Robben Island

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We woke up today to find a super foggy Cape Town, so foggy we couldn’t see Table Mountain, which if you have seen any Cape Town pictures, is smack in the middle of the city. We walked to the Waterfront and hopped on a ferry to Robben Island. Robben Island is situated about 15 minutes off the coast of Cape Town and is the site of the prison where Nelson Mandela was held for 22 years (he was subsequently transferred to 2 other prisons). The prison housed both political and common-law prisoners until 1991, when political prisoners were released and taken on a boat into Cape Town. In fact, we saw the same boat today at Robben Island.

One of the interesting things about visiting the prison is that you don’t get just any guide to do the tours. In order to be a guide at the prison, you must be a former prisoner. So when you are walking around and the guide is telling you something about the cell-block, garden, or square, he is actually telling you a piece of his story, of things he saw and experienced while held there. I’ve been in other tours in Europe, but having a former Robben Island prisoner show you around puts quite the spin on the material he delivers. Instead of saying “this office is where the censors edited letters from family members”, he would say “this is where letters from my family were censored...sometimes, they would cut out entire paragraphs leaving you with just the initial and final greetings”, or “we used to listen to the censored radio via those speakers on the wall”. Our guide, at the end of the tour, when pleading for us to spread the idea of peace amongst races to our family and friends, does so because his life was affected by apartheid, not because that is what the museum tells him to say.

The tour takes us through the island by bus, making stops at points of interest like the quarry where Mandela and other prisoners worked at, or the house of Robert Sobukwe. You might want to Wikipedia this man, who was also held captive at Robben Island, but not held in the prison with everyone else. He had his own house, his own bathroom, his own yard to roam around in; what he didn’t have was someone to talk to. There were 6 guards who rotated in pairs in 8-hour shifts and were in charge of staying with him at all times. The interesting thing is that the guards were not allowed to talk to him, and Robert Sobukwe was not allowed to talk to them. This rule was in place for fear that Robert would influence the guards politically in some way. In fact, the 2 guards watched not only Robert, but also each other. Robert was treated this way to basically make him feel as though he was already dead, as if he was completely irrelevant to the world. The reason he was not killed was because the government did not want to bring attention to him, did not want to make him a martyr for the cause he fought for.

The highlight of the prison, no doubt, is Nelson Mandela’s cell. Not that his cell is any different or anything (in fact it is not even labelled), but because of what he did and what he stands for not only for all South Africans, but others around the world. But I don’t have to tell you that. Our guide told me that he did meet Mandela when Mandela came to visit Robben Island shortly after he was released.

The only thing that did not work out for us today was that the fog made it impossible to get a nice shot of Cape Town, with Table Mountain in the background, from the island. It would have been a cool shot but that will have to be done next time.

When we got back to Cape Town, we found a restaurant and watched the boring Brazil - Portugal game. I figured it was going to be a draw (I thought it was going to be 1-1, which it probably should have been) because the teams weren’t really playing for anything; a draw would have meant both advanced. Portugal could have taken the group lead from Brazil, but that is all. The most important thing for us is that now that Brazil has won the group, we have a chance of seeing Brazil play. Brazil will now play the second place of group H (the group H games are being played right now) in the Round of 16, while Holland will play Slovakia. If Brazil and Holland win those games, they meet in the quarter-final in Port Elizabeth, which we would also have a ticket for. Our best case scenario, as of right now, it that we can watch at most 3 Brazil games, which is fine by me. Hehe

So this is the end of our first chapter in Cape Town. Tomorrow morning, we fly to Durban for Holland’s Round of 16 match on June 28. And if my uncle Djalma is reading this, Janel and I have beds reserved in Durban as of tonight, so nobody will be sleeping on park benches. Hehe We’re looking forward to seeing the Durban stadium, which is situated right by the ocean and has a huge arch over the middle that you can ride up on a tram.

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Comments

[Sandie Cheney]

So interesting about the prison visit! :) Really enjoying your blogs, Take care, Sandie