[EuroPython] Got this in my mail today.

[Laura Creighton]

In a message of Sun, 18 Jan 2004 09:12:21 +0100, Etienne Posthumus writes:
>On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, Denis wrote:
>
>> Le Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 10:08:54AM +0100, Laura Creighton pianota:
>> >
>> > I'd be happy to see Africans at EuroPython.
>>
>> Don't put too much expectation there in. You will receive a bunch of
>> mails like this one, but generally, those registrations are *very*
>> unsure. The same from Nigeria, Rwanda or China, Tibet, etc.
>>
>> They just try to get a visa to leave their country.
>
>Sheesh, that is a bit of a blanket statement. There has been at least one
>African (me) at two of the past Eurpythons (2003 & 2003) and he a had
>really good time, learnt lots and made a lof of new contacts.
>
>Please don't paint with too large a brush.
>
>Etienne Posthumus
>Programmer, IIDS - Intelligent Interactive Distributed Systems
>http://www.iids.org/
>Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
>----------------------------

There was a very pleasant man running a small Zope company from
Tunisia there last year as well as a Nigerian (I think) now working in
Saudi Arabia, and of course if things go well, we will have Mark
Shuttleworth here to give the keynote ....

I'd like to make EuroPython _the_ international Python conference,
a project which is a lot easier now that the USA has made travel
so onerous.  Be warned now -- some Bulgarian friends of mine, living
in Canada (he is getting his Masters in csc at a university there)
have now discovered that they need US visas to board a plane that
lands in the USA to take on more passengers even though their final
destination is in Europe and noone is allowed to disembark.


On the other hand, that particular note, all in screaming upper case
smells like a scam to me.  (Which is why I made the joke about lower
case) Fortunately, I have a way to test this.  I sent a nice note back
saying 'can you please tell me how you use Python?'.  The originator
of that note never replied to that mail ...

Laura