Day 2 in Cape Town, South Africa

Hello all, we are the members of community service group two (Ashley, Lauren f., Meghan, & Hannah) and we are going to give you a recap of our first full day in Cape Town, South Africa. We started the day at 9:00am with a walking tour of historic Cape Town. Our tour guide Shireen Nadaredien, a historian from South Africa directed us toward Government Place, where we were showed the building where slaves were lodged and another location were the slaves were auctioned off. This was kind of appalling, given that these locations were positioned in the central city, right in the middle of a busy well traveled street. Following the walking tour of Government Place, we visited district six, a museum that told the story of a once vibrant neighborhood that was destroyed by the Apartheid government. The museum allowed us to see a glimpse into the personal histories of the people who were affected by the destruction of this cosmopolitan community, which, was resided by a diverse group of individuals. District Six also housed the Public Sculpture Project, which was the recreation of what a typical home in District Six looked liked. We were extremely moved by the cramped size of single bedrooms, which were the resident’s entire apartments.

The next stop on our walking tour was Bo-Kaap Museum which is located in what was called the coloured/ Cape-Malay section of Cape Town. One interesting fact about this part of town is that it was and still continues to be a majority Muslim population. Within two kilometers there are about 10 mosques with 700 people attending each service. This small part of Cape Town housed a large population of people. While in Cape-Malay we ate lunch at a traditional Cape-Malay restaurant. Also worth noting, is that while on our walking tour of historic Cape Town, we saw the start of a peaceful public service employee’s march. They were peacefully protesting against the government for better wages and benefits.

The final stop on our outing today was Robben Island, the prison where South African’s first post-apartheid democratically elected President Nelson Mandela had been held prisoner for 18 years. We had the opportunity to tour the Island and see the many of the inner and outer workings of the prison system on Robben Island. Most interesting was President Mandela’s cell. His cell was no bigger than most of our closets back in the United States. It was very intriguing, yet sad to see the residence of many prominent South African political figures. Our tour guide for this journey was a prisoner himself who continues to reside in the community.

In closing, we just wanted to say that every site was intellectually stimulating yet extremely emotionally draining, especially given that this was our first full day in Cape Town. Well America, stay tuned for our blog tomorrow.