Africa on hold
The economy continues to crumble and with it goes something I’ve grown very excited about over the last few months.
Longtime readers may remember my parents announced around Christmas time that they wanted to take the family to Africa during the 2010 World Cup to celebrate my step-mom’s 60th birthday and my little brother’s graduation from high school.
Being the super-planner I am, I’d started forwarding travel articles about South Africa, ideas gleaned from people who’d recently traveled there, recommendations of travel agents specializing in this area, etc. to my step-mom.
She hadn’t really responded so I assumed she was just filing them away in a South Africa file (which I’m sure she had since we’re very much alike!) until she started planning in earnest.
Well, you know what they say about assuming…
I recently received an email from my step-mom letting me know they still want to go to Africa, but that they are considering putting the trip on hold for several reasons:
1) They’re concerned about press reports saying that South Africa isn’t as far along as it should be at this time for the World Cup. If South Africa does manage to actually pull it together, my parents wonder what the quality would be.
2) My parents were in Germany for the World Cup a few years ago so they’ve experienced the crowds, but they think the infrastructure in Europe was much better than South Africa will ever be.
3) They’re concerned about how much they’ve lost in the stock market and whether they should be spending $40,000-$50,000 at this time. Even though the world economy may be in recovery by next summer, they’ll have to spend the money today to hold reservations.
4) They’re also concerned that with the global economic meltdown, they may make deposits to companies in precarious financial straits (even if they’ve been around for decades), which could potentially put their hefty deposits at risk.
Checking out the financial condition of service providers in South Africa could be a lesson in futility, and they don’t know how or if they should buy insurance to cover such a potential loss.
While I’m disappointed, I completely understand their reasoning and support their decision. To be honest, Africa always seemed like such a far off reality since we were talking 2010 and I knew anything could happen between now and then.
All that said, I will continue to save up my alternative income for this purpose because hopefully things will turn around and Africa will become a reality. Maybe not in 2010, but one day.
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