{"id":12954,"date":"2023-02-08T01:00:45","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T01:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chartercitiesinstitute.org\/?p=12954"},"modified":"2023-03-28T22:36:59","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T22:36:59","slug":"where-i-work-lusaka-zambia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chartercitiesinstitute.org\/blog-posts\/where-i-work-lusaka-zambia\/","title":{"rendered":"Where I work… Lusaka, Zambia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Matt<\/a> came up with the idea that we should do a blog post series on walking (30 minutes from our front doors) in the different cities we will be living in, holidaying in or working in over the next few months. I decided to do it in a series\u2014first, Lusaka, where I am currently based for work. Second, Nairobi, where I am going to be around holidays. Third, Alexandria, my hometown, where I grew up and where I will be after my holidays. Jet setter, I know!<\/p>\n If you continue reading till the end of the blog post, you will get an exclusive Lusaka recommendation.<\/p>\n Choosing to walk!<\/p>\n Okay, Lusaka, where should I start? I have been living in Lusaka for almost a year, can you believe it? Well, I can. I am not too fond of sports, all of them. However, I realized a couple of years back, as I am fast approaching 30, that I need to move. So walking became my sport of choice -gym rats leave me alone I am doing my best-. I \u00a0generally love walking in cities, so when I moved to Lusaka, I decided to find a house under a 40-minute walk to our offices in Rhodes Park, so I could walk to and from work every day. While I have walked a lot, walking to work for 40 mins every day was a new year resolution that never quite became a reality.<\/p>\n Walking from Mass Media (where I live) to Rhodes Park (where our office is) is usually a 40-minute walk, or 35 minutes if I have breakfast before leaving the house and it is not so sunny. Mass Media and Rhodes Park are both suburbs of Lusaka, with reasonable proximity to \u201ctown\u201d (The Central Business District or CBD). Those two neighborhoods of Lusaka are often quiet; you don’t hear anything, just cars. You also don’t see much, just cars and walls, always walls, what I like to call \u201cA walk between a wall and a car\u201d -I will elaborate on that later.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Streets\u2026<\/p>\n The trip from home to work requires me to walk three main roads; (1) Thabo Mbeki Road, (2)\u00a0 Nangwenya Road, and (3) Addis Ababa Drive. First, Thabo Mbeki, a long road that cuts through Mass Media and connects it to East Park Mall and Alick Nkhata Road; primarily residential, the road is home to several offices. Reaching the intersection between Tabeo Membaki and Nagwenya Road, you can find roadside sellers of local crafts, sometimes even making the crafts themselves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Walking route from 1) Thabo Mbeki Road to (2)\u00a0 Nangwenya Road to (3) Addis Ababa Drive<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Nangwenya Road will show us in detail the ” walk between a wall and a car” scene I was semi-ranting about earlier. First, let’s start with housing and density; on both sides of the road. One can find detached and semi-detached houses, one or two-story high and, of course, behind a wall. You can also find different land uses along the road, not just residential, like; the forest hospital, a couple of restaurants, a Toyota dealership, and the International School of Lusaka (ISL). And you guessed it right; everything is behind a wall and two or three stories high. As a lover of architecture and a hater of cars not interacting with architecture, the lack of mixed-use development and density makes my walk dull.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n