By John Muyamba
RUNDU – The market opposite Ndama Engen Service Station in Rundu is lively with comings and goings as female marketeers sell cooked food.
Amist all this hustle and bustle at the marketplace is businesswoman Martha Makuti, who says she “meats” the people. She has erected an iron-zinc butchery next to the taxi rank opposite the settlement of Ndama.
Meat has become pricey in the supermarkets and thus many opt source it from informal butcheries like the one owned by Makuti.
Makuti started her meat selling business way back in 1999 after she got some money from a community development project which was called ‘Lisikamena’, which roughly translates as ‘Stand on your own or stand up for yourself,’. According to her she got N$1 200 as start-up finance.
“At the time when I started cattle was affordable as many Angolans living near the river would put their cattle up for sale at a very cheap price as the war was on the other side,” recollected Makuti.
When New Era visited her butchery christened ‘Esinga Ngombe’ she was busy offloading and cutting chunks of fresh meat to sell to her customers. She said customers flock in daily to buy fresh meat as it is “very affordable”.
“You just came at the wrong time, people flock in every time and some even want to fight for fresh meat as nobody wants to go home without buying meat from me,” said the industrious woman.