Week 3: Robben Island, Mama Africa, and WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!

Last Sunday, we spent the morning visiting Robben Island Prison, where political prisoners were kept for many years before and during apartheid. Famous prisoners included Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, current South African President Jacob Zuma, Robert Sobukwe, and many others. A former prisoner showed us around and told us about his own experiences in the prison.

Much like the outside world during the apartheid era, the prisoners were split into units based on race and were treated differently so as to divide them and prevent an uprising.

White prisoners received larger and nicer meals, as well as better living quarters.

All of the prisoners were forced into hard labor at a lime quarry, where they were so overworked that many died from health complications related to the work.

Nelson Mandela's eyes were so damaged from the constant exposure to the sun that he had to have many surgeries after his release, and as president, the press could not take flash pictures of him.
The former prisoners would take shelter in a nearby cave whenever they could, and they also used this opportunity to privately teach one another to read and write.

After the prisoners were released, many came back to visit and left a rock in this pile.

We got to see Mandela's single cell, which is how all of the particularly politically dangerous prisoners were kept: isolated and alone.

We also saw the small garden where he once hid the manuscript of his first autobiography, and I got a picture holding it outside the garden! I highly recommend reading it as an overview of the course of the anti-apartheid struggle, but read the abridged version if you're short on time.

After coming back to the Waterfront, I popped into the Cape Town Book Fair. I had already seen Auma Obama as a part of the book fair, but I was interested in attending a few more sessions. I got some fantastic books on music and some magazines, and met a few authors. I also chatted with a few people at the African Economic Research Consortium tent and got a bunch of free booklets on their recent studies! They also told me to pop by Nairobi for a visit (yes... .because that is so easy) and to apply for an internship next summer.

Then it was a fairly regular work week. On Monday I work late, until about 8:00, and then met my roommates at a burger joint (not exactly my ideal place to eat). Everything on the menu was meat, except for mushrooms. So I ate my mushrooms and we listened to a reggae band-- the bassist's mother had been in the store that my roommate works at, and had insisted  that we go listen to her son play that night, and then she made the reservation for us. So there we were! We talked to the band afterwards and they invited to us to come hear them play elsewhere and they joked that they would make me come up on stage and sing with them... so I'm not sure I want to go.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I had more chances to go out into the field at work. On Tuesday, I got to hear a script that I helped write read to study participants in the coloured neighborhood of Parkwood. It was really cool to watch, even though I couldn't understand the interviews, as they were all in Afrikaans. On Wednesday, I went to a township for the first time. We were in Khayelitsha, which is ENORMOUS-- it's got to be larger than the city center of Cape Town. This was a really interesting experience. I began to notice that there is a wide array of levels of income in townships. While many people live in shacks (although sometimes they can afford houses but choose not to buy them, since they have homes in the Eastern Cape and will return to them after they earn some money in the city), others live in large, beautiful homes. The cost of living in the township is much lower than in the city, of course, so many people choose to live there even when they have the financial ability to leave. The other thing I noticed was that absolutely everyone owns a TV, regardless of financial status. All of these interviews were conducted in Xhosa, which is a click language, and it was so interesting to hear it spoken all day long! I would love to learn it at some point.
Thursday night was one roommate's last night. I was home sick during the day and feeling terrible, but felt that I had to say goodbye to her properly. We had dinner at Mama Africa on Long Street, which serves tons of traditional African food. I couldn't eat much, but I had crocodile, which tasted like a tough piece of shrimp. It's quite good.
On Friday, I returned to work, and all of the interns (I believe there are 10 of us now, although some were out sick) left work at 5:30 to go to the junior rugby world championship game! It was South Africa versus New Zealand, and South Africa was the underdog. Since I had already seen a match, I actually knew most of the rules and could follow the game fairly well. This made it even more fun, since I didn't have to keep asking someone what had just happened. It was a fairly close game, but South Africa pulled ahead around halftime and stayed ahead until the end!! It was an amazing game, and the audience was so excited when we won! I had my South African flag out and the whole stadium did the wave about 8 times.
Our Saturday was a relatively calm one. We had been planning to travel along the Garden Route, which is the southern coast of South Africa, but we were all sick and it was supposed to rain all weekend. So instead, we finally had a chance to check out our neighborhood. We went to an excellent market just a few blocks away, which was full of delicious foods, from fresh bread to fantastic sushi. We had crepes and bought some fresh fruit and bread to take home with us. We'll definitely be back whenever we have a Saturday free (although this is pretty rare).
We then went to the Thailand Trade Show that was happening the local conference center. We wandered around and looked at fashion and jewelry, and bought some "just add water" curries. After that, we wandered around the Waterfront, popped into the Cape Town Diamond Museum and learned about the history of diamond mining here in South Africa, and then came home to catch up on The Bachelorette! We also spent a couple of hours at a nearby bar watching the Spain vs France football game (YAY SPAIN!) and made some new friends! We had never been to this bar before, since we usually go to the one on our block. The servers were so nice and chatted with us all evening. When my roommate didn't like her meal, they not only gave her another one for free and didn't charge her for the first meal, but they also gave us free drinks. I had yellowtail, which was pretty great. Needless to say, we'll definitely be back! We need a fun place to watch the Euro Cup and later the Olympics, since our TV doesn't work.
Today (Sunday), we all finally got to sleep in and be a bit lazy. This evening, we're going to hear The Creation (Haydn) with the Philharmonia Choir of Cape Town and a local orchestra. We got second row orchestra seats for only R120! I love how relatively inexpensive things are here!
More updates to come soon!