We did a three hour tour of Robben Island. It’s about a thirty minute boat ride out to the island. The seas were calm and the spray made it a little cool but still very pleasant. Then we got on a bus with a guide who drove us around the island and showed us things that weren’t just about the prison, like the WWII guns that were built but not finished until after the end of the war. Close enough for government work, eh? Back at the prison, a former prisoner took us on a tour of three buildings, the last with the cell of Nelson Mandela. Two things that were said struck me. The guide on the bus told us that the tours were not intended to create hatred or anger, but to teach and forgive. The former prisoner told us that no one that was jailed there during apartheid tried to escape because that was the act of a criminal.
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