Shoo, fly

I had been wanting a fly net forever, despite being married to a man who is able to catch flies with his bare hands and relocate them. But neither of us likes flies buzzing around our meals.

So one day in July, waiting in the rain at the traffic lights to turn into Constantia Village, our local shopping mecca in Cape Town, I was delighted to see the fly net lady standing on the traffic island, selling her wares to passing cars. (You need nerves of steel to drive in South Africa. Everyone comes to the traffic lights. The lame, the halt, the blind, the ancient, the children, the hopeless and helpless, the heartbreaking, the chancers and the syndicates, the vendors, the entrepreneurs, and the occasional, genuine craftsperson. If you followed your heart you'd be bankrupt within a few days. So you put your heart in a cage and drop ice in all around it and wrap it in plastic sheeting to prevent drips. But sometimes it still sees out.)

I digress.

I pulled into the parking lot across the way and went over to see her things, and I bought three, each for R80, or about $8. They are three feet long by two feet wide, with pretty beading all along the edges to weigh the net down.  I think they are beautiful.

And now our cheese is safe in Harlem.