Staff Reporter
STREET vendors and traders at open markets in the northern towns were negatively affected by the cold and windy weather that prevailed since Monday. The strong east wind caused a cloud of dust that made it practically impossible to trade in the open.
The most affected were the vendors who sell fat cakes, cooked and grilled meat/fish (kapana), varieties of alcoholic and non-alcoholic homebrew, mahangu and maize meal, and vegetables.
Only a few withstood the weather and continued to trade, but some vendors gave up and went home. Others stayed home and only ventured outside after the wind started to subside.
PICTURED: Street vendors at Supa Dupa, Oshakati, only started selling their products after the wind subsided around noon today. Photos: Placido Hilukilwa 
PICTURED: Street vendors at Supa Dupa, Oshakati, only started selling their products after the wind subsided around noon today. Photos: Placido Hilukilwa
“These two days were bad for business. Yesterday [Monday] I was forced to simply go home. The dust rendered the fried fish that I was selling unfit for human consumption despite attempts to cover it. And customers are staying away because of the unbearable dust and the cold weather,” said Hilaria Thikameni, a trader at the Okamoongo kAangandjera in Oshakati.
Hileni Tadeus, a kapana seller at Oshakati’s Frans Aupa Indongo Open Market said she only arrived there around 12:00 after the wind had subsided. “I lost the whole day yesterday and about five trading hours today,” she said, adding that trading at the open market is her only source of income. Customers are equally complaining.
