Sunday morning was spent in worship – some at the mall, some at the flea market, in the hotel – there may have even been one or two who found a local church.
At 2 we met in the lobby and walked to the harbour and took the Harbour Ship the Sea Princess to Robben Island. Our first stop on the Island was the cell block Here we were met by Kgotso (which means peace) who was a political prisoner at Robben Island from 1984 – 91. He had originally been sentenced to 25 years in prison for his political activity with the Pan African Congress (PAC). He shared with us the experiences of being a prisoner at Robben Island – the conditions and the associations of Mondala’s time and what it is like now to live next door (on the island) to his former jailer.
We learned that at one time there were more than 1400 prisoners and 140 jailers. Other conditions – life was much regulated and meals were barely adequate with vegetable and fruits included only on the weekends/ The prisoners had no control – the lights were turned on at 5 AM and off at 11PM – by the jailers, they were forced to work – often in the quarry doing totally useless work, and for a long time they had only blankets on the floor, with no windows in the room (just holes with bars). There were 60 men to a room – about 20 ft wide and 60 feet long – they received bunk beds and glass in the windows in 1974. Each day they had breakfast at 6:30, lunch at 12:30 and supper at 4 PM lockdown was at 4:30 PM. They worked from 7 to 3 Monday through Friday with Saturday being kept for recreation in the outside courtyard. Mandela was in the prison from 1964 to 1982 – his prison # was 466/64.
When he talked about Apartheid he described the situation of having to always carry a book with you, and not carrying the book meant jail time – often mothers were taken away from their children in the street for not carrying her book.
When asked what the difference was for him now that Apartheid is abolished – he said – “now I can sit on an empty bench in the park with no fear. Before I could not sit on an empty bench if it was marked White Only or if I did – I had to make sure no one was watching”.
The next part of our tour was on a bus around the island. We had Yasien – a professional story teller who, using humor and stories gave us the history of the island and pointed out the landmarks. He talked about the time that the island was used to keep political prisoners, then to segregate individuals with Leprosy (1846), those afflicted with mental illness, and once again political prisoners.
We learned that work at the quarry was responsible for eye damage in the prisoners both from exposure to the reflected sun and to the dust.
We also learned about the good side of the years of political imprisonment. Many of the prisoners had little more than a grade 6 education when they came, but because others were very educated, politics was widely discussed and there was pressure from the outside world, many left Robben Island with several University degrees earned by correspondence.
A couple of other interesting things – the island has 140 types of birds, many abandoned and wild cats, a great variety of other wild life including Springbok and rabbits. There is also an ambulance – but no hospital and some Cannons that were built to protect Cape Town from enemies during WWII. The only problem was that they were not completed until 1947. We were asked not to relay to President Bush that the Island has “weapons of mass destruction”.
We journeyed back to Capetown and quickly onto the bus to head out for Dinner at a home hosted meal. The family we were hosted by were Patricia and Jack Shaerer. Both are talented artist and musicians, and their niece Erin and son John along with Jack and Axel van Heerden entertained us with a number of familiar jazz selections. We enjoyed a very nice meal and evening, and were even able to see and purchase some of Patricia’s art.
Back to our rooms by 10:30 to get ready for an early morning (5:30) start.