Ryan Cooper

I've been here almost a month, which is nuts. It seems to be simultaneously forever and only a day since I arrived. Nothing has changed much as far as training, though the quality of presentations has improved a bit. A week from Saturday we go to visit our permanent site which will be somewhere in Northern Cape or Northwest province.I taught a couple of sample grade 12 classes over the last couple weeks in maths and physical science, which went surprisingly well. Students (or learners, they call em) are so polite here! Thus far anyway. Last weekend we went to Johannesberg (or Joberg), which is the largest city in South Africa (about 10 million--bigger than New York!). We visited the apartheid museum, which was a wrenching experience, and went to a mall, which was about the same. It's a shock going from bucket baths to good ol' American-style nihilistic capitalism. I ate a sandwich with avocados, which made me feel better. Joberg has kind of a war-zone feel to it--...

I finally get a minute to sit down and mainline sweet, sweet internet. At an atrociously slow rate, but no matter. I've got a lot of updating to do, but right now I'm considering how I should behave with the whole email vs. blog debate. I think that since a few people have stated outright that they despise blogs and all they stand for, I'll go ahead and send emails, and cross-post them here from now on. I hope none of the three (two? zero?) people who read this will be too offended at that. I'll also keep just random musings and non-peace corps related things here as well. Hopefully soon I should be able to upload some pictures. On another note, I see that Peter Jackson made a new movie that is set in South Africa, and it's supposed to be good! I have no idea when I'll see it.