Paola da La Valle, “chéla dai scarpét”: “My husband Nani also wore them in Persia”

THE AGORDINA VALLEY. The Dolomite territory is full of legends. Who knows if the family episode that recalls Paola Soppelsa will over time become a recurring element of a new series of stories inspired by living in the mountains or not. «My mother-in-law – Paola says – she sensed that things were changing and before dying she admonished us:“ If you don’t keep cutting the grass in the meadows, when I’m dead I’ll come and get you by the feet ”.

This has not happened so far, because Paola, 75 and a half years old, with her children, daughter-in-law and grandchildren follows the directives of Nani Vila’s mother, born Giovanni De Col, her husband, who died too early. She came to pick me up at the crossroads with the provincial 347 that leads to the Duran pass «because otherwise you will get lost on these“ burèle ”». «Today you find me here – she underlines once we arrive in the kitchen of her house in Cugnago di La Valle – because the weather is bad, otherwise I am always outside. We sawed up the bank nearby and then another piece. We make the bales of hay and then someone from Rivamonte comes to take them ».

Rivamonte is right in front. The inhabitants of the two neighboring villages joke: one tells the other that, being able to enjoy such a splendid view, they are lucky to live there. Living, however, is also handing down and handing down is living. During the summer Paola doesn’t have much time, taken as she is by chores in the open air, but when the season invites us to come back, she still takes the forms of beech or ash, velvet for the upper, pieces of cotton and wool for the sole, cotton for the inner lining and for the “zéntena” and the string to tie the various parts. She arms herself with an awl and creates “i scarpét”, one of the symbolic footwear in the history of this valley and beyond. «Today I don’t make many more – she says – I have a couple in place for my grandchildren and friends, but that’s enough. I work more when I go to festivals or markets together with the other artisans who are part of the Fare Cultura Agordina association in Rivamonte. There I still like to show how it is done ».

In the last thirty years Paola has held numerous courses around the Agordino and has also gone beyond the borders to teach an art that, otherwise, risked getting lost. Originally from Cencenighe, she got “stuck” in La Valle after her marriage to Nani. «I attended the chemist in Agordo – she remembers – and he was a laboratory technician. When I saw him for the first time I said to my friend from Gosaldo: “Teresina, you take that one over there” ». Then, instead …

Sometimes it happens like this, life takes unexpected shapes, not like those of the scarpét addressed by the piece of wood dressed by the upper. «He always wore shoes – says Paola, thinking about her husband – in Persia at work and in London on vacation. She carried them everywhere, so much so that she teased him, but she didn’t care. For many he was “chél dai scarpét” and I became “chéla dai scarpét” ».

But the close relationship between Paola and velvet shoes was born almost by chance. «My mother had always made scarpét – she says – but I, as often happens in the family, had never learnedato. My husband made them his mother who, however, at a certain point she could no longer work. One day, it was 1990, a couple of friends arrived from Zoldo and Nani asked the woman if she made his shoes. “I’ll make them – she replied – but your wife has to do the soles”. And so I got on. I made two so big it felt like standing on stilts. In the meantime, our friend got sick and so I decided to complete them myself. I went to a woman from La Valle and in a short time I learned ».

Paola goes to other rooms and comes back with three bags full of shapes (“Shut up I found another gentleman making them for me”), with already sewn soles, with uppers embroidered by the hand of her daughter Pamela. “They are footwear that last – says Paola – and that were used everywhere, in some cases reinforced by a particular sole, and above all healthy because with wool and cotton the foot breathes very well and you can be sure that corns do not form”.

Talking about scarpét with Paola means only partially dwelling on the 16 steps necessary to finish the work (“If you forget one, then you no longer know how to do it”) or on the hours of work (thirty, for a number 42-43, according to the calculations of women of the past) which determine the high cost of the product (“Faced with the request for 70 thousand lire at the time – he remembers – that guy from Agordo, who had economic possibilities, waited a long time before put my hand in my wallet and made me feel like a thief “). Talking with her about scarpét means above all talking about her, tying them up, about the people of the past and those of the future. We meet again the young people who were returning in groups from the football match with the scarpét tied around the neck. “They did this – says Paola – because otherwise, if their parents had understood that they had used them to play football, they would have scolded them.” Or you follow the boys to take them off their own and leave them at the foot of the cherry tree on which they then go up to steal the fruit. «That time – he remembers – the owner caught them and stole their shoes without giving them back. No parent went to complain. Back then, when the children did something, they didn’t look for excuses or anything else and they didn’t protect themselves. It was a way to make them responsible ».

According to Paola, today’s young people are very interested in things, knowledge, stories of the past. «They like to see how it was done in the past, the hardships that one took on – he underlines – when I was taking the courses they came and brought me old objects that belonged to their grandparents or great-grandparents and I was very pleased. Once I went to the nursery school in La Valle and I brought a couple of “dams”: the children were enthusiastic and curious and they wanted me to leave them there ».

Paola hopes, however, that the practices of the past, in addition to stimulating curiosity, can on the one hand be replicated and handed down and on the other be a starting point for a reflection on today’s behavior. “Once they were very poor – she says – they didn’t have many fabrics to use to make the sole of the shoes and there were those who put together tanti shreds or those who sewed numerous stitches to otherwise reinforce the sole itself. Today many people bring me jeans of all kinds, counting that they can be useful to me and so to those who come to the courses I say that I already have everything they need for them. However, here, when I see my young students place the fabric on the table and put the mold on it not near the edges to avoid waste, but in the center, I feel bad ».

She is torn, Paola. Certain of the positive contribution brought by the progress that has left in a hypothetical photograph the woman “with many children and little land” who collected the hay left by others from the meadow after loading the bundles on her back, enthusiastic about the vitality of the Pro loco and the other associations of his country, full of a feeling of freedom in being able to move in the space in which “I feel so small”; this tiny and determined woman cannot hide her shining eyes, telling of her walks on her for the Còi on the steps of the past. «I see the apple trees and other fruit trees that seem to say to the busch de nosolèr who have now trapped them: ‘Please let me pass’».