From the heart of Manama, we narrate in the program “A Day With” the story of Habib Al-Saffar, a story of a member of the beautiful past, who joined the train of the savage present, a present that blows up the memory of his ancestors with the click of a button, just as a person gets rid of his phone’s full memory to leave space for the present of the global village. The sons of al-Saffar abandoned their old shop, which was nearly a century old. Because of the harshness of life and the requirements of living that are not covered by the profession of al-Safafir. Al-Saffar says: “Our work today is difficult and requires patience, because the individual cannot bear to work in the hardship of hammering iron all day and eventually earns an amount that does not exceed two dinars.
The shop of Habib Al-Saffar – the sixty-year-old man – is located in the heart of Manama, and he is the only one who still adheres to the profession of his ancestors. It currently includes foreign workers whom he supervises, commenting on that, “I am the mind and they are the muscles.”
Al-Saffar opens his shop every morning at seven, sits on a chair in front of the shop until sunset, and recalls his old days in the market, saying: “This corridor in the market was entirely a market for tannins, comprising 12 shops, and in a back corridor was the Al-Safafir market, but they all abandoned the market.” They died and their children did not inherit from them, and now we see Asians filling the place.”
And he adds about his childhood memories: “My brothers and I were running away from school to go to the sea, but soon our family exposed us because of the water stuck in our clothes, after which my father received us with a severe beating, and not any soft beating, but a harsh beating with kicking, punching, and a bamboo stick. The deceased had a painful hand that made us choose between school and work, and did not allow us the choice of play.
He added, thanking his father for his cruelty: “We were afraid that he would see our mistakes at work. When we failed to make a pot, we would throw it away so that he would not see it and hit us again. Thus, we learned to work with quality and efficiency.”
His father lived a difficult life in the previous generation, as it was difficult to obtain iron easily, and he was looking for iron among the scrap cars thrown into the sea; To carry with his companions the pieces of iron to the market with effort and make from them cheap pieces that sell for a hundred fils.”
Al-Saffar cites a saying by one of his friends referring to the good that his father did for him, saying: “My friend once said to me.. Your father bequeathed to you what is good in terms of money and millions. He gave you a profession, and you will never be lost with the profession.”
The profession of the whistle is present in popular proverbs strongly, so if one of them wants to belittle the other and his intelligence, he says to him: “Your brain is a tank,” which is a reference to the iron from which utensils are made, and when I asked Habib al-Saffar to list some proverbs for me, he laughed, and said: “All proverbs Associated with our mission is not said, most of it is inappropriate.”
He concluded his speech by sending a message to those concerned, calling for support for the profession, as he fears it will disappear after his death: “I hope that we will get support that will support us and allow continuity. We see that we are a heritage face of the Kingdom, and foreign tourists often go to my shop to photograph here, who express their admiration that we We make everything with our own hands, without machines.”
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