Lusaka - Post Report Question and Answers
What do you wish you had known about this particular city/country before moving there?
The previous post reports oversold this place. I guess if you're coming from, I don't know, Sudan or something, sure, it's great. People call it "Africa lite" and I suppose that's true, but as our first Africa posting, it was still a big change coming from primarily Latin America. I wish I had tempered my expectations and come in with a better grasp of the challenges of living here. We also thought we would save a ton of money while living here, and that hasn't happened. Part of that was me losing my job with USAID. But part of that was the huge increase in cost of living here coupled with the surprising cost of local travel/household help. We'd "be good" for months, then snap after yet another round of e. coli or long stretch of power outages, book a trip somewhere, and be right back where we started financially. - Feb 2026
Many find it hard to adjust if it’s their first Africa post, there’s a cultural shock that many people go through the first 6 months. - Apr 2025
I wish I'd known how expensive and time consuming it is to fly in and out. - Mar 2022
Most goods are more expensive than I anticipated. Infrastructure is bad (water/electricity/internet). "Witchcraft" is very much a thing that many people believe in, as is mob justice (don't be shocked when you see someone getting beaten up by a crowd). - Dec 2021
How much I miss having a city to walk in-and how expensive it was to travel within Zambia. - Nov 2017
That I needed sweaters for cold season! - Jan 2017
I wish I had known that I would be able to find some of my favorite things here, so there was no need to stock up like a mad woman. - Jun 2016
How expensive it would be to travel within the region. Plane tickets to any of the neighboring countries will cost at least $500-900. - May 2016
That the art scene is essentially non-existent and it is so expensive to go to nice lodges and most safari stuff requires 6+ hour drives. - Aug 2014
Should have sent more canned goods, brought fewer winter clothes and more surge protectors. - Jan 2014
