The first thing that Jessica and I did today was take a cab over to the Company Gardens. This is an area in the city that is surrounded by Parliament buildings, the governor’s house, and the National Library of South Africa. Nearby are also the Jewish Holocaust museum and the South Africa Museum. The first part of the gardens is an area full of different colored roses. The buses were very large, and luckily, the flowers were in full bloom. As I was walking through, a bird flew at me unexpectedly and I gasped so loudly a native laughed at me. I was laughing too. The next parts of the gardens were shaded by trees and had lots of green lawns and native/invasive plants. It was very peaceful, and there was a cool breeze blowing, making it a great place to relax a little.
Because it was so close, we went to the South Africa Museum. I got to learn about South Africa rock art. The most common way to engrave in the stones back then was hitting another rock against it. Many of the rocks were also painted. The most common colors used were red, black, and white. The white paint is the one that comes off the fastest, because it does not stick to the rock like the other two colors. The red color is a powder mixed with an animal’s blood; this is the color that stays on the best out of them all. They had on exhibit an old container that had been used to store the paints that were used. It was dated back to 100,000 years ago! This was one of the first things that had been found suggesting that people stored things at that time. It also showed how important the paintings were that the paint was saved for so long. It had been found in a cave underneath layers of dirt and dust that had protected it. Other exhibits included marine life, including whale bones, sharks, dolphins, and sting rays.
The two of us then met up with a friend and took a ferry over to Robben’s Island. This is where Nelson Mandela had been held as a political prisoner for 18 years. The other 9 years of his captivity were in two other prisons. He was held in prison block B. In prison block A, 30 to 40 men were kept in one room and had to sleep on the floor, until the 1970s when beds were brought in for them. This was done because of the many back problems the prisoners had. They were locked up from 4pm until 6am. In the morning they had porridge for breakfast and were sent to work. When they finished working it was dinner time and that concluded their day. In the mass rooms, the prisoners would secretly teach each other how to read and talk about the things that were happening during Apartheid. The worst area for prisoners was block C. This is where they were sent as punishment for acting out. They were trapped in their cells for 23 hours in a day and starved most of the time. A typical stint in this block was about 4 months long. The guards were very abusive and would beat them with their batons or they would put rags over their faces and dump water on them. To humiliate the prisoners, they would be kept naked in the offices handcuffed to chairs, where people were constantly coming through. The worst thing that happened to them was they would be buried up to their necks in the dirt and would then be urinated on. The stories were horrible. While imprisoned, Mandela was sent to work in the limestone quarry. They were not provided protection from the sun and dust. Many people went blind from it; Mandela had his tear ducts removed because they were filled with dust from the rocks. As punishment, they had to chip away at the limestone and carry it to point b. From there they would have to carry it back to where they originally chipped it from. There were no bathrooms for the prisoners, so they all went in this cave in the rocks. It smelt horrible, but they could not use the bushes because they feared the guards would think they were escaping. If this happened, the guards had the order to shoot to kill. This cave is also known as the “University.” It is where Mandela taught his co-prisoners to read in the dust. The guards never went down there because of the smell.
Today, the island is used as a museum for what happened. We saw where the 200 inhabitants live, who are former prisoners and guards (ironically the crime rate is at 0% here), the church, a lepers graveyard, and an old military radio station. Before the island was used as a prison, people with leprosy had been sent there to die. They were separated by both race and gender while there. The prison was built on the mass graves of the dead blacks, while the whites had a graveyard with markers. The children that live on the island go to school on the mainland, so every day they have a 30 minute ferry ride back and forth.
Pictured are some roses from the garden, an outfit from a tribal dance, and Nelson Mandela's cell.
-->
No comments:
Post a Comment