NEPAD Youth Conference, arrival day

Sunday, 26th June. 07:30 wakeup for 10:40 flight, arriving at 12:40 in Johannesburg. Meet Robyn, a student at Stellenbosch who is studying socio-informatics. Joined by two Ethiopians and a Kenyan (who works for the NEPAD secretariat there and one of the leaders of the African Youth Parliament) for a thirsty almost three-hour drive to Mabula which is near Bela-Bela (or Warmbaths)...

After freshening up a bit in my room, I headed out to see who else was around. My personal mission to talk to people about Open Source, of course, but I wasn't even in that mode when the discussion in one of the lounges turned to what I do (always a hard question to answer), which had me utter the faithful words "Do you know Open Source?" in preparation for mentioning that I work in that area. Nevertheless, the person I was speaking to not only knows about it, but is starting a company that's dealing with delivering Open Source solutions in East London. And that discussion has continued ever since...

Mabula Lodge's food borders on amazing (most of the time), with a variety of vegetarian fare provided, as part of the standard buffet offering. For those keeping track, the Broccoli and Basil soup gets a 10/10.

More chatting after supper, and a relatively early night. My room-mate, Nqaba from the Eastern Cape arrives just in time for me to fall asleep.

I've put up a NEPAD Youth Conference gallery for my pictures.