Thursday, January 06, 2005
Day 4 Robbin Island and Waterfront
6 January 2005
Today we visited Robben Island. We barely made it to the Victoria and Alfred waterfront in time for our 10 AM boat ride to the island. But we did. The Robben Island Museum folks almost gave our tickets away to another set of students from Caroll (Carrol?) College, because the names sound similar in a noisy room
The island is famous because Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for political “crimes.” Now, the entire island is a museum. And, former prisoners are the tour guides, providing a first-hand account of life on the island. Because we are an educational group and because we requested it, we walked around the island instead of taking a bus as the tourists do.
Here is the group going into the prison.
Here is a picture of a prison cell.
Our tour guides were Lionel Davis, a former political prisoner, and his daughter Sandra Davis. One of the highlights was a walk to the limestone quarry where Mandela and the others mined limestone without a purpose. While working in the quarry, the limestone dust got in their eyes, and the glare from the sun was blinding. Many of the ex-prisoners have had recent eye surgeries and wear dark glasses. The next picture shows us in the quarry.
After visiting Robben Island, we did some shopping at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. The first-world shops, harbor atmosphere, and music provided an enjoyable mix.
We’re having a great time and everyone is safe. Tomorrow we visit the Amy Biehl Foundation and intend to hit the beach in the afternoon.
Thanks for checking in on us!
Matthew Heun
Day 3 Langa and Athlone
5 January 2005
The past day and a half we have been enjoying good food and sleeping. Our travels have not extended too far and it didn’t really seem like we were really in Africa. However, today we certainly realized we weren’t in the United States anymore. Today’s events really threw us into the culture and history of South Africa. We started at the District 6 museum that commemorated the 60,000 people that were forced to leave their homes so that it could become a white area. The buildings were demolished and former residents only had their memories of their former home. On a cloth that displayed messages from former residents one person wrote, “Happy days. District Six. Living was cheap. Life Precious. Now in Hanover Park, living’s expensive and life is cheap.” It was signed 29 De Korte Staat, Distrik Ses, Ronnie Cloete. Her quote speaks of the uniqueness of the area and the tragedy that was to come after District Six.
After our visit there we went to visit an old black township, Langa, which is still unofficially a black township today. We started the tour at the cemetery which was full of fresh graves of people in their late 40s and early 50s. The guide said the cemetery had filled up in the last ten years due to the AIDS epidemic. From there we moved to another sad sight, an orphanage where most of the children have physical disabilities and mental impairments. These children have been found in drains and dropped off on the doorstep. A new child arrives almost everyday and now there are 62 children and a 16 person staff. For the most part, the children die in the orphanage, before the age of 18. Not far down the road we visited a place with a little more hope. It was an organization called Love Life and it is a place for young people to hang out and get educated about AIDS prevention.
Finally we drove though the townships that were essentially shacks and we witnessed an appalling level of poverty, up close and personal. The conditions were slightly better in the colored area, for people of mixed descent. For our journal today were asked where we would live in Cape Town and it seems like the only answer is a white area. Though official laws are no longer in place about where one can live, unwritten rules seem to apply.
Today was eye opening and leaves us with many questions to be answered in the next couple of weeks. We are very much enjoying the weather and many of us got our first taste of sunburn. We discovered that the oven does not work. And we are getting used to driving on the left side of the road as well as recovering from jet lag. All is well here and we hope all is well at home as well. Thanks for checking up on us.
~Kaelyn Sullivan
Days 1 & 2 Arrival
3-4 January 2005
Professor Heun told us during our first meeting to expect the unexpected in South Africa. Man was he right. However, when he told us that, I figured the unexpected would be waiting for us in South Africa…not calling us at roughly10:45pm (when we were still in Meijer buying things for the trip) telling us that we would be leaving by bus at 1 AM from Calvin instead of by plane at 5:30 AM. Our flight had been canceled because our crew was sick, so we were off to Detroit to catch a plane about the same time as our flight in GR that would take us to Atlanta. That was a crazy night, especially for us non-Michiganders who had just gotten in and were still not packed yet!
Regardless of the earlier departure we were on the road to Detroit by 1:20 AM and we even arrived a bit early for our flight. Next we were off to Atlanta to meet up with 3 people who were flying directly there to catch our connecting flight to Africa.
From Atlanta we embarked on our journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Town, South Africa with a stop on Sal Island in Cape Verde and Johannesburg for refueling, drop off and pick up. During this two-day adventure, we entertained ourselves by watching movies, listening to music, and playing games on the interactive TV screen that was attached to the back of each seat.
We finally arrived at Cape Town about 2pm on Tuesday the 4th. After picking up our luggage and going through customs we waited for our vans to arrive so we could go unpack and shower at Cornerstone University. However, once the vans got there we realized that there weren’t enough seats in these two vans, so we had to wait for a complementary car to show up.
A while later it showed up and the next adventure was watching the drivers learn how to drive backward sticks since South Africa drives on the left side of the road instead of the right side like us. That was a good time. J When we arrived at Cornerstone we all took showers and got ready to go eat at The Africa Café in downtown Cape Town. This was a very interesting experience. There was no need to order because everyone ate the same thing…everything. The feast was made up of dishes from all over Africa and if you liked something you could order as much of it as you would like…however there were so many dishes to get through you were pretty much stuffed by the time the last dish. The food was great, but the entertainment was the best.
While dessert was being served the staff sang and danced for us and even sang Happy Birthday to me (it was my 21st birthday!) in two different languages and gave me a really cool hand-painted candlestick. That was an unforgettable birthday! By the time we left the restaurant it was about 10 PM, so we headed back to where we were staying and went to bed, because it had been almost 2 days since we had any real sleep. Well I am off to go experience more of the South African culture and I hope you all keep checking in and keeping up to date with our travels and adventures. I miss you all and can’t wait to see you all when I get back!
Love Ya Lots~
Audra Groenendal
Safe and Sound
Greetings everyone! We made it safely to Cape Town. We’ve had sproadic internet connection, so we’re only now just posting. More to come in a few minutes.