That perspective extended beyond the material itself. It appeared in the cardboard templates, the handmade tools and the conversations shared between the makers. It revealed a way of working shaped by patience, experience and careful observation. Nothing felt rushed, even when the process itself was efficient.
Watching the process of the handmade sandals in Uganda unfold raised a question that reaches far beyond this small corner of Masindi market. How often do we decide that something has reached the end of its usefulness simply because we no longer recognise its value? And how much possibility is lost when we stop looking?
Perhaps that is why I kept returning. Not because I needed another pair of sandals, but because the workshop continued revealing something larger. It reminded me that value is rarely fixed. Sometimes it depends entirely on the willingness to look again.
“A tyre may reach the end of its journey. The material inside it often does not.”
Continue Exploring
A pottery workshop in Ouw revealed how clay, rhythm and everyday life remain closely connected on Saparua Island, where making still forms part of daily routines.
Over six years of returning to the same weaving workshop in Jinja, a simple visit gradually became something more. A story about textile weaving in Uganda, the time hidden inside cloth and the value of looking more than once.
