Today is the start of our three week orientation. It will involve introducing the apprentice (5 Americans, 1 Canadian...and moi) to South Africa, to living in a cross-cultural context, to Pretoria, to community life...and to good food. To that end I've cooked supper for everyone twice: pasta and carbonara sauce on Friday night; roast chicken, roast potatoes and veggies last night (finally got that gravy right!). Coming up: Chinese, Greek...and whatever surprising food anyone else wants to make.

In the next three weeks we'll be visiting Sun City, Soshanguve, the cultural history museum, doing an enneagram test, playing cricket, watching Shaun Pollock's last game at the Wanderers on February 3rd, staying at my parent's house and I'll be taking them around Joburg (any suggestions for what to see?!).

In the meantime I'm attempting to learn how to develop Facebook applications in Drupal, and understanding deconstruction. No pressure!