Diamond, girls' best friend, is this precious stone we have. It has such high importance that a man could give a woman a diamond ring in exchange for her lifetime of loyalty and commitment .. of course, there's more to that that I'm skipping.
Chemistry tells us diamond is made of carbons arranged in a particular way. Under certain environment, something as worthless as graphite can turn into diamond. That "certain environment" also turned Nelson Mandela into a great leader, I'm talking about the Robben Island Maximum Security Prison.
30 minute of ferry boat ride takes you from the dock of V & A Waterfront to the shore of Robben Island. Along the way you'll enjoy the refreshing breeze blowing across the sea and a great view of Mother City. That is the same route the prisoners to Robben Island took, whether they've enjoyed the breeze and the view, you can decide. In its days as a prison, Robben Island instituted hundreds of prisoners. The most dangerous murderers were sent to medium securty, while the political prisoners were locked in the maximum security prison - that just shows who were the real threats to an unstable government.
The island bus will take you to a limestone mine, where the prisoners worked. The condition is preserved as it was decades ago. Despite the dark images you may associate with a labour camp, this one is romantic. Some call the quarry an university; it is here the prisoners learned from each other. They secretly studied history, language, political science, economics, and philosophy during their lunch breaks. 8 hours a day the prisoners "worked", often they had to move a pile of limestone from one end to another end, then back to the original spot. There weren't toilet facility, a tin bucket was all they were given. The prisoners take turns to clean the bucket...all done by hands.
After work, inmates would return to their individual cells and cut off from all communications. Letters to the prisoners all went through censorship, when it reaches the prisoners, it read no more than "hello" and "good bye". Books were banned, but they found their ways into the prison by clever means. They were then transferred in the bathroom, sometimes they were hidden in the bushes and picked up later on. To communicate with other section of the prison, messages were written on small notes and stuffed in a tennis ball. The ball is then chucked over the wall and the message taken out.
Mandela spent 18 years his life in Section B of the maximum security prison from 1964 to 1982 (27 years in total, including at other prisons). He slept on the ground over a thin padding. It was later on when he suffered tuberculosis that he was given a bed. In a cell less than 4 meter squared, Mandela found the inspiration to write Long Walk to Freedom. It is this man who changed the image and the course of history of South Africa. It is in this condition an angry impulsive young man transformed to a man with broad shoulder and enormous tolerance - the same condition that turns carbons to diamond.
“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
Chemistry tells us diamond is made of carbons arranged in a particular way. Under certain environment, something as worthless as graphite can turn into diamond. That "certain environment" also turned Nelson Mandela into a great leader, I'm talking about the Robben Island Maximum Security Prison.
30 minute of ferry boat ride takes you from the dock of V & A Waterfront to the shore of Robben Island. Along the way you'll enjoy the refreshing breeze blowing across the sea and a great view of Mother City. That is the same route the prisoners to Robben Island took, whether they've enjoyed the breeze and the view, you can decide. In its days as a prison, Robben Island instituted hundreds of prisoners. The most dangerous murderers were sent to medium securty, while the political prisoners were locked in the maximum security prison - that just shows who were the real threats to an unstable government.
The island bus will take you to a limestone mine, where the prisoners worked. The condition is preserved as it was decades ago. Despite the dark images you may associate with a labour camp, this one is romantic. Some call the quarry an university; it is here the prisoners learned from each other. They secretly studied history, language, political science, economics, and philosophy during their lunch breaks. 8 hours a day the prisoners "worked", often they had to move a pile of limestone from one end to another end, then back to the original spot. There weren't toilet facility, a tin bucket was all they were given. The prisoners take turns to clean the bucket...all done by hands.
After work, inmates would return to their individual cells and cut off from all communications. Letters to the prisoners all went through censorship, when it reaches the prisoners, it read no more than "hello" and "good bye". Books were banned, but they found their ways into the prison by clever means. They were then transferred in the bathroom, sometimes they were hidden in the bushes and picked up later on. To communicate with other section of the prison, messages were written on small notes and stuffed in a tennis ball. The ball is then chucked over the wall and the message taken out.
Mandela spent 18 years his life in Section B of the maximum security prison from 1964 to 1982 (27 years in total, including at other prisons). He slept on the ground over a thin padding. It was later on when he suffered tuberculosis that he was given a bed. In a cell less than 4 meter squared, Mandela found the inspiration to write Long Walk to Freedom. It is this man who changed the image and the course of history of South Africa. It is in this condition an angry impulsive young man transformed to a man with broad shoulder and enormous tolerance - the same condition that turns carbons to diamond.
“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
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