After driving into the Waterfront to have lunch (I had an ostrich burger - was absolutely massive. But was lovely. Probably up there in terms of my best ever burgers) we got the ferry over to Robben Island. For those of you who don't know, Robben Island was where the political prisoners of apartheid were incarcerated, notably including Nelson Mandela, who spent 19 years on the island.
Before being a prison and a symbol for the disgusting regime that was apartheid, the island served as a leper colony - basically a place for those with leprosy to go and die. So there isn't a great deal of happiness associated with the island.
After the 30 minute boat journey from the mainland, we got on a bus and were shown around the island. It's a pretty bleak and desolate place, and while there are some people who live there (for some reason) it feels pretty inhospitable. While it was a beautiful sunny day in Cape Town, on the island was a low, cold fog that enveloped everything. It was a metaphor - despite the progress made since, the things that happened on Robben Island (and all that it stands for) means that the place will never really see sunlight. (I'm sure it will literally, but I was being profound).
Our guide then took us through the prison gates and into the prison. After looking around the prison yard, we were taken into F Section - a communal prison area. We were shown a few rooms and a few other bits and pieces, and the guide revealed that he had spent 9 years in F Section back in the day. We were then taken into B Section, which was a solitary cell section. After being shown the small garden that B Section inmates were allowed to look out of their windows at, we walked past the former cell of Nelson Mandela. The obligatory pictures were taken, and it was humbling to see the small, cramped space he was forced to spend 18 years in (with no bed and just a bucket to go to the toilet in) and the forgiveness that he shows now.
Shortly after seeing Mandela's cell the tour ended, and the obvious theme is forgiveness. Our guide spent 9 tortorous years on Robben Island, but in order to allow others to heal and find forgiveness, he shows them around the place that he must have awful memories of. There was a great quote from one of the inmates about Robben Island - which pretty much sums up the situation, and why the former inmates such as our guide, and Nelson Mandela, are willing to allow people to visit it and see it in it's former state, rather than taking out anger and frustration by destroying it.
This pretty much sums up it - from Ahmed Kathrada (who spent 26 years on the island):
“While we will not forget the brutality of apartheid, we will not want Robben Island to be a monument of our hardship and suffering. We would want it to be a triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil.
“A triumph of wisdom and largeness of spirit against small minds and pettiness; a triumph of courage and determination over human frailty and weakness; a triumph of the new South Africa over the old.”
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