maandag 31 oktober 2011

30th October

Today, Sunday, we visited Robbeneiland, the prison where Nelson Mandela was captured for 18 years. In total he was in prison 27 years though.  Fortunately I bought the tickets 3 weeks ago online  as it  was sold out until 7th November
We did a tour of the island with a bus. It is very deserted. There still live 318 people on the island. Mostly ex-prisoners who choose to live there. I cannot imagine it as there is really nothing; no shops, no restaurants, nothing that can be positively perceived. There is also a school but there are only a few students.

This is the quarry where prisoners had to work





This is the school building


The guides in the prison are ex-prisoners...It's amazing how these people can do this after what they have been through. They have an amazing power to forgive those who tortured them.
Our guide explained he was captured 10 years on the island. The most horrible thing was the mental torture.
The mail they received was forged and so they received letters where their wife called for divorce  while that was totally  not true.  If they were ill they got one pill that made them on purpose even more ill. So as a consequence they did not go to the doctor anymore and many of them died in their cell.
Only a few succeeded to escape from the island.






The black people (bantus) got less food than the coloureds







 Mandela's number in prison 466 in the year 1964:   46664 is a number you see everywhere.
 It was an impressive visit. The feels is very creepy to me. I was happy we were back o the boat.

It was good we did Table Mountain the day before as it was closed due to the weather on Saturday

#ibmcsc south africa

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