Me: Hello Shiraz!
Shiraz: Bob.
Me (puzzled): Shiraz….?
Shiraz: Bob.
Me (incredulous): You can’t be called Bob…you are wearing a taqiyah…Bob’s don’t wear those! You don’t get Muslims called Bob!
Shiraz: No…you Bob.
Me:…Ah!…No, I’m Andrew.
Shiraz: Oh! Hello Andrew..how are you?
Me: Hello Shiraz!
I was in Shiraz’s shop arranging a repair to my twenty nine year old fishing kit bag. Actually it’s a South African army “balsak”…that’s how I know how old it is…it was a special gift from Magnus Malan. All I had to do was give him two years of my life. “Ja…you guys went off leaving your mothers crying at the train station” said Shiraz. It was his way of putting a stop to any macho army stories, just in case I had had any of those in mind.
In the end Shiraz re-built the bag for me in a fabric that more befits the new South African flag. He said he also had some landing net bags that someone commissioned him to make, and then never came back for. I said I would take one home and see if I could use it.
I like to do business with Shiraz…he has made some great, personalised canvas goods for me.
I could use it:
I had an old net frame. It was a net I found beside a dam, and in the days before Facebook I was at a loss to try and find its owner, so I did what I had to do, and took ownership myself. Someone had to do it. Like some of us had to do national service.
I used it a few times, but it was one of those collapsible things that….well….they collapse. It also had a scratchy knotted nylon bag. Later I removed the frame from the collapsible handle and the bits lay around in my garage.
Then last year I was about to throw out an old aluminium and plastic canoe paddle, and I fell upon an idea:
I think of it as a boat net, and I might just use it as that. It now has a good soft catch and release bag, a handle that doesn’t collapse, and an original old country feel to it. I might even take it along the Umgeni in April, when the bankside vegetation is high and getting to the waters edge on those steep banks to net a Brown can be tricky. Carrying it will be a lark.
I was back in Shiraz’s shop a few days later to collect my new “balsak”.
“What price we say?” he posed, followed by “You paying cash?”.
“Yes..I thought we said 550” I said “and there is the net bag too”
He scribbled on a piece of paper and said “800”.
Ah, yes…the net bag. I forked out the notes.
I like Shiraz. He likes my money. I like the quality of his work. I like my “new” net, and my de-politicised balsak. I think of it as more than a business transaction. It is a cultural exchange.