OK — as promised (threatened?) to students, colleagues and myself, I’m going to try to create a CTPC blog that will accomplish a number of goals:

• Help me develop a writing practice for thinking through and sharing with others in “closer to real time” ideas that emerge from the incredible opportunity I have to work on fascinating, challenging, enlivening, sometimes heartbreaking and (as will undoubtedly be a recurring theme) always contradictory projects around Cape Town.
• Share “the news” with all those who make the CTPC what it is (and in important ways me who I am). I’m the one who gets to go back and forth between the US and Cape Town at least twice yearly, and everyone always wants to know what’s happening — WPI students and co-advisors of the past miss friends and colleagues in South Africa, and all the people who invite us into their places and educate and care about us want to know, “Where have those studentsgone? How’s everyone doing? What’s next?” Fortunately, many have their own ways of staying connected (Facebook and who knows what else), but I hope this will help share news that comes from my being on the ground pretty often in the world’s of both Cape Town and WPI.
• Leave a trail of notes, half-baked ideas, links and impressions to which I can point others to advance discussions and collaboration.
• Invite others to share through comments and original posts (let me know) thoughts and feelings about… pretty much anything.

As with all else with our project center, we’ll see how it goes…