Robbeneiland

Man, where to start on Robben Island. I don't even know. Yesterday was just such a...I'm not even sure what the word is. My impression of Robben Island was quite interesting and different from what I expected. Allow me to elaborate.

The boat to Robben Island is packed with tourists. Literally 300 of them. You see from the first time you enter the Nelson Mandela Gateway that the Robben Island Museum is a money-making machine. Which, when you think about it, is kind of fucked. Making money on the hardships through which people suffered under 20 years ago. It's expensive for a tour - R200, the equivalent of about $30. If the South African government really wanted people to understand what happened on Robben Island and to see it for themselves they should subsidize tours there. Make the day free, or, at the very most, R20 (about $3). Putting such a high price on a tour that everyone really should take for the historical and cultural aspect seems ludicrous. But wait - they clearly didn't make it a museum just for the money - just look at the quote you're greeted with when you enter the Nelson Mandela Gateway (the place where the ferry departs from):

"While we will not forget the brutalities of apartheid, we will not not Robben Island to be a monument of our hardship and suffering. We would want it to be a triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil; a triumph of the wisdom and largeness of spirit against small minds and pettiness; a triumph of courage and determination over human frailty and weakness; a triumph of the new South Africa over the old." - Ahmed Kathrada

If Robben Island is to be as Kathrada described it, "a triumph of the new South Africa over the old", a visit should be an essential part to every single South African's life. A new South Africa should be inclusive of everyone. And, considering the steep price and the huge income inequality in this country (one of the highest Gini coefficients in thew world), many blacks won't go to the Robben Island Museum.

When you arrive on Robben Island you're shuttled onto a bus which drives you around the island. You see how expansive it is - 11 km in diameter - and get glimpses of many of the historic sites: the limestone quarry, the house where Robert Sobukwe (leader of the PAC) stayed in solitary confinement for 6 years, the leper graveyard, etc. A particular note about the limestone quarry: that place is haunting. It's totally empty now, but years ago was home to a huge limestone deposit. The first political prisoners on Robben Island arrived in 1964 and were forced to go to the quarry every single day to chizzle away at the rock, bring it back to a designated location, and build their own prison. Yes, they were building their own prison. Up until it was ready, the political prisoners were housed in the same prison as the criminal prisoners, but when political prisoners started arriving the guards feared that they would gain the support of the criminals and spread their ideas to them. So the political prisoners built their own prison. Doing manual labor in the limestone quarry - literally chipping away at limestone by hand - from 7:30 am until 4:30 pm every single day. The craftsmanship on the Maximum Security Prison, where they kept the political prisoners, is amazing - the rocks fit beautifull together and form something similar to a mosaic. It's erie to see.

After driving around the island for about an hour, you're dropped off in front of the Maximum Security Prison, where you meet your next tour guide - a former inmate who gives you a tour of the prison. You visit the different "blocks" of the prison where prisoners were housed. Most of the blocks were communal blocks - i.e. up to 40 prisoners lived together in the same room. There were no beds (until 1979) and prisoners slept on rugs on the ground, if they were lucky. Otherwise they slept straight on the concrete. The one block that didn't have communal space, but rather individual cells, was B-Section. This is where the most dangerous (read: influential) political prisoners were kept, including Nelson Mandela. We got to see Mandela's cell - so tiny it is almost a joke - and the things with which it was furnished: a blanket, a chair, and a chamber pot. Yes - they used chamber pots in B-Section since the bathroom wasn't located in the same building and prisoners weren't allowed out of their cells between 4:30 pm and 7:30 am, so they had to use chamber pots.

The condition of the Maximum Security Prison at Robben Island really bothered me. I felt like it was in such good condition that it could still be used today. They could decide tomorrow to start using it as a prison and it'd be ready. It reminds you that people were held captive here in our lifetimes. Not just in our parents' lifetimes - in our lifetimes. And it's kind of spooky and bothersome. I guess that's the point.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned yesterday was the practice of apartheid even carried over onto Robben Island. All white prisoners were kept in Pretoria, while all blacks, coloureds, and Indians were taken to Robben Island. There were no females on Robben Island, either. And, on the island, blacks were treated severly worse than the coloureds and Indians. Upon arrival, blacks were given a short sleeve t-shirt, shorts, and no shoes, while Indians and coloureds were given a long sleeve t-shirt, pants, and shoes. Furthermore, blacks received lesser rations of food than did the Indians and coloureds. This practice clearly wasn't a cost-saving measure; rather it was a way of creating a sense of inferiority amongst the blacks and a sense of superiority amongst the others. However, the prisoners were smart and realized what the guards were trying to do. As a result, the Indians and coloureds often shared their extra rations with the blacks. The guards' attempt to separate the prisoners and to pit them against one another backfired and actually resulted in an increased feeling of unity amongst the prisoners.

Despite all the rich history of Robben Island I learned yesterday, I still want to end on the same note as I started on above - the idea of the Robben Island Museum as a money-making machine and not much else. After our tour by the former inmate, my friend Nick and I stuck around to talk two-on-one with him. I asked him why he had decided to come back to the island, considering that spending time there must bring back horrible memories. I wondered if he came back to gain a sense of personal triumph over the place? "No", he replied, "I came back because I couldn't find a job anywhere else. I didn't want to come back here." This revealed something to me. The idea of turning Robben Island into a museum came as a result of former inmates wanting to do it. The former inmates who, as a result of spending so much time on Robben Island, didn't have the necessary skills to perform in the South African labor market. Considering the huge skills bias in the South African labor market (one of the largest skills biases of any country in the world), none of the former inmates could find work anywhere else. And so now many of them work at Robben Island. They're capitalizing on the demons of their past by facing them every day, even if they don't want to. That's some real shit.

What Could Possibly Be Better Than TNC?

Well, for starters, walking on burning hot coals. Or the feeling in your stomach the morning after Mix Bowl. I know it’s hard to believe, but last night was even better than both of those – I got to watch my African Instruments teacher, Dizu, put on the most amazing concert I’ve seen. And I even got to play on one song.

I’ve spoken of my African Instruments class before. It meets once a week for 45 minutes, and I play crazy instruments (so far we’ve only played the djembe and a beautiful Ugandan xylophone called the akadinda) with 5 other Americans and Dizu. I get a full Pomona credit for it, and there’s no outside of class work. Then there’s African Music Ensemble, in which we play what we learn in African Instruments in a larger group setting (15 – 20 people, including South Africans) – that, too, meets for 45 minutes a week, is taught by Dizu, and is worth a full Pomona credit. That’s half my semester’s credit for playing instruments for an hour and a half every week. With Dizu. I can’t even describe Dizu – he transcends the word chill. He’s also perhaps the most amazing musician I’ve ever seen – he will play any instrument you put in front of him and will amaze you with how cool it sounds. Dizu’s first band (I forget the name) is Nelson Mandela’s favorite band. Enough cred?

Last night, he was the centerpiece of this show. His new band, along with help from students from the UCT music school, put on an amazing concert. Our whole African Music Ensemble class played on one song (which you can see below), but the highlight was definitely hearing Dizu playing all these different instruments. He played something that looked like a skinny shofar and sounded like the most pure flute in the world. He played a mouth harp – creating vibrations of the strings with a bow and blowing into the top of it to produce different sounds. He played at least five different types of drums, all of them sounding totally different. He played something that looked like a cardboard box and sounded like waves rolling in along the coast. The best thing you could possibly do would be to youtube him (I haven’t watched his youtube videos because of the bandwidth issue here, but I bet they’re amazing). Just type in Dizu Plaatjie and see what you find. Your mind will be blown.

On a side note, this weekend CIEE is paying for us to straight ball: taking us to two soccer games tonight down at Greenpoint Stadium (the World Cup stadium), tomorrow to Mzoli’s (the craziest block party in the world, as I wrote about in an earlier entry), and Sunday to Robben Island. I was supposed to write a paper this weekend…oops, it’ll have to wait until next week.

Enjoy the video!

What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been

This past week in my Culture, Identity, and Globalisation class (yes, they spell it with an s. It’s really frustrating. I’m spelling labour with a u, too.) we learned about UCTs grim history. I can now say I now far more about UCT than about Pomona – kind of sad, but the history of this place is fascinating. I view the whole UCT campus in a totally different way after learning what I did this past week.

The South African College was founded in 1829, and accepted only whites. In 1916, a huge donation by two mining magnates, along with an act of Parliament, led to the official establishment of the University of Cape Town. The first president of the university, John Caruthers Beattie, wanted to “spread civilization” in Africa. He stressed the need to “unite the two races of South Africa – English and Afrikaans people”. Think about the absurdity of that statement for just a second.

(Still thinking…)

(Still in disbelief…)

Ok, moving on. Black South Africans simply didn’t exist in Beattie’s mind. He noted, “There is a strong colour prejudice in South Africa, and we have to pay attention to that.” In 1923, the UCT council, the governing board of the university, made an admission that said it was against the university’s interest to admit blacks at all. Despite this, a very small number of blacks were allowed in the university, but they weren’t allowed to take medicine or fine arts. The UCT council found the idea of a black person medically examining a white person repugnant.

UCT moved to it’s current location in 1929 as a result of a huge donation by Cecil Rhodes – then prime minister of the Cape. Rhodes envisioned UCT as an “Oxford in Africa”, and sent his architect, Solomon, on a tour of Europe and America to gather architectural ideas. The very center of upper campus, Jameson Hall, was meant to be an exact copy of the Jefferson Library at the University of Virginia, but the project ran out of money and thus they had to install a slanted roof instead of a huge dome.

Rhodes’ whole vision of UCT was for it to be a sight of prospect. The institution self-consciously exists apart from society and is placed on a hill overlooking Cape Town and the Cape Flats so people on UCT can look down on everyone else. It was almost as if Rhodes wanted people to think, “Here I am. And there you all are. And I can look down at you, like God. But here I am, in the sight of perfect prospect.” UCT may be in Africa, but it’s not quite Africa – it’s a carefully crafted site that deliberately exists apart from the rest of Africa. The world of the university is a make believe world of anywhere and nowhere. When you walk on UCT campus you’re supposed to feel entitled and aloof. You’re supposed to understand that you are in a place of prospect, a place for furthering education and looking down on those who can’t get that same education. The last truly Rhodesian site in the entire world that still is regularly used. The entirety of UCT is a sign of the power of the British empire and colonialism – a history of dominance over the native South Africans. Not just racial dominance, but mental dominance.

The university has existed as three “different” universities: the colonial university, the apartheid university, and the global university. Though it now exists as the global university, there is a simultaneous existence on some level of the two previous universities. You cannot walk on UCTs campus and simply ignore the past history of the institution, there is a co-presence of all three today.

The colonial university is pretty much described above, and was the dominant form of the university up until the Group Areas Act of 1949, which officially started apartheid. In 1937 there were only 40 black / Indian / coloured students at the university. The same year, there was a debate on campus about whether or not non-Europeans should be admitted conditionally to the university. Of 90 students voting, only 20 were for it – 30 abstained and 40 were against it. Over time, though, the university started allowing more blacks. Still, the numbers were always incredibly small and almost insignificant. Black students felt so out of place on campus that they ate in the basement of the zoology department instead of in the campus food court.

The campus became very politically active during the 1970s and 1980s, going in line with the student uprisings in Soweto (1976) and the township revolts around Cape Town (1985 and 1986). Protests were held on the steps to Jameson Hall (called the Jammy Steps) where both blacks and whites joined together. However, outside of these protests, blacks and whites pretty much had no interaction on campus. That was up until the end of apartheid, and starting after the democratic elections in 1994, the university started allowing more and more black students. The problem? Many of them were from foreign countries – hence the “global university”. Today, 20% of the student body is non-South African, with 10% of the student body coming from Southern African countries like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Rwanda, and Namibia. This signifies a problem with primary and secondary schooling in South Africa – but that’s for another post, in which I’ll talk about how the labour market here is so fucked because of poor education systems.

Two more notes, and then I’m done rambling. First, it’s important to note that the people who founded UCT and who the buildings are named after (Rhodes, Jameson, etc.) are WAR CRIMINALS in the mind of South Africans. Their colonialism was almost equivalent to slavery to the South Africans, and they’re universally hated amongst the black community. Jameson Hall and the Jammy Steps are equivalent to having Hitler Hall and the Hitler steps at the University of Berlin.

I’ll leave you with a story. In the late 1960s, a black man named Arthur Mafeje saw a position advertised in social anthropology at UCT. He had earned is PHD in London in social anthropology and was the strongest candidate for the job. In fact, the university offered him the job. He stood to be the first black lecturer at UCT, no doubt a huge deal, especially in the 1960s in the heart of apartheid. Upon hearing this, the Minister of Education contacted the UCT president and said something along the lines of “we view these developments with displeasure”. Needless to say, the Vice Chancellor rescinded Mafeje’s job offer.

This is the university I walk every day. What does it mean to inhabit apartheid spaces in a post-apartheid present? I’m not sure, but I’m starting to find out.

Or Am I Dreaming?

No, unfortunately I’m not. That is a fire alarm blaring at 3:06 am.

When we had our first dorm meeting we were informed that at some point “in the coming weeks” there would be a fire drill. No one would know what time it was coming since “a fire doesn’t care what time it is”. We all suspected the worst – a middle of the night two hour fiasco in which they would break into your rooms to wake you up if you weren’t accounted for outside. At least that’s what our RA told us to expect. Needless to say we were all extremely enthused at the prospect of this.

Well, Thursday night was finally the night. After a beautiful sunset hike up Lion’s Head (the smaller extension to the right of Table Mountain), I decided to be responsible and get some well-deserved sleep. I passed out by 11, and was happily dreaming until that god-damned fire alarm shattered my peaceful slumber. I begrudgingly walked downstairs, pretty much fell asleep standing up waiting to be accounted for, and walked up to my room an hour later after everyone had been accounted for.

Though it wasn’t as bad as expected, this fire drill was still horrible. I liked nothing about it. Except that the dorm warden warned us “in the case of a real fire you need to keep left so the fire marshals can go by you on the right.” Really? I’m pretty sure if there’s a real fire everyone is hauling ass out of that dorm without paying attention to which side they’re on. Or maybe trying to go back to sleep.

Short Break Part 2: Township Tour

After a long weekend in De Hoop I was not looking forward to waking up early for our township tour on Monday morning. 8:30 to be specific. Though I normally can't sleep past 8:30 because of the road noise, I knew I'd be able to sleep for days after De Hoop. However, I decided to grow a pair and to wake up early. I did not regret it.

Our township tour started off by visiting Langa (meaning "the moon"), the oldest township in Cape Town. Established in 1910, Langa is home to 300,000 people (including one of my flat mates, Babalwa). We visited a local after school program (I forget the name) which dedicates it's time to keeping children ages 4 - 18 away from drugs, gangs and crime in the townships by teaching them music, poetry, dance, and drama. We were treated to a musical performance by 6 of the students (there are normally up to 100 kids there at a time, but it was empty because of the holiday on Monday). These kids were really good; I was really digging the marimbas and really wanted to try one out. Then I got my wish - they invited us up to play with them. I banged on the marimbas for a bit, then on a couple different bass drums, and got to play with them for a good 15 minutes. It was a lot of fun (and you could see the local kids were having a lot of fun, too) and got me really excited for my African Instruments and African Music Ensemble classes.

From Langa, we traveled by van through several other townships: Nyanga (meaning "the sun"), established in 1950, Guguletu (meaning "our pride"), established in 1960, Khayelitsha (meaning "new home"), Crossroads, and Manenberg, the most dangerous township. It's interesting to note that Langa was established before apartheid was officially instated with the Group Areas Act in 1949. Cape Town (and the surrounding areas) is home to 4 million people, 1.5 million of whom live in Khayelitsha. It's definitely powerful to see the shanty towns that people live in inside these townships, and really makes you re-evaluate what you have at home. We ate lunch in Guguletu at a "guest house", which was built by one man alone in the 1990s. He had absolutely no money and built it by going around and scrounging up other people's trash, and by the time we had gotten there had turned it into a very respectable establishment. I forget this guy's name (and the name of his book) but his story was remarkable. To build a guest house (with no money) in the middle of a township, where (according to him) everyone who has ever stayed there has felt "totally safe", is no small accomplishment. And the food at this place - my god, some of the best boerwors (sausage) I've had since I got to South Africa.

The thing I found most interesting about the township tour (though it's not really about living in townships) was the extent to which students were responsible for bringing about the end of apartheid. It was the 1976 student movement, headlined by Hector Pietersen's death (which I wrote about earlier in this blog), which really showed the state that apartheid was not a feasible regime. Our guide said something very interesting, along the lines of "Adults weren't willing to die for equality, rather they wanted to live to see the end of apartheid and to have their rights restored before dying. Students, meanwhile, were willing to die for their cause, and would do whatever it took to bring about the end of apartheid."

This made me think about how different things are in America, especially today. At Pomona, the Stand With Staff people are hated by all the other students (including myself) because they're clearly riding on their high horse and are fighting for worker's rights to an unrealistic extent (I won't get into the whole Stand With Staff stuff, just know that I and every single one of my friends hates it. Right Elan?) Just over 30 years ago, kids our age were fighting for the right to use the same facilities as whites and to not be forced to live in prescribed areas. Just goes to show you how different things are in America and South Africa. People here cherish freedom because they saw what it was like to live under racial and colonial domination. People in America espouse some bullshit idea of freedom under which they have the right to throw a shitstorm if they can't say something. You wonder why foreigners complain Americans are indignant and self-righteous?

Short Break Part 1: Back To De Hoop

I’m not sure how it’s already possible that we’ve reached short break (a four-day weekend for me since I always have Friday off and Monday was a national holiday, Women’s Day) and that mid-semester break is under four weeks away. While almost everyone else I know on my program decided to drive the Garden Route to Port Elizabeth (stopping to do bungee jumping and hiking along the way), I went back to De Hoop Nature Reserve with 9 of my other friends. In case you didn’t read my earlier post about De Hoop, it is the single coolest place I have ever been. I’d describe it as Death Valley (endless sand dunes that are bigger than you could ever imagine) on the Indian Ocean with whales. The whales. We must’ve seen upwards of 15 different whales in one day sitting on the dunes. CIEE is taking us whale watching one weekend (which, again, I don’t see the point of) but I know it cannot be better than what we saw this weekend.

The weekend went off without a hitch. I drove one of two cars, and although it was strange at first driving on the left side of the road I got used to it quickly. The worst part of driving was right when I started – I stalled three times before realizing that I was trying to start the car in third gear. Not well played, but easily remedied. The drive was really easy and smooth – until we hit the dirt road to get to the nature reserve. Even then, it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. We ultimately got to our mansion (which they called a cottage) across the vlei around 8:00. This was one of the mansions we saw last time on our hike and wondered what they were used for. The cottage had no electricity and had a gas-powered fridge (which they failed to turn on for us, spoiling all of our meat) but was still amazing. The stars out there were some of the coolest I’d ever seen – you could see the Milky Way and Mars – and it was just incredibly peaceful. The two nights I slept at De Hoop were the best sleep I’d gotten in memory. This has got to be due to my horrible sleeping situation in the dorms: not enough sheets (just a bottom sheet and a comforter that isn’t big enough to fit over the bed) and the incessant road noise, which wakes me up by 9 almost every single morning.

We spent all day Saturday down on the dunes and at the beaches (just to the left of the dunes). Everyone had a great day, highlighted by beautiful weather and straight chilling. A few things I found out: the ocean takes no prisoners, music can change your perception of an experience in a split second, tourists are penguins, and I had no idea a moment could be so perfect. Long stories behind each of those, it’s not even worth it to explain. We explored the dunes a lot more than I did last time, and found some truly breathtaking scenery. We found an untouched sand bowl, kind of like a half pipe made of sand, and ran around in there / jumped into it for a little bit. One of the coolest moments of the day was running down the very edge of a really long sand dune. We had hiked to the top of it and found the sand bowl, and when we got out we all knew we had to run it. Running on the edge of a 15-meter high (50 foot) sand dune towards the ocean, where I could see four different whales at once, for about 300 or 400 meters while listening to music (“One Way Out” by the Allman Brothers, to be specific) and feeling the wind in my face is the single most free I have ever felt in my life. I hope to go back to De Hoop one more time before I leave South Africa. It’s just that damn cool. More to come about the Township Tour I did yesterday…

Staring Death In The Face

When I first heard about shark diving I thought there was no way it could possibly be worth it. I’d heard of people paying up to $250 for a single day’s experience. The safari I went on was less than $100 per day, and I thought there was no way it could possibly measure up to the safari. However, given everything I’d heard, there was no way I was going to come to Cape Town and not go shark diving. Fortunately, we found a really good rate through a travel agency, and I decided I had to find out for myself just exactly what all the hype was about.

After being a rugby hooligan the night before, to say I was unenthusiastic about being picked up at 4 am would be a gross understatement. I got in the van, passed out in about 10 seconds, and woke up two hours later in Gansbaai, the Great White Shark capital of the world. One of my friends who had been on another bus told me I won the award for looking “the least happy” to be there. Amen. I was prepared for massive disappointment, thought I was going to get sea sick, and didn’t really even understand why I had come. As soon as I got on the boat, though, everything changed.

There’s something about getting splashed by 50° water at 7 am that gets the adrenaline flowing. Holy shit! I’m going to see great white sharks! I suddenly was both terrified and excited, but most importantly, the idea of disappointment evaporated. Why would people pay so much and endure such brutal conditions if it weren’t amazingly badass? I knew we were in for an awesome day.

The idea of shark diving is as follows: they lower a cage into the water right off the side of the boat. The cage can fit five people across and is less than 3 feet from front to back, so you can barely even move. You sit in freezing cold water waiting for the sharks to come while the crew throws out chum to attract the sharks. Once one comes you go under the water and hold your breath and watch it swim by. (As a side note: this sounded incredibly lame to me and was one of the reasons I thought it would suck. I want to swim with the sharks!) I was in the first group in the cage, and after waiting around for about 30 minutes a shark finally came. And then another. And then they circled us for about 4 minutes. These ginormous creatures literally feet away from me. One of the only predators man has not been able to tame. Separated from me by a metal cage. I could have reached out and touched them. So cool.

After 45 minutes in the cage it was time for the next group of five to go. They had an amazing turn, which included a shark jumping out of the water trying to grab the chum and smashing into the side of the boat. It was unbelievable. We had 18 people in all and split into four groups: two of five and two of four. I decided after going first that I wouldn’t take off my wetsuit in hopes that I could get back in the cage with the last group. My perseverance through not bundling up was rewarded, and I got to go back in the cage for a second time!

I got back in the water and immediately regretted it: I’d already seen these sharks up close and I was shivering from the second I got in. It was far colder this time around. We were about to get out when one final shark came. It grabbed onto the fish head the captain was dangling and wouldn’t let go. It tried to rip the fish head off the line and was thrashing about violently until it’s tail finally smacked against the outside of the cage, literally inches from me (I was on the outside right). I could’ve easily touched it. One of the scariest and coolest moments of my life at the same time.

Anyone who tells you that shark diving isn’t worth it is a hater. It far surpassed all my expectations and was one of the most fun days here so far.