Cion-Chapter 1&2

After reading chapter 1 and chapter 2 of Cion, I've decided that it is a pretty slow read. Although Zakes Mda goes into great detail about even the smallest things, such as the potholes of Athens, Ohio, I feel as though he tries to fit too much information in one chapter. Because of this, the flow of the book is jumbled and at times confusing as to what is going on. Even so, I still found the beginning chapters to be interesting. It's cool to read about a stranger's perspective to Athens, Ohio and his take on the celebration of Halloween. It was unfortunate to get to chapter 2 expecting to learn more about the history and Toloki's perspective of Athens, only to switch gears and learn about something completely different; the slave trade. I agree with most of my peers on the fact that some claims that Mda makes about the slave trade in Cion seem to be so "out there" that I can't seem to distinguish what's fiction and what is not.