Dubai on the Grumeti

On a game drive today in a remote part of the Serengeti, I got a text message on my Tanzanian cell phone welcoming me to the United Arab Emirates. Huh? Turns out that a well-heeled Emirati prince (I guess that is pretty redundant) bought a property neighboring the national park to turn into a private hunting retreat complete with cell towers shipped in, installed, and operated by his carrier back home. And apparently the locals are up in arms because they get charged roaming fees when their calls get picked up by his towers. Oops.

Strange happenings in ancient places

Traveled from Amman, Jordan to Damascus, Syria today by way of Jerash and Bosra, ancient ruins.

A few odd things on the way. First, driving from Amman to Jerash my taxi passed a school bus full of 10 or 11 year olds. One started waving frantically out the window at me with his arms then a second later with a very believable toy pistol. That or an equally believable real pistol. He did his best Clint Eastwood impression then started yelling "Hi! How are you? I love America! I love freedom!" until I waved back. I bet I can guess his favorite American constitional amendment. Jerash was nice and ruiny but the site was overrun with schoolchildren who had all somehow gotten their hands on kazoos. I kid you not.

The syrian border crossing was remarkably painless given the headache of getting the visa and I was off to Bosra, an ancient site in sothern Syria. It is my favorite so far of all the ruins. It is a giant free-standing theater (as opposed to the more common ones built into hillsides), so there are a lot of tunnels to explore. At one point I came out of a tunnel into the main theater area and there were 200 uniform wearing Syrian schoolchildren singing, chanting, and clapping their hands in unison. Very North Korean.

WTF?

So this is what the western world has gotten up to in my absence?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UE3CNu_rtY
Maybe I need to ditch the Middle East and make my way to Antwerp.

Tunisian keyboards...

Suck...the letters are in a weird order for no apparent reason. Also, all the helpful things like numbers require the shift key to be pressed and relatively rare things like the ampersand and semi-colon do not. Period requires shift, exclamation point does not. So from not on, all my posts from Tunisia will be extra emphatic!