November 4, 2015 - The Great Cape (Town) Escape Part 3

Day 4!

In the morning I was too sick to go anywhere or do anything. The aquarium was on the list for the day, so Kristoffer took the kids to the aquarium without me.  

By the time they came home I was starting to feel slightly better, and by the late afternoon the siege on my stomach ended.  Our kids love to be at home so they enjoyed playing in our little apartment with the few new toys they got.  But they also were a little "cooped up" so to speak.  So we headed back to the Waterfront in the afternoon to walk around a bit and eat some pizza (upon request - but none for me!). We also rode the ferris wheel - this time I was there! - and bought the tourist package of cheesy photos!  It was really fun there because the weather was gorgeous, there were lots of musicians playing, and it was just a beautiful afternoon.  

Not a bad family selfie on the ferris wheel - especially considering my morning!

We started delegating bedtime stories to Grace, who is really improving in her reading and seems to like to read to Aya especially.  Noah will catch up soon as he is now starting to sound out words.

We were supposed to have a night out to go shopping without the kids (loved that babysitting service we hired!), but I needed a good night's sleep after that stomach bug so we missed it.  I'm just so glad it was only one day of being sick and not more!

Day 5!

Everybody feeling well today and we had a big morning planned - to see the penguins at Boulders Beach!  This was my favorite thing that we did together on this trip.  We just had a great morning - we got awesome coffee from the shop I mentioned in another blog (Cafe Neo at Mouille Point - go there!) and took the most beautiful drive over Chapman's Peak to get to Boulder's Beach for seeing the penguins.  It is the most beautiful drive I've ever taken - just breathtaking.  The kids were not quite as blown away (Can we have the iPad?!?) but Kristoffer and I loved that drive.  And then to see the penguins on the beach you take a bit of a walk, along which you find many escaped penguins hanging around near the walkway.  Grace was our best penguin spotter and Aya was saying "anana pengi" (another penguin) the whole way on my back (when Aya was in the Ergo on my back we called her "Aya Backpack" and while she was skeptical at first, she did come to really like being back there!).  We loved watching the penguins - especially the ones trying to get out of the huge waves to go fish or coming in from fishing.  It was a wonderful morning! 

Hard to capture the view during our drive but it was just incredible...

We started penguin spotting right away on our walk...

(too bad Aya was looking the other away!)

Peek-a-boo!

We found out from the guy at the gift shop that the rock you see out in the ocean is called "Noah's Ark!" so we took a picture of our Noah with his rock.  

There is a small beach by the penguins for people...you can see South African children swimming and playing in the water.  There was a lady swimming around the rocks to go closer to the penguins.  Just having a great time.  We thought we would try it out but HOLY MOLY that water was freezing! It was so cold that it hurt our feet!  South Africans are tough, man!  Get us back to the warm waters of East Africa!

A post-penguin cookie was greatly appreciated...

Just after the penguins our day took a downturn.  On the very mountainous drive back to Cape Town Grace's ears had a really hard time adjusting to the changing altitude and pressure. She was in a lot of pain (later found out officially from our Dr here in Dar that she has a small tear in her ear drum), which made it even harder that the restaurant we planned to go to for an outdoor lunch picnic was closed on Mondays!  ACK!  So we went to our backup plan restaurant but it took some time (and me physically running to a pharmacy to buy pain medication!) to calm all hungry (Aya), tired (Noah), and hurting (Grace) children down.  Once the Tylenol kicked in, the kids were happy to be in the kitchen making and baking their own gingerbread cookies.  

I assure you, I really appreciated this particular glass of wine as we ate their delicious lunch buffet.

Back at our apartment in the evening, the babysitter came again and Kristoffer and I headed out for Christmas shopping for the minions. We went "off the list" for dinner and that was a mistake.  We had not a great meal, but did have a lovely evening out at the Waterfront - we love that place! - and it was fun to buy Christmas presents for the kids.  Although we could have stayed there for weeks more to check out more playgrounds!  More restaurants!  More shopping (for ourselves! That would have been nice, but my stomach bug killed that night!)...the next morning we had to pack up to leave the Green Point neighborhood of Cape Town and head to some new places. Wait for it...!

LMW

November 3, 2015 - The Great Cape (Town) Escape Part 2

Day 3!

One gift that Kristoffer gave me during our trip to Cape Town was:  Robben Island.  I took an amazing class in high school called Odyssey, which was a blend of history, literature, art and culture. We did an indepth unit of study on South Africa and apartheid, and it has always been of special interest to me since that time.  I knew that going to Cape Town, a trip to Robben Island had to happen.  But the trip takes 4 hours and is not very "little kid" friendly.  It is a 4-hour trip involving a round trip ferry ride to and from the island, a bus ride around the island, and a walk through some parts of the prison.  It was fascinating to say the least, but not super interactive for kids.  I was afraid that some component would go wrong, or Aya would be screaming, or the kids would have a meltdown and ruin the experience for me.  I would have preferred to go with Kristoffer, but he gave me the gift of a morning to myself, knowing how much I wanted to go there.  

The highlight of the trip is that the tour guides on the bus and in the prison are all former prisoners on the island.  One of them, Sedick Levy (prisoner number 60/63 - which means the 60th prisoner in 1963, the year of his incarceration), was my guide on the bus.  He was soft-spoken but passionate.  Seemed like a kind, wise soul.  He was imprisoned on Robben Island for 12 years for activities in protest to apartheid laws.  He was a leader of the Coloured People's Congress, accused by the government of being a terrorist.  His organization eventually merged with other activist political parties to form the Congress Alliance which drafted the Freedom Charter. 

My second guide was Lulamile Madolo (I did not get his prison number but he entered Robben Island in 1977), who had been in prison for 5 years (you can find him here) after participating in the Soweto Uprising of 1976, during which time he and other students refused to be educated in Afrikaans as the language of instruction (an apartheid era law).  He spoke a lot about the terrible conditions of the prison (no or little food, no blankets or bed, etc.) and how the International Red Cross advocated on behalf of the prisoners to improve the conditions during his stay.  It was harder to understand his English than Mr. Levy's.  He seemed harder too.  But both men spoke about forgiveness - and that had a huge impact on me.  They said that forgiveness began in the prison, where very educated prisoners like Nelson Mandela (a lawyer) and other professionals (doctors, lawyers, teachers) taught the uneducated prisoners and even the wardens.  They had a motto: "each one teach one" and made it their priority that when they were free, they would be an educated population who could lead the country out of segregation.   Many men earned multiple higher level degrees while they were in prison.  And the wardens too!  I'll just never forget Mr. Levy talking about forgiving the wardens: "boys", he called them, "who did not even know why we were the enemy."

The view of Cape Town's Table Mountain from the ferry...

South Africa's beautiful flag...

When you get off the ferry on the island, which is a museum and UN World Heritage Site, this is what you see...

I didn't know that before the island was a prison it was a leper colony.  And when they began to build the prison they found that the island was just a mass grave.

Mr. Levy, speaking to us about many of the political prisoners, or prisoners of conscience as they called themselves, on Robben Island.  The most famous prisoner there was Nelson Mandela, who was there for 18 years before being transferred to two other prisons for the next 9 years. Mr. Levy was there for 12 years.

This is the limestone quarry where the prisoners worked.  They were not given any kind of mask or protective eyewear and many of them died of or still live with both lung problems and vision problems.  Mandela himself had several eye surgeries and eventually died of a problem with his lungs, stemming from his years here.  The government knew that the work they were doing would slowly kill them.  In this quarry, you can see a cave...

 This cave is where the men had to go to the bathroom, and where they ate their food.  Wardens would not go in the cave, so it was also the only place where the prisoners could talk freely.  The men agreed that they would try to go to the bathroom in the mornings and evenings only, so that they could use their time in the cave for educating one another and not eat in their own waste. The original prison building was not big enough to house all of the political prisoners the government was incarcerating, so the original prisoners living in that building that had to build the rest of the prison themselves.  When that work was finished, they were just in the quarry moving limestone.

This is Mr. Madolo talking to us inside the prison buildlings.

Here is Nelson Mandela's prison cell. 18 years. 

Below was a prison room for those not in solitary confinement.  All prisoners were given a category (based on the threat they posed the government, I believe) and each category was afforded different privileges.  In this room, there would be men mixed together who were both "coloured" (the term used in South Africa for people who are mixed race) and "Bantu" (used to describe completely African people).  In this room, even those people were given different privileges...coloured men were given more and better food than Bantu men.  They didn't want them to become too close - they wanted the prisoners to feel seperated.  Eventually, in the late 70s and early 80s the prison conditions were improved and instead of sleeping on flat mats on the floor, the bed you see in the back was introduced and the prisoners also had blankets for the first time.  Before the blankets, men would get very sick because it gets really cold there and the windows are open so they would get quite sick with pneumonia, frost bite, etc.

I learned a lot that morning - above is just a bit to share.  It was incredibly powerful to be there.  As I said before, I found the most impact from the former prisoners' statements about forgiveness.  Mr. Levy said something to the affect of:  if I cannot forgive those who jailed me, many of whom were young men who did not know what they were doing, then even when I am free I am still a prisoner.  He said the anti-apartheid movement did strongly believe that all South Africans could be united as one people, under one flag, as equal citizens. Now...whether or not that has happened "perfectly" in real life, is another thing. While I imagine there is still racial tension in the country, and there are definite racial and economic disparities rooted in apartheid, it seems they have done a pretty good job of progressing from and reconciling that time in their history.  (Note that current president, Jacob Zuma, was also incarcerated on Robben Island. He has always had a cloud of controversy around him for such crimes as rape and corruption.) For ex-political prisoners to bear no ill will to those who imprisoned them...well, that was very powerful.  I could almost feel the pulse of being in a very special place - not a happy place, but a very important place.  And, as I said, I'm so grateful to have visited.  I still get goosebumps remembering it and it will stay with me for a long time. 

Meanwhile, Kristoffer and the kiddos had some toy store and ferris wheel fun at the Waterfront (an amazing shopping, cultural, dining area of Cape Town) and I was very happy to hug them all when I got back from the island.

Unfortunately, Noah became sick in the evening - first complaining of a stomach ache and then throwing up several times.  He seemed to have what Aya had.  Once he finished throwing up, he was fine.  Kristoffer and I had gotten a babysitter again to go out to a recommended contemporary Italian restaurant in a cool part of town.  The meal was lovely but I started to not feel well towards the end of the evening, and by the time we got home and said goodbye to the babysitter - it was clear that I had the stomach bug we brought from Dar and I was quite sick during the night!  ACK!  

LMW