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Waking up today, weather was a bit damp. Our group walked together through the misty rain toward the waterfront down the street from our hotel. The weather seemed incredibly fitting for where we were headed: Robben Island. Used as a leaper colony and then as a prison, Robben Island only shut its gates as a government establishment in 1991. Now, it is a museum used to remind the world if the horrors of apartheid government.
What I found most interesting about this place was that our tour guide was a former prisoner. He told us all about the horror of being a political on Robben Island and the different kinds of torture and hard labor that prisoners were forced to endure. He told us that many prisoners were blinded because of forced hard labor at the salt mine. He also told us of the ways that prisoners literally risked their lives in order to help educate their fellow prisoners. Those who could read and write smuggled in reading material to help teach those who were illiterate. Though in later years, educational materials were supplied, during the beginning of Apartheid, smuggling in clips of newspapers to use to teach reading could be punished with beatings.
While we were there, we also got to see the cell where former president Nelson Mandela served much of his prison sentence. It was mind blowing to see that the size and conditions of the prisoners' cells were worse than those designated for the guard dogs.
Overall, the experience was informative but also somewhat horrifying. It blows my mind to think about how horribly people treated each other. Yet there was also much to be said about the human spirit and how, even in the most debilitating circumstances, the prisoners found ways to survive and to help get themselves educated.
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