Nairobi — The situation in some areas of Lusaka is so appallingly filthy that it has the potential to trigger a serious outbreak that could affect the whole capital.
Lusaka's Soweto market, a makeshift outfit on the west of the much celebrated New Lusaka City Market, is a popular shopping area for cheap vegetables and other farm produce for most of the city's residents. It is not uncommon to see hordes of people, workers, housewives and husbands alike flock to the sprawling market where prices of commodities are believed to be reasonably cheaper than in other outlets.
But the market, in its current condition, is also a potential source of a cholera outbreak. Floods, mud, flows of sewerage and outright filth characterise the city's biggest market. In its worst state, it is not a rare spectacle to see marketers and customers alike wading through the mud or floods as they go about their business.
At the market, human excreta is not only confined to the toilets or pit latrines. Mothers let their children defecate around the market as they sell their wares, which usually include food.
While all this goes on, the marketers are seemingly oblivious of the risks of an outbreak of cholera or other diseases. If they are aware, they have no choice but to continue with their businesses to earn a living.
Twenty-year-old Loveness Banda, a housewife of Lusaka's Kanyama township, sells tomatoes, impwa (an equivalent of egg plant) and other vegetables while surrounded by garbage and mud. Mrs. Banda is aware of the potential risk of an outbreak of cholera but she has no option for economic survival other than selling in the market.
"Even when it is flooded, we still come here. we are scared of cholera, but what can we do? If you don't come here, what will you eat," she asked. "Today, it is even better," Mrs. Banda said, in apparent reference to the slightly less muddy environment.
Gertrude Banda, another marketer, says the need to feed her family is more paramount than the scare of cholera and that she will only move if another market is found for the marketers. "Cholera may be there but where can we go. How can the children survive if we stop coming here," said Mrs Banda, a widow of Old Avondale .
The marketers generally agree there is a risk of a cholera outbreak and feel the council has neglected them and that it needs 'to do something.'
"This is how life is, what else can we do. We don't make much money, but we have nowhere to go. Workers are being retrenched and coming here, so where can we go," said a marketer from Chawama township who declined to be named.
"This market is very dirty so the council must do something. The council has neglected us." The marketer wondered what the K500 daily fees each one of them was paying to the council was being used for, considering that there were no improvements made to the market.
He added that marketers also pay another K500 to the market committees and although Lusaka mayor, Patricia Nawa, visited the market last November, nothing has been done to improve the situation.
For him and other marketers at Soweto, the need to survive overrides the threat of a potential outbreak and risk to lives - even theirs. Because the market attracts traders and buyers from virtually all parts of the city, an outbreak at the market could easily be spread to most of the townships, some of which also have health hazards. But while the marketers insist that the council has the responsibility to maintain the market, Lusaka City Council (LCC) public relations manager Daniel M'soka says the council's official boundaries end with the new Lusaka City Market.
"However if they want to continue trading there, they have to die a little contributing money. That money they pay to the Market Advisory Committee is not enough. Civil engineering is very expensive," Mr. M'soka said. He says the issue is not finding another suitable market but that Soweto market has a traditional appeal whereby "everybody tends to think of Soweto as a cheaper source." He added that the other problem is that people just want to be in one place. The new market notwithstanding, people still prefer to trade within parameters they want Unless that is resolved, Soweto will continue the way it is.
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Viewed through the prism of the fiercely difficult economic times, the need to survive for marketers reigns supreme.
For the council, it can not overstretch its meagre resources to cater for people who are trading illegally and dangerously. In the meantime, the situation at Soweto market remains a catastrophe in waiting.
AFRICANEWS News & Views on Africa from Africa Koinonia Media Centre, P.O. Box 8034, Nairobi, Kenya email: amani@iol.it
