After a day of traveling in groups I was ready to branch off. So my friend Eshley and I got up super early and were off the ship by 8. We walked around the down-town area for a bit and decided to buy tickets to go see Robben Island, an island that was used for prisoners (I'll talk more about that later) at 3pm for that day.
Between the current hour of 9am and 3pm we had some plans to meet up with some people. Eshley has a friend, Tessa, from school that is currently studying abroad in Cape Town…So, we hopped in a cab and headed over to Tessa's home for the current semester. We told the cab driver an address and when we got there and saw the correct street sign we thanked him and hopped out. As soon as we got out we realized even though we saw building 4, we couldn't find building 5 (the building we were looking for). The area we were in seemed very nice and we saw a man in his home washing his Volkswagen. We got his attention and asked him where number 5 was. He smiled and said that the area was a bit confusing…. You see those train tracks right behind my house? Well the odd numbered homes are on the other side of the tracks, you just need to take the little tunnel that goes under the tracks and you'll be right there. We smiled and thanked him and were about to be on our way when he said…I would be careful though!...Huh? It's the middle of the day, look at your home man! We're in a perfectly safe area!...people like to hang in those tunnels and mug passer-bys…especially two girls like yourselves. It was equally confusing as well as frustrating, you're telling me that in the middle of the day, in a perfectly nice neighborhood, we need to be careful in our 10 second walk under the railroad?! I would just peek down and if you see any guys in there, don't go, if there's no one in there, you're fine! Well, there was no other way to get to Tessa's so we took the man's advice. We approached the tunnel apprehensively, peaked in, saw no one, and RAN. This man would have gotten a laugh out of it, this tunnel was so short that you could see the exit before even entering it, and yet here we were, two little foreigners RUNNING through it. We were out before we knew it and waved to our friend across the tracks.
We arrived at Tessa's home and were greated by all of her roommates. Studying abroad at the University of Cape Town is popular and there are lots of foreign students…the program Tessa chose to do though was one that had only 25 students so they were all really close. Seven of them lived in this awesome home that we arrived to. We were greeted by her smiling friends sitting around the table eating pancakes in the backyard. It was such a nice setting and really awesome, refreshing new company. We had planned on meeting up with them so that we could go to a cultural "hub" for the day to a place called Mzoli's. We all sat around and even drank a little pre-lunch wine before getting into a van-cab to go to our destination.
Mzoli's is a really unique awesome place. It is a restaurant located in the center of a town-ship. This restaurant is not the sit-down, order your food and have small-talk with the waiter kind of restaurant that most of us are used to. No. Instead, you walk into a shop and pick out the type of meat you want and how much. Between 7 of us we all paid about 20 Rhand each (around 3 dollars each) for our future lunch. Then, you go outside to an area that is surrounded by about waist high boarded walls and then nothing else. You and your group find a table, sit down and wait for lunch. This place is especially packed on Sundays as most people go to church and then to Mzoli's to enjoy an afternoon with friends. As we waited for our food we listened to the locals playing music. We danced with new friends and enjoyed the atmosphere. This atmosphere was seriously special…everyone was excited, everyone was happy and celebrating nothing but the day itself.
After about 30-45 minutes I saw two of Tessa's friends that I was with for the day coming over to our table all excited with a huge bucket in hands. This bucket was our lunch. There were no plates, no utensils, and napkins were suddenly a hot commodity. We all just dug into this bucket with our bare-hands and gobbled down our lunch. I had chicken, sausage, and I was even convinced to try lamb (I think the wine has a bit to do with that one). Before we knew it, we were left with an empty bucket, greasy hands, stained faces, and the feeling of being a whole lot closer to people I had just met a few short hours ago. After lunch we continued to dance and sing and hang out with everyone else for a while and we would have stayed longer if it weren't for our tour that we'd signed up for earlier. Mzoli's was truly special and one of my favorite cultural experiences I've had thus far on SAS.
Eshley and headed back down to the water-front area for a quick change of mood. We went from visiting an area full of excitement and life, to an area that showed a dark part of South Africa's past. It wasn't the ideal order of activities, but it was a place we both found very important to see, and knew there wouldn't be much time in the next few days to go. We got there just in time and got in line to board the ferry. As I got in line I noticed my roommate, Laura from Nebraska, standing alone in line a few people ahead of me. She told me that she also found in very important to go to Robben Island and couldn't find anyone who had an opening in their schedule that day to go, so she just bought a ticket on her own. Turns out we saw another SASer who had been doing the same thing, so the 4 of us boarded the ferry together.
Robben island is a small island off the coast of cape-town. If you're familiar with Alcatraz, it reminded me a bit of that. This island was were many black criminals were held. The thing is, most of the criminals were only criminals because they publicly opposed apartheid (doesn't sound like such a crime huh?). Of-course there were some serious criminals as well, but most were people like Nelson Mandela who were opposing the corruption and inequality.
As we got there we boarded a bus that would take us around the Island. I sat down next to a 20 year old boy who was French but had been living in Cape Town for 8 years. He told me that he had been to Robben island many times before but was showing around a friend from out of town for the day. We listened to some facts as we passed by different sights and my new friend told me some additional facts that he'd picked up on his 4 previous visits. I asked my bus-buddy about his home in comparison with South Africa and I was very surprised to hear him say that he felt much more at home in South Africa than the country that had housed him for the first 12 years of his life. He told me that without question he will raise his family in South Africa, and be buried there. It's always interesting to see a person identify more with a place other than their home. I always question when that happens, what is it that makes them feel that way? What is it about their technical home that makes it easy for them to leave behind? I can identify on some level or another, I do have a very strong connection to a country other than my home, I've lived in it for an extended period of time, and I've thought very much about going back one day, but when I think of the idea of leaving my "home" for good it's a very uncomfortable feeling.
At one point we stopped and looked at an area where prisoners were forced to dig lime. The prisoners were given no supplies, just their bare hands, and were told to dig. They were also given no breaks throughout the day. The effects of the lime on these prisoners were vast. Many developed sicknesses such as cancer. Nelson Mandela himself, to this day, has had many complications resulting from his time spent digging lime. He also cannot produce tears due to this. At one point on the bus tour we stopped and go out around the shore. It sounds weird to say, but the views from this island were absolutely breathtaking. We could see the coast, table-mountain towering over the city, and the beautiful waters surrounding. It was hard to enjoy the views as they were juxtaposed with such corruption and awful treatment that had once went on behind me. I imagined how the prisoners felt as they dug lime and looked out at the beautiful view…did they find it as beautiful? Did they see it as hope? Did they resent it?
When the bus tour was over we met a man who had been imprisoned on Robben island. He told us that he was there for 5 years after having publically opposed the apartheid. He told us all about the terrible conditions of the island. He explained that it wasn't until humanitarian workers came in years after the prison had been established that they even received beds. We got to go around to the different cells, including Nelson Mandela's. In each cell there was a picture of a prisoner that lived in that cell and a story about them. The thing with these tours is they are very institutionalized, as they must be, the bad thing about that is that the time is very limited. I went into each cell and read story after story, and before I'd gotten through even half of them, it was time to leave! It was interesting though to see these stories, to hear from the prisoners themselves. Some of the stories were as simple as talking about a safety pin that a prisoner hid in his cell and used to keep his blanket around him.
When the tour was ending I asked our guide…How is it that you come back here everyday and show us your past? He gave me an answer that I was sure he'd given before, which bumped around the fact that he thinks its necessary to show everyone and it's an important place in their history. This type of answer made perfectly good sense, and it wasn't at all surprising, so I pushed the envelope a bit, wanting the answer that he doesn't give to every else, and asked, do you enjoy it? Or is it painful for you? He looked at me with clear pain in his eyes, and before even opening his mouth I knew the answer. I could tell he was holding back and didn't really want to open up so he responded with it's a steady way to put food on the table. I knew that was my cue to stop pushing, understood. I thanked him for showing us, told him that I agreed that this was an important place, not to be forgotten, shook his hand and walked away.
We got back on the ferry and made our way back to the shores of cape-town. On the way back, I sat next to a man who goes by his last name of Cooper. He told me that he was originally from Johannesburg but currently doing construction work in Cape Town. He explained to me that a bunch of workers were brought from Jo-burg for the time being. He told me how different Cape Town and Jo-burg are, and how much he missed his home. The workers are apparently only given one day off a week and during their one day off for this week a bunch of the workers decided to go visit Robben Island. I was so impressed…if I had to work construction 6 days a week, I imagine that my day off would be spent in a bed or on the couch.
We got off the ferry and hopped in a cab and made our way back to Tessa's for the evening. When we got there we were told that after we left Mzoli's, she and her friends stayed for another hour or so just dancing and hanging out. She then told us that within that hour they consumed a little too much alcohol-- which explained to us why at 8 at night her roommates were just waking up. We went to her friends apartment to hang out with some of her friends. In that apartment I tried a type of South African peanut butter called "Yum-Yum Peanut Butter" that was by far the most delicious Peanut Butter I've ever had. It's slogan was "Creamy and Dreamy Peanut Butter" and it was being said by a Peanut wearing a dress with blonde hair. It may have seemed weird, but it didn't lie, that Peanut butter was super creamy, dreamy, and delicious. We hung out with one of Tessa's RA's named Wes and his friend from home named Jon. Jon and Wes are both from Zimbabwe and were some of the funniest most entertaining guys I've met so far. We sat around for a few hours just hanging and laughing. There we were, hanging out on couches with people from different states, different countries, no TV, and the entertainment of only each other. Those couple hours spent on that couch reminded me SOOOOOO much of YearCourse (my gap-year in Israel). The idea of a bunch of people from all different backgrounds, coming together in a place equally foreign to each of them getting so close and just spending the night hanging out was such a reminder of all the great times I had on YearCourse and all the great friends I made…if any YCers are reading this (which you better be J!) that's you I'm talking about! On SAS when we are in countries, we are always running around trying to make the most of the short time we have there, so to just hang out with nice people and not feel pressed to make a tour, or climb a mountain with enough time to come back and go out that night, was very refreshing and a nice way to finish off the day.
I'm working on SA Days 4, 5 and 6 and will talk to you after Mauritius!
Steph
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