Robben Island

sorry my posts have to be strictly summary in order to catch up BUT

We headed out to Robben Island on Friday.

We took a ferry out and back.

It was a really cool experience. We got to see Robert Subuqwe's confinement area on the island along with most of the furniture and letters he wrote to his wife. His wife and their romance along with his drive to end Apartheid really moved me.

We were able to see the limestone fields that Nelson Mandela dug in everyday. Then we went through the prison and saw the cells of the political prisoners and read some of their stories.

We then met with a man named Thulani and he was inprisoned along with Mandela and knows him personally. He spoke of the hardships they endured in jail as well as his admiration not only for Mandela but all of the prisoners as they all contributed to Mandela's journey and mission.

The whole room was silent when he started to tell us about the mental and physical torture he endured on Robben Island. He explained that when he father came to visit him in prison, he was shot in the back and the prison guards came to Thulani to taunt him and tell him they killed his father, even though he had survived the attack. He also told us that the guards would pull him out of his cell for play time and string him up and mess with him. "Messing with him" consisted of shocking him, putting cigarettes out on his private parts, punching and hitting him when he could not defend himself, and yelling at him. The guards dehumanized these men in every way and it's hard to believe this sort of abuse went on so shortly ago just because of someones race. Robben Island and Thulanis's story really opened my eyes to Apartheid and how awful it was for the people that were willing to stand up and fight.