The lonely but lucky men from Pugu cattle market

Antoni Nteme,38, is one of those lucky but lonely men, who has been working in cattle-trading for a bit more than two years now.

“You know, I was a farmer, worked as a fisherman and I was involved in gold mining. Now I am trading with cattle and it is the best I did so far,” he says in the late morning, standing between five bulls on the dusty and dry place known as Pugu Cattle Market.

The Pugu Cattle Market is one of the biggest in Tanzania and is located in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam. Everyday, buyers and sellers meet at Pugu and exchange Tanzanian shillings and cattle for slaughtering.

While herding the cattle sometimes is even done by women, selling or buying bulls, heifers and calves definitively is not.

Antoni and the uncounted number of men working at Pugu are negotiating, buying, selling, eating and living together. But while they are making a living with cattle-trade, they do carry a heavy burden too: Coming from the rural areas in Tanzania, these men live far away from their beloved ones often still living upcountry.

The fourth and best job so far

Around 7 a.m. Antoni arrives at Pugu each day. First, he is looking for the cattle, just delivered from upcountry. He wants to buy some bulls just to sell them in the afternoon again. “And there are farmers or middlemen from the countryside, who ask me to sell their cattle to the buyers coming from the city,” he explains his role. To do so, he walks around, talks to some people. He negotiates prices and eventually buys an animal. “On average, I trade three to seven cattle a day,” he says.

His business has been relatively stable over the last couple of months. But there are some threats. “With the cellphone, now even the farmers upcountry know what prices we offer today,” Antoni says. While the cellphone does provide a better distribution of information, it also means that Antoni is denied to buy some cattle, if he does not offer prices which are according to the current price, derived from supply and demand on the market.

“The middlemen coming here often directly talk to their farmers. If they are not satisfied, they look for another buyer and I lose my bargain,” he explains it is not always easy to handle the situation. On the other hand, Antoni himself is frequently using his blue cellphone. Either to bid or offer some cattle to another trader.

But nevertheless, Antoni is pretty satisfied. While working as a fisherman requires a lot of money to do it profitably, being a trader does not involve a lot of capital. Which is, no doubt, a big advantage for Antoni and his colleagues. “It was pretty easy for me to start the business“ Antoni tells me. After the first, humble steps, he is now more experienced. He knows the market, its driving forces and the prices, he may offer or accept. “From January to April, there are plenty of cattle to buy. The prices in this period are lower than in the remaining months,” Antoni says. Now, it is mid-October as we visited him at Pugu, the prices are slightly better than in the first quarter of the year.

He is able to send his children to school

But this does not wipe out the fact, that Antoni had to learn to accept the distance to his family. “My wife and children live in Sengerema, Mwanza. Although we are married for 16 years now, the distance is still difficult to handle,” he tells me during lunch. While having some ugali with goat-meat in one of the shade-providing small shops in the centre of the marketplace, he continues. “I can send money, which is satisfying but I am not there to be a role model for my kids. I cannot see my children growing older.” He misses his kids and his wife. But he earns more money than in his previous jobs. And this is very important to him. Having this money, means he can send his children to school - all of them, except for the youngest, who is not yet old enough to go to school.

Antoni is proud to be able to pay the school-fees. He grew up in a family of 11 children in rural Tanzania, he experienced early, what poverty could mean. Antoni’s parents could not afford to send all their children to school, a fact that has had a strong effect on how he wants to bring up his children now.

“I knew always, that I never would have a big family.” Always, he wanted to provide his children, what he was partly denied: Education. “Even our five children were not planned. But at that time, we did not know how we could plan our family properly,” he says and laughs. “After our fifth daughter, we knew, that she would be our last one.”

Waiting in the shadow

In the early afternoon, the ugali and goat-meat is eaten, the soda drunk and the bill paid. The cattle are standing in small groups, scattered over the marketplace. As the dust seems to become more dry in the afternoon, a shaded place is also appreciated by the men. While some are having lunch in the small shops in the centre of the market, Antoni and his fellow brokers are sitting under a large tree just outside the marketplace. Some are sleeping, others are making phone-calls or texting short messages.

While doing so, the men are waiting for the butchers, coming to buy their cattle for the night to come. It is a daily routine, Getting up, going to the market area, buying some cattle, eating lunch together, waiting for the buyers from the slaughterhouses together, gathering the cattle, selling them, earning some money, going back home. And repeat the next day.

All of a sudden, Antoni is in a hurry. Although the cellphone transforms his business, he has to show up, when buyers are coming. He leaves the group and will gather his three bulls, he wants to sell in the afternoon. As the market fills up with more and more men and cattle, the heat is cut by voices of animals and men. Antoni has, as his colleagues, has dedicated place, where he sells his cattle every day. “It is important because otherwise the buyers would not find me,” he says.

A young man, wearing a red and black squared shirt, olive-coloured pants and black shoes and a black hood is walking around. On his left wrist, he wears a golden watch and has an orange towel wrapped on his head so you only can see his eyes. Those eyes are looking for suitable cattle to be slaughtered later that day in one of Dar es Salaam’s slaughterhouses. He walks through the crowds, pulls one or the other cattle at its tail to check the weight and the strength of the animal and walks to the next.

Antoni is in the meantime herding his three cattle waiting for the next buyer. As a decent wind blows over the area, the dust is everywhere, now. It is on the cattle, on the dark skin of Antoni’s head, on the many water-bottles and on the trees around the area.

Better than ever before

No doubt, it is hard work, here in Pugu. But the lonely but lucky men keep going. And so does Antoni too. “You know, I am better off now than ever before,” he explains. He who has worked as a farmer, a fisherman and even has digged for gold for some time, is now pretty satisfied. “Now, every month I can send some money back to my family at home. This is better than all the things I experienced before,” he says. The only thing wich remains, is the distance to his family.

After he sells his cattle at around 3 p.m. Antoni leaves the Pugu-market. He will charge his phone and buy a voucher to call his wife and his five children. “It is important to me, that we can chat everyday,” he says. It will prevent him from becoming homesick. And talking to his family means he would miss them less.

Email: [email protected]