“The journey’s never long when freedom’s the destination.”
Today we went to Robben Island – infamous for the prison that held Nelson Mandela. Our guide through the prison was actually an ex-political prisoner. I couldn’t imagine the amount of PTSD he must face four times a day, as he recounts his story for each group, taking them to his own cell block, describing the horrifying punishments that were doled out, the inhuman conditions he lived in.
Yet, even amidst the grim stories of oppression, there were glimmers of hope. He told us how the prisoners created a system to pass along information – they would have discussions while covering the intercoms the blankets to muffle their conversations that were always being spied on. Then, they’d play fake games of tennis just so they could send balls sailing into different cell blocks. You see, this was their means of communicating with each other; those innocuous seeming balls were cut open and filled with scraps of paper containing information.And so thusly, they kept the revolutionary spirit alive. Even as they were forced to carry buckets full of their excrement around, including mealtimes. Even as they were forced to work in the limestone quarries that damaged their eyes. Even as they were stripped of their names and referred to only by their inmate number.
There was hope as Japhta Massernola crafted a master key – guaranteed to open any lock in the prison. There was hope as Nelson Mandela wrote his memoir “The Long Road to Freedom” and successfully smuggled out a copy even as he was beaten and punished when the original was found. There was hope of a better tomorrow, and that is what kept them going, as clichéd as that might sound.
