Today was another activity-filled day! We took the ferry over to Robben Island this morning and were given a tour by a former political prisoner. It was pretty amazing to learn about the history of the island. Robben Island was originally used as a place of banishment for people with leprosy and other untreatable diseases. It wasn’t until 1961 that Robben Island was used as an apartheid prison. The living conditions in the prison were tremendous.. there are concrete walls and floors, and prisoners slept on a concrete floor and were given two small blankets. Our tour guide, who was a political prisoner of Robben Island not too long ago, showed us one of the cells that he spent four years of his life in. You would think that going through the prison, and sharing troubling stories from the past that our tour guide would have been depressed or angry. Instead, our tour guide shared with us how Mandela wanted Robben Island to be a place of hope, not a place of sadness. While the political prisoners were imprisoned, they learned how to speak and write English and Afrikaans so that they could communicate with their families. Nelson Mandela actually wrote a book while in prison, and the prisoners were given limited paper and even toilet paper to prevent them from writing! Mandela wrote a little bit each day, and hid the paper behind a loose brick in the wall. We were able to see Mandela’s cell, just as it was when he was a prisoner there. It’s crazy to think that apartheid did not come to an end too long ago. We experienced the Civil Rights movement, segregation in schools and communities back in the sixties, but the apartheid kept the segregation and racism against “colored” and “black” people going until after it collapsed in the nineties.
After Robben Island, we went to the District Six Museum. I have to say, this was the most emotional and disheartening part of my trip so far. District six was named the sixth district of Cape Town in 1867, and was closely linked to the city and the port. In the late 1960s, it was declared a “White Group Area,” and by the 1980s, 60,000 people (black and colored) were forcibly removed from their homes, and taken far away from the city. All of the street names were changed to English names, and their homes were flattened by bulldozers, and the only buildings that remained were buildings owned by white people. It felt so real since this happened pretty recent, and I could sense the anger and distress in the voice of our tour guide.
We had our first authentic South African meal today at lunch.. it's called a chip roll and was a huge bun filled with french fries and ketchup! Chips are the same thing as fries in South Africa. I definitely have been feeling a little bit of a language barrier! Today I went to the "toilet" (not bathroom!) and a little girl didn't understand me when I told her one of the stalls weren't working. She came out and said something in Afrikaans, I just nodded in agreement but have no idea what she said.
Well that's all for today! I love how we've been so busy exploring, and really taking advantage of our time here. It's been great learning a little more about the South African culture before we move into our schools. Tomorrow we'll be going wine tasting, along with some more exploring! :)
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