A Trip to Robben Island

As a history teacher, I was pretty stoked to wake up this morning and head to Robben Island, home to the prison where Mandela was held following the Rivonia Trial.

The day started early- even earlier than the 7:30am wakeup call, when I woke up at midnight thinking it was morning.  Damn jetlag.  Managed to get back to bed until the wakeup call, when I awoke thinking it was the middle of the night.  Again, damn jetlag.

Headed down to breakfast at the restaurant in our hotel.  Thought it would be a continental breakfast, but to my surprise was good and hot!  Lots of options and even some to-go bags...or at least that's what we took them as.  The view at breakfast was breath-taking.  Here's a pic so you can get the idea...

Table Mountain in the distance

After breakfast we walked down to the waterfront and got on the ferry to Robben Island.  Learned that robben is seal in Afrikaans because the island was inhabited by tons of them during the Dutch colonization.  The ride was about an hour.  

Arriving at the prison, we learned that there were three different parts- a maximum security prison (which held political prisoners), a prison for general criminal offenses, and a separate "prison"for political prisoner Robert Sobukwe, member of the PAC, the ANC's military wing.

Prisoners at Robben Island were allowed 1 visitor every 6 months for a 30 minute time frame.  During the visits, they were only allowed to converse in languages which could be understood by the guards and the wardens.  If you spoke a native language they didn't understand, you couldn't converse.  Likewise, even mail coming in and out of the prison was heavily censored, often being cut up and preventing messages from fully reaching the prisoners.

We got to see the isolation block of cells and Mandela's final cell while in that prison.  While I already knew that the manuscript to Mandela's autobiography was largely written while imprisoned in Robben Island, I got to learn the story behind how it was done and ultimately published.  Mandela and other prisoners were afforded the opportunity to study, and during this study time is when he worked on the book.  Because he knew he would be punished for writing it during this time, he had it buried in a courtyard area.  While it was discovered when a wall was being built around the area, one copy remained, and it was smuggled out by a fellow prisoner, behind the pages of a photo album.

Courtyard where the manuscript was hidden

The book itself is over 700 pages, which is why I got the e-reader version.  Will start it post-trip!

We finished up at Robben Island and headed back to the waterfront area to grab some dinner before our class met at 6.  Class was informal addressing social and educational issues in current day South Africa.  Have to think of a topic to cover in the research we will do.

Ending the night on a much lighter note, enjoying wine and rusks in the lounge upstairs with some classmates, all the while outing a bravo celeb who last I checked had a gf for being the expert in an "ask the gay guy" column expert.  Double life?  Needless to say, we are all laughing.  We need to call TMZ!