Robben Island and Christel House South Africa

The seals by our ship were up early our second morning when we set off before 7am for a trip to Robben Island. The harbour was quiet and the sun was just beginning to shine on Table Mountain.

At the beginning of our 30-minute ferry ride, we got a full view of the "aft" end of the ship that we usually do not see.

Robben Island is home to African Penguins, and we enjoyed seeing them from a distance at a viewing stand.

Robben Island is primarily known as the place where political prisoners were held. On the way to the prison, we stopped by this small Mosque.

Here is the actual prison complex and the door in the second photo leads to the cell where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 years.

Even though the island is primarily known for the prison, it is full of surprises, including this whimsical Penguins Crossing sign and a cemetery for people with leprosy, who were exiled to Robben Island during the 18th and 19th centuries.

This is the stone quarry where prisoners were forced to work. The cave in the background served as the restroom. The stone pile in the foreground was started by Nelson Mandela at a reunion of prisoners. He tossed a stone on the ground and the other prisoners followed suit. The quarry is sometimes called "Robben University", as the prisoners had an ethos of "Each one teach one", meaning that during work time, each prisoner would teach another prisoner what they knew. Those with high school, college or advanced degrees would pair up with a prisoner who did not have that degree and would teach that person everything they knew.

We stopped at this church, where our guide, who had been our Three Faiths Pilgrimage guide the day before, talked to us about the history of the island.

We had to leave the tour early to head back to Cape Town, but first we went to the prison where Nelson Mandela was held. The two pictures on the right are of his cell. As time went on, he had a bookshelf in the cell, but this is how it looked for many years. Seeing his cell was a powerful moment of our trip.

We took one last look at the building where Mandela was held before catching the ferry back to Cape Town.


Once off the ferry, we looked back across to our fellow passengers disembarking. The footbridge we crossed swung open to allow sailboats to enter the harbour.

Back by our ship, we paused to look at the "pirate ship" that takes tourists for rides. And our seal was waiting for us right where we left her!


Christel House South Africa is an amazing school started by Indianapolis' Christel DeHaan, who has opened schools all over the world. Christel House SA had been meeting in rented space, but opened this brand-new school a little over a year ago. With solar panels on the roofs, sustainable gardens in recycled tires that help provide school lunches, and brightly lit classrooms that give each child with a stunning view of the mountains, this school is a beauty to behold. I invited a group of SAS families for a trip kindly arranged by the school: they sent a school bus to the ship to pick us up and the development director gave us a comprehensive tour of the facilities. Although the students were on Easter Break, we were grateful to tour the facility.


There are several courtyards in the school complex. Inside the classrooms, teachers have the ability to open the doors right out onto the school grounds. The third photo shows the view from the classroom doors--students can go right out into the gardens or hold class on the patio.

The school begins with preschool age children, whose room is above. Slowly the school is replacing the non-native trees, which require a lot of water and make growing grass difficult, with indigenous vegetation. They took out the first non-native trees, treated them with a kid-friendly varnish, and made them into some really fun jungle-gyms that our kids loved!

On our way back to the ship, the school bus driver took us through neighborhoods where Christel House students live. The school has purposely been built in a nice neighborhood to encourage the children to see where they can live someday.

The neighborhoods where the students come from sometimes have apartment buildings, like the first photo, and sometimes are more of the shanty-towns with shacks made from sheet metal, wood and cardboard.

Although most vehicles on the street are cars, we did see this horse-drawn carriage.


Christel House SA is well-known in the neighborhoods and many people called out to us! They were probably surprised to see the school bus filled with white families.

All of us in the group are determined to help Christel House SA when we return home. They gave us a Wish List of items small and large that are needed. We really feel like we will be able to get together items to send. Books for the high school-aged students are particularly needed, and we really want to help out with this.

When we returned to the ship, Michael Williams came to pick us up to take us to his family's beach house. We stopped at a restaurant for dinner before we left Cape Town and had a magnificent view of the new soccer stadium which will be used for the World Cup Finals this June. All of South Africa is gearing up for World Cup, which will be a huge event for them.