Employing ocean’s bounty

Destitute grandmother makes a living selling bait to Strand fishers

SITTING on the promenade wall at Strand beach, Zainap Abrahams watches the waves of the ocean, waiting for her chance to scavenge. Next to her is her son, Shaheed Abrahams, and her granddaughter, Gadieja Abrahams.

The family live in a nearby township, but every day they walk to the ocean to dig, scratch and scour the rocks for worms and prawns to sell to fishermen and women.

Abrahams recounts how she grew up near the ocean. “I was actually born in the Bo Kaap, but I grew up here… in Strand. My parents divorced and then we moved to Strand with my mother to stay with her parents, my grandparents.”

Her father was a fisherman so her livelihood was always tied to the ocean. She was never married and said her daughter left her with her granddaughter and doesn’t help support Gadieja.

Abrahams said when the lockdown began at the end of March it was a turning point for her family.

“Things were fine because we lived in the house with my sister until her son was released from prison. He was released from jail and everything that I tried to build, he destroyed… I had to leave for our own safety.”

Out on the streets, she had to make a plan and find a place of safety for her son and granddaughter.

“A friend of mine who I’ve known for years, he’s trying to help us and allowed us to move into his backyard and now we live in an abandoned car – there’s nowhere else to go,” she said.

Scavenging along the coastline, Abrahams and Shaheed not only know where to find the worms and prawns in the ocean, they also know who to sell it to. They collect their seafood treasure in bottles and then sell it to fisherman. Abrahams said she had regular customers who bought from her. “I will sell a bottle of worms or prawns for R100 and R50 for a half a bottle.”

And when the stay-at-home orders kicked in, the beaches were off-limits so she had to come up with another way to earn an income. “I would come to the beach when I saw there was no one

Even if they gave me R20 it was something for us to survive on

Zainap Abrahams ENTREPRENEUR

African News Agency (ANA) | BRENDAN MAGAAR ZAINAP Abrahams and her son, Shaheed, make a living scavenging for prawns and worms to sell to local fisherman as bait.

ABRAHAMS and Shaheed collect their seafood treasure and then pack it in bottles to sell.