1. Zulusafari was NOT born in Africa
2. Zulusafari, the handle, came from my first Africa experience in South Africa
3. Zulusafari, while not socialist, does have a soft heart and is compassionate toward those in need.

1. Perhaps the most common misperception by those in the twitter community and other social spheres. I grew up in a very urban, American setting. While I can get along in the ‘hood’ I can hold my own quite well in the rural spaces of America. I actually think of my heart as being quite ‘country.’ I love the outdoors and I connect with myself and with God in a much deeper and more authentic way when I’m out of the city space.

2. My first Africa experience took me to the bush of South Africa for 2 months. I spent the whole time with an Afrikaans and group of Zulus. They truly took me into their culture and ‘family’ and I had a very eye opening experience. I chose the handle ‘zulusafari’ shortly after that trip and first used it for an excite.com email address. Excite died shortly after, along with the zulusafari handle, but was resurrected with the social media landscape for my anonymous adventures online.

3. I critique ‘aid’ quite harshly. I am stanchly a free market capitalist. I can hardly call myself a Republican/Conservative any more these days and I am coming to prefer the title ‘libertarian’ or constitutionalist. I grew up with a father who graduated from Wharton with an Economics degree. So I’ve known my way around how economy works since I could walk.
My faith in Christ makes up the very deepest part of who I am. I feel strongly that anything I believe in should be backed up by scripture. I may not be able to site and quote the verse(s), but I can discuss it thoroughly. I believe strongly that the US gov’t does not exist to provide for it’s people, only to give the framework of freedom to let us work hard for ourselves. It is through individual and PRIVATE collective groupings (church, charities, etc.) that we give financially for the needs of others. Not once did Christ ever call on gov’t to provide for those in need. He often called on the church (private group) and those who make up the church (individuals) to help those in need.
Not only do I give financially to my church both locally and my ‘home’ church in the states, but I also give in non-financial ways as an individual. I’d like to think of my entire life as living that out. There is no other reason for me to be living far from ‘home’. I DEEPLY love and enjoy what I do and would choose to do nothing else, but I would not be doing it without the blessing of God and for his Glory!

I just got off the phone with a representative of ebay, YES! I said phone.
They have a phone in the office. I know many of you doubted, but I can
confirm that they own at least one phone.

I have had this problem that every time I try to access my account (which
was opened in the US years ago) ebay 'suspends' my account. This has
happened a number of times and they always are adamant that my account was
compromised and someone tried to access it, despite the same scenario
playing out over and over again, obviously being me every time.

So I've given up and decided to open a new account. Unfortunately they
decided there was fraud activity on it as well.

I called them this morning (night for them) and discussed both accounts with
the rep. He was quite understanding (the reps in the past were zombies) and
said he'd discuss the situation with management to see what they could come
up with.

If they don't do anything, it's likely my involvement in the ebay community
will officially come to an end as they are overly hostile to anyone in
Africa and make it impossible to use their service.

In the last week I've experienced clicking on two different links to TV
content that was very confusing. First was the ad for the 3 part CSI
special. When I clicked the link I couldn't find out where to download those
3 shows. Sometime later I find out that they haven't even aired yet. I guess
it was just an add that they were coming soon. But it was confusing and
frustrating.

The second occurrence is the current Thanksgiving NFL link. I click that and
it just takes me to a bunch of NFL content. No way to sign up for the games
that will be put online or anything like that. This again is very
frustrating. If you know you're going to have Thanksgiving game content,
have that link take me to a page where I can pre-purchase it or at the very
least mention that the content will be available later and what that content
will be.

There have been other occurrences in the past, but these two recent examples
are really tarnishing the store experience for me and are further tarnishing
Apple's brand for me and those around me.

Algeria beats Egypt 1-0 to qualify for the World Cup for the first time.
This was totally unexpected. They played in Khartoum, Sudan, as a neutral
site was needed because of past violence between the teams in the past.

I'm on my first ‘hotel’ vacation in Africa in Mombasa, Kenya. I live here now and I’ve been to a number of places, but not as a vacation in a hotel. I knew ahead of time I needed to set aside my expectations, coming from a country (America) who’s hotels are quite large and luxurious as compared to the rest of the world.

It just so happens, we are staying in the nicest suite this resort has. I have family in town, so it made sense to get the large suite instead of a few rooms.

By default, they sign you up for half-board. I immediately upgraded to full-board, at first not aware there was again another step up to all-inclusive. The staff here don’t know much about their own services and it’s hard to know much about the resort when everyone you ask doesn’t know either. I think the most knowledgeable people are those visiting.

On to the meat of the post: When All-Inclusive Doesn’t Include Much

So we got the all-inclusive package and we’re staying in their only presidential suite. There is one main dining hall, a snack bar and 3 reservation only restaurants. As usual, the all-inclusive bars stock the cheapest liquors known to man and I’m not sure that the sodas are the actual labels and likely something locally made and much cheaper for the resort. There is one cash bar and the prices are about what they’d be in the states, nothing special. I asked this ‘cash bar’ for a list of their frozen drinks. He acted like he knew what I was talking about, but clearly had no idea. He told me he could make anything. I assured him that making  the frozen drinks I wanted was not something he could do nor had he ever made a similar drink. It turns out they in fact did not have anything like that.

I visited the front desk our first morning to set a reservation for dinner at one of the three restaurants. Upon making the reservation, I was informed we had to pay a fee to use those restaurants. This was disappointing. While discussing with the fam, a manager came out and decided we would be comped. I’m not sure what they decided that, but it was nice.

So far not included in ‘all-inclusive’... Frozen drinks, dinner, water (however we found out that we were given bottled water in our room though I doubt this is true for all rooms)... More to come as I continue my stay...

It’s certainly possible my final review will be glowing, but no so right now. I’ll include the resort name at that time.

Next post... When a family friendly resort isn’t so friendly for families....

Photo seen just outside of airport advertizing local hotel and restaurant.
Conveniently using on of Pixar's characters from Ratatouille.

South Sudan started it's dry season this week. About two days after our last rain, we began to experience some specific symptoms of dry season. The following are a few points on a working list...

You Know It's Dry Season when...

• Ash is falling from the sky (the Sudanese burn large areas to prevent uncontrolled fires from destroying their homes)
• Wind with no clouds (Wind during the rainy season almost always brings rain)
• A dusty hazy fills the air every evening (living next to a dirt road doesn’t help)
• You have to constantly sweep and wipe everything down from the constant sand in the air
• Sand Storms (not fun)
• There’s a smell of burning in the air (no, that’s just sand)
• You have to constantly brush the grit from your teeth (sand again)

I'm really struggling with a TIA moment right now. I have a package from
family sitting with customs in Nairobi. They want to charge me almost $200
USD b/c there are 5 Master Lock padlocks in the box. They cost $10 each in
America. Yet they 'looked it up online' and are convinced that these are
made of gold.

While these locks are nice and when found for sale in Nairobi, they are much
more expensive than the cheap Chinese crap, they are not gold.

Africans: What are your TIA moments like in America?

The first example is a chair. Most seating is a square frame from metal or
wood and various textiles are constantly stretched around it. The wooden
versions usually start with an animal skin, then slowly get the fabrics. The
chairs start with a plastic weave, then get straps and scraps added.

The second example is resold cooking oil containers. We use them to store or
move water. This is the same use by most Sudanese as well. Sometimes the
containers are blue; these originally held chemicals not good for ingesting.
So you have to be really careful to clean them out.