“Lusaka, Zambia, you said? That’s where you’ll be living for a couple of years? You will be trailing behind your wife again... Interesting – so, in Lusaka, do all the expats live together in compounds?”
Before leaving that very normal Swedish suburbia life in Stockholm, the above is in fact similar to discussions I had on more than one occasion with Swedes having experiences of living abroad, in hardship areas.
Well, after a few weeks, months or years in Lusaka we know, don’t we? Or do we actually?
Obviously, here in Lusaka the word “compound” would not refer to a gated and guarded, only for expats and their families kind of area, like it would for example in Dubai.
Thanks to an article in the first issue of a new weekly newspaper, The Lusaka Standard, we have an answer as to the origin of the word in the Lusaka city planning context. According to the article the word “compound” originates from colonial days in the 1930ies when the decision was made to make Lusaka a colonial capital. The “Garden City” was planned for white settlers. Members of the black population were only allowed to live in the city if they resided on the “compound” of their white employer. So, here in Lusaka the term “compound” actually refers to those informal city areas that grew out of the compounds of white settlers, where in fact soon the majority of the city’s population would live.
Now, I can look back with new insights at answering a hesitant “No” to the question: “Will you be living in a compound?”
N.B. “Compound” according to an old Swedish dictionary is a word whose closest meaning in a city planning context is “läger”, meaning camp.
Gustaf Engstrand
