lucky you for getting to go to Africa, I dream of visiting there one day so you live in London... you could visit www.uspa.org and they have a listing of dropzones all over the world. as far as expense, any sport you get in to usally is spendy but once you get off student status and get your own gear the jumps get really cheap, or should I say the arplane rides. I work at a pretty big dz in southern California in the winter and we have alot of people come from other countries to get certified, but even there it is fairly spendy, about $1700. however the dz where I work at in the summer the same course is only $1050. so check around and maybe you could make it a vacation, but be sure to make sure the place you chose is a member of USPA and has a good saftey record