Up On The Ridge

Sixty years on and whilst it has had its ups and downs, they have mostly been ups and it has maintained its reputation as one of Lusaka’s top hotels. The Ridgeway.   Officially opened in 1953, this Grand Lady has had many thousands of people from all walks of life enter her front doors, whether […]

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The Water Hole

Lusaka residents look set to drastically reduce their water usage, thanks to the brand new pre-paid meters that the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC) will be installing this year.   This startling initiative has been inspired by a combination of both a public outcry and pilot study conducted by the LWSC in 2007 in […]

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Eating Out

Bizzy Bistro   Lunch along the outside veranda of the Alliance Francaise is a perfect choice almost any time of the year. Mariam and Pamela started up their restaurant service over ten years ago to meet the challenge of the varying demands from a regular private and corporate clientele. This keeps both ladies on their […]

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Restaurant Review

At the risk of being done in by some of Lusaka’s residents, I have to let you in on one of the best-kept secrets in a long time – El Toro Restaurant in Sable Road, Kabulonga, in the same premises as Cascades. Owned and run by Ian and Rosita Nugara, El Toro was originally a […]

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Getting To Print

Each month as I finish putting the Lowdown together, I feel deflated and apprehensive, when I should be delighted that the job is almost complete and I can relax for a day or two before I have to start on the next issue. The reason for this is quite simply that I dread the drive […]

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Restaurant Review

St Elmo’s With thirteen children for my daughter’s birthday sleepover, we decided that lunch at St Elmo’s, the new pizza joint in Kabulonga would be a good idea – the kids would enjoy it, and we could relax until their respective parents picked them up at 3 pm. We hadn’t booked a table, which was […]

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Restaurant Review

Voodoo Lounge With Christmas just around the corner, it was time to make arrangements for a Christmas lunch for the Lowdown Bunch and for one of the ladies from Businet, downstairs (Paul was too miserable to give both of them time off!). Always hardworking, we agreed that this should be at one of the new […]

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Lusaka’s Brownfields

Brownfields, are abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination.  In Lusaka, we have our own brownfields – areas in residential and commercial zones which, only a few years ago, were green, peaceful areas within the city limits where one could escape the […]

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The Cheapest Way To Get Around Town

Mini buses, mainly owned by individuals, are the main means of transportation for most Zambians in Lusaka and other parts of the country. There are five major stations in Lusaka for boarding and disembarking from buses. These are Kulima Tower, at the south end of Freedom Way; Katondo in Katondo Street, opposite Good Hope Enterprises; […]

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Book Review

Visages by Francois d’Elbee Visages, a book of photographs by Francois d’Elbee, was launched in Lusaka on 17 November. It comprises a collection of studio photographs of Zambian personalities, with short biographies on each, in both English and French.  The collection tells many stories, as each character exposes their outer self, but most importantly it shows […]

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Manda Hill Gets Into Gear For Christmas

Shopowners at Manda Hill Shopping Centre in Lusaka are gearing up for the Christmas season, promoting what they have to offer in the hope that they can get some of our hard-earned Kwachas out of our pockets and into theirs, and judging from the crowds that were there last Saturday, it’s proving to be quite […]

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Blot On The Landscape

Junkyard motif to what used to be pleasurable sight. Of course, for every rule there is the exception. There are a few places on earth that are actually beautified by outdoor advertising. They include New York’s Times Square, London’s Piccadilly Circus and Tokyo’s Ginza. That’s because the billboards in those places don’t obscure the view […]

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Oriental Gardens

Following warm recommendations by friends, we decided to have dinner in the recently re-opened (ex-Chantal’s) restaurant, the Oriental Garden. We were greeted by country and western music which continued all evening. A few men sitting at the bar, otherwise the place was empty. There were checked cloths on the tables, and one could admire one’s […]

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Rhythm Talk – Gontroppos & Company Take The Stage

A modern dance is composed in much the same way as an essay – each movement is like a word, a string of movements like a sentence, or a phrase. Once you have a few sentences, you can start to make a paragraph, stringing the movement phrases together, attaching them with transitions that work like […]

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Recognition At Last For Art?

There are some countries, with their well-stocked art galleries and museums of various types, which literally seem awash with art. Zambia is not one of them. But by the same token, at least in Lusaka, hardly a week seems to pass without there being some sort of art exhibition. And Zambian works of arts can […]

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