Power Walking and History Lessons

Whoo man today was quite the lengthy day! First, it started very early, which wasn't great for me because I caught the cold Kelsey is getting over, because we are rooming together. Yay for me. But I have lots of medications and it's not too rough.
All 15 of us walked from our hotel to the District Six museum- which is the best museum I have ever been too. It is beautifully organized and displayed, and the men and women who lived there contributed all the artifacts and photos, created the actual museum and also work there to provide first hand accounts of the cosmopolitan life of District Six, the demolition and life now. Our tour guide made it clear that though the relocation and demolition of the melting pot were heart breaking and horrible, the people do not blame white people, they blame the system of apartheid. Many white people, well all people, to this day will not build on the land, which is why it is still an empty field in the middle of a city. I left feeling slightly disheartened because its amazing that throughout the whole world, people do not live like they did in District Six. All races, all walks of life, lived together in harmony. And not just harmony, but thoroughly enjoyed sharing their lives, religions and customs with neighbors. I just haven't seen or heard of anything like this before, and it was torn apart.
I also don't have pictures of the morning excursion because I left my memory card in my computer this morning. :-(

Then we walked over to Green Market Square, which is basically a huge flee-type market where you have to haggle for prices and you can buy pretty much anything stereotypically African. Its hard to tell if any of the goods are authentic, but I assumed they were not. So I didn't purchase much at all. But it was a new experience for me, and that part was kinda fun. This was followed by some serious power walking and lots of jay walking (both of which are complicated when walking with 15 people) to get back to our hotel to drop off some things and then off again to the waterfront to catch the Ferry to Robben Island. This basically was the South African version of Alcatraz Island. Throughout its history Robben Island (which literally means “sea” island in Dutch) has been used in the past for exiling people suffering from Leprosy, imprisoning hard criminals and most recently imprisoning political prisoners during Apartheid. This is the location where Nelson Mandela spent 27 years for high treason.

The island is located about 11km from the coast of Cape Town and we took a large ferry boat to get there.

After arriving we went on a walking tour of the prison and then a bus tour of the island itself. The prison is quite large and it is divided into sections: solitary and community living, and by race. The prisoners, who were in prison due to their political involvement fighting against apartheid, were then segregated even more once they arrived to Robben Island. Black Africans were given the least clothes, food and privilege, followed by Indians and Coloreds. For some reason, this notion shocked me; why is it necessary to segregate an already excluded maximum security prison? The walking tour was very impactful, some of the prison cells had their inmates’ picture and story in them, and as I walked around I found myself feeling uncomfortable realizing that men were forced to live in those conditions for long periods of time. 

Nelson Mandela's cell. He did have to sleep on a blanket on the floor until the mid 80s when everyone in the prison got a cot. 

view from one courtyard

So all the cells have barred windows, but the view is of a concrete wall...

Our tour guide is an ex-prisoner, as are all of the tour guides of the prison itself. He shared his story with us and I was overwhelmed. This man has been through hell and he comes to the island everyday to share the stories, to teach the world and younger populations so that atrocity will not happen again. But shockingly none of the ex-prisoners are bitter about their experiences, they are embracing the past in order to teach for the future. This mindset is inspirational and I think more people in the world should be awesome like these men and women. 

Following the walking tour we boarded a bus and drove around the island itself, which is home to three other prisons (built before and after the maximum security prison) and used for political prisoners and hard criminals. Our tour guide was an awesome man, with an awesome accent and he spoke about the meaning behind apartheid, that it was not about just physically separating the races by relocating them to townships and segregating them on a daily basis, but about creating mental divides between the races of South Africa. This notion is deep within the society and still peeps its head, through stereotypes and assumptions. 

We got off the bus at a viewpoint of Cape Town and took a few pictures

Ferry back to the mainland!

Cheers!