Hello from Cape Town!
After traveling for around 24 hours straight all five of us (Michelle, Annie, Alison, Sarah and I) have arrived in Cape Town!! We're staying at a pretty awesome hostel and we're sharing out room with two other people, Garland and Fabrice (from Madagascar!!).
When we got in last night we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and headed straight to an Irish pub for a beer and nachos. The DJ was pretty excellent so we all got up to dance but then we realized how tired we were so we ended up heading back to the hostel. We hung out for a bit but I started getting really tired and headed upstairs to bed.
Today I went to Robben Island with Michelle, Allison, Sarah and Fabrice (Robben Island is where the South African government held political prisoners during the Apartheid. It's where Mandela was imprisoned for 17 years and where Sobukwe stayed for about 20). We took a 30 minute ferry ride from the mainland to the island and hopped on a bus for a tour of the island. We saw the prison and some of the other buildings on the island, like the church, a small schoolhouse, and a clinic etc. The quarry is were the prisoners were sent to do hard labour during the day. Because the stone is so bright in the sunlight, and the prisoners were not given sunglasses, most of the prisoners suffered (and still suffer) from eye problems. Apparently, Mandela's tear ducts don't even work. After the tour we got of the bus and met a former inmate who took us on a tour of the actual compounds that held the inmates. We saw Mandela's cell close up. It was about 6feet by 4feet.
Interesting things to note/ really boring things that only IDS/history students would care about: During the Apartheid, political prisoners on Robben Island were originally placed in the same compounds as the regular prisoners, but after noticing how the political prisoners were influencing the other prisoners, the guards ended up having to separate them. Also, the guards had to be regularly changed to prevent them from getting to close with the inmates. Also, since most of the political prisoners were highly educated, they each taught illiterate inmates how to read. Their motto was "each one teach one". In later years, prisoners were allowed to go to college via correspondence.
Today, some former inmates as well as guards still live on Robben Island, and there's even an elementary school on the island for their kids to go to.
Today was really awesome. The weather was nice (probably around 20 degrees and sunny) and it looks like it'll be the same tomorrow. I'm planning on hiking up table mountain (google it, it's intense) and then maybe go to cape point to see some seals and penguins. (Cape point is the southern most tip of the African continent)
Anyhoo, I'm having a really great time and I'll hopefully be posting some pictures soon.
Love hannah
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