The life of ‘amiga’

Women, most of them with babies strapped to their backs, get off the truck. They are clad in colourful African chitenges wrapped around their waists.

Among them is Laurensia Pedro (23), who also carries her four-month-old baby on her back while offloading a huge bowl of tomatoes and onions. She is also carrying 5 litre containers of cooking oil. She and countless Angolan women line the streets of Eenhana after making the daily trek from Angola through the Oshikango and Santa Clara borders where she buys her merchandise at Ondjiva, a small town in southern Angola. “Omatama, eenyenga, omatama, eenyanga [tomatoes and onions],” Pedro shouts as she approaches two women walking in her direction. They ignore her but she is not fazed and continues announcing her merchandise: “Omatama, eenyanga, omatama, eenyanga.” She approaches vehicles in the parking area of a shopping complex where a potential customer stops.

“Amiga, amiga [friend], how much is a bag of five tomatoes?”

“They never ask our names, we are all just referred to as amigas,” Pedro says. “It’s N$10, amiga,” responds Pedro quickly, while offloading the bowl of tomatoes balanced on her head to make the sale.

She does this each day from 09h00 until all her items are sold, and she must ensure she is back in time to cross the borders each afternoon by 17h00.

“I have been crossing the borders for three years. At first, I just sold at Oshikango but many more women from my country were selling there too. The competition became tough. It was not easy to make a sale with hundreds of us on the streets selling similar products. “I have to spend N$70 to come here and another N$70 to return,” she says. “It is just the way it is, even when it is very hot we have to move around the town because it is the only way to guarantee some sales. We cannot sit in one place. Sometimes, the police will just decide they are chasing us from the streets or some locals would complain about ‘amigas’ taking their business away,” she says, her eyes ever scanning the area for her next customer.