Robben Island

Sunday, June 17th, 2007: A visit to South Africa without going to Robben Island is hardly complete but that goes for so many other things that can hardly be crammed into our weekends. We took the ferry out Sunday morning. Lucky for us it didn't rain. The sun was out and table mountain was visible. It took about half an hour to get to the island and when we got there, there were 2 buses waiting take us round. There were various buildings and of course the prison.

Each with a story of its own. The most notable ones for me were the Robert Sobuke house where Sobuke, a political activist was kept in solitary confinement for 4 years. He was not allowed to speak to anyone during that time, not even the guards. The house is enclosed in a small compound, and he could within walk that area only but speak to no-one. Other prisoners would file past the compound, they would salute him and as a result get punished for it. His way of communicating was to walk to the perimeter fence, scoop some soil and as they walked past, he would let the soil filter through his fingers to the ground.