Back to Africa

OK, enough memories for a moment, and time to start planning for the future. I've just been accepted to present at an e-Learning conference in Zambia in late May (we really need more sub-Saharan Africa universities, and an e-Learning conference for African universities seems like a perfect fit), and while I'm in the neighborhood I'm going to revisit South Africa and make an initial visit to Botswana. So, I've already sent an email to my long-suffering travel agent Rochelle with one of those vague messages that goes something like - "so anyway, the conference is 26-28 May, and I really want to visit the four universities that I deal with in South Africa, but the main professor at Nelson Mendela Metropolitan University has to leave early, so I need to go to South Africa first - and I know the World Cup is being played there this summer so that might be a problem - so let's plan on flying into Johannesburg and catching a flight to Port Elizabeth, and then back to Pretoria, and then on to Zambia, and then, since we're flying over it anyway, let's try and put something together for a Botswana (oh, and could you check on the visa situation in Zambia and Botswana - oh, and note to self - send off passport to get extra pages put in it (remember what happened last time we tried to fly to South Africa and got stuck in Kenya because I didn't have enough pages), and then from Zambia back to Pretoria/Johannesburg, and then on to Cape Town. Oh, and could I get an aisle seat? Why the woman doesn't quit - or at least not answer the phone when I call is beyond me - but I think she actually loves the challenge - and at least this isn't the seven country marathon from this past summer.