Robben Island....CapeTown

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Hummm....I'm not sure I have the patience for CapeTown.
It's beautiful, that's for sure, it's been named the number one tourist destination...yes it's true, if you don't consider the townships it's a kind of Disney land...But everything practical other than tourist spots closes at 6pm, the public transportation is difficult to say the least, unless you take a taxi plus everyone acts like everything is a big deal even if it's the most mundane errand. The people seem pleasant enough however Even if a bit oblivious....

Hummm guess I'm just a New Yorker through and through.

There are high points though, the tours are well organized, the hop on hop off bus excellent, the aquarium a delight and the gardens in the middle of the city simply magical. The gardens have every type of sub tropical tree and shrub imaginable plus are dotted with the public library, national museum, a cafe with lone musician....it's lovely. Oh and big bonus...it's nearly 11 rand to the dollar! Very affordable. What a pleasant surprise!

Speaking of tours, on Sunday I went to Robben Island.... It was the hottest day of the year with temperatures in excess of 90 degrees...scorching sun, not a cloud in the sky. The ferry ride of just under an hour was a welcome reprieve, dolphin and seals frolicked in the wake of boat. So much beauty, so much pain.

How those coming to the island as prisoners must have felt, I cannot fathom.On reaching the island we were greeted by our first proud, knowledgable guide and herded into hot busses for the first part of the tour....a history of the island....horror after horror, a prison island, then a leper colony, then once again a prison island. Thousands have died there. Ancient tombstones, a sad little church built by the lepers themselves...

We saw the limestone quarry where 13 years of useless hard labor, barefoot with unprotected eyes and lungs, wreaked havoc on the bodies but not the minds of the leaders (as they are simply called).

On now to the second part of the tour, this time our guide was super human. To keep the integrity of Robben island and not simply turn it into another hollow tourist attraction, the guides for the prison tour are former inmates...yes former political prisoners who had been incarcerated in the very cell blocks they are now showing. There was even a former prison warden who also worked as a guide!

The entire crowd was hushed as we were shepherded first this way then that. We saw the kitchen building, the court yards and the cells... tiny, bare. In each cell a photograph of the last occupant and a few lines penned by him summing up his thoughts, feelings. We roamed from cell to cell free to sit quietly if we wished, trying not to cry.The bars to Mandela's cell were locked but we could see right in....a sleeping mat, a bucket and a little table....a cot was a later addition after many years of sleeping on the concrete floor.

Amazingly there were funny anecdotes and personal stories delivered with humor and above all dignity by our guide. He had been one of the youngsters (15) when he was brought to Robben island and spent 8 years there. He was one of the lucky ones, he said, able to be in the company of the legendary leaders of the revolution, to learn from them, to hear them talk...each one teach one was their motto in dealing with the youth amongst them.

These were lettered men who never broke their bond of solidarity through all the years of hard labor, hunger strikes, torture and worse. The symbolic pile of stones placed by the leaders in the quarry after their release said it all...each stone different in texture, size but all together forming the mound....not one breaking ranks.

'So now your time is up visitors, go...take your long walk to freedom!' our guide said with humor dismissing us to walk as the leaders had done before us, from the doors of the prison to the waiting ferry boats.

Back to the 'Waterfront' as it's called, on the main land, back in a Disney-esque world ....pretty restaurants, white table cloths, cafés, souvenir shops, street performers....yet in the midst of it all the Tibetans....monks, crafting an exquisite mandela as a special gift of peace for the people of South Africa

This is a fragile country, it's wounds still raw.

The visit to Robben island was quite an experience. It will take time to make sense of it all....if ever.

Thank you for your gift gentle monks of Tibet....thank you so very much.

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Photos

Inmate/Guide
Welcoming us to the prison...so to speak

Mandela's cell
Terrible in its simplicity

Solidarity
Pile of stones erected in quarry symbolizes what South Africa can be...

Tibetan monk
Monk crafts sacred Mandela using ancient tools

Rations order
Showing disparity between colored and 'Bantu' or black

CapeTown & Table Mountain
As seen from Robben Island