and the sickness finally kicked in...

my gosh it has been FOREVER since i've written on here! i hope i can remember everything we've done. i don't think tuesday was too eventful cuz i can't remember a thing from that day... i'll ask around and try to figure out what we did. wednesday we went to robben island! we took a 1/2 hour boat ride over to the island which gave us an incredible view of the ocean and city. about half way there a bird came up behind the boat where the motors were spewing out water at a high velocity (it would've been SO awesome to tube behind this boat, holy crap!), and tried to race us! however, it wasn't a very smart bird because it was going back and forth from one side of the boat to the other, barely missing the high waves that were just waiting to suck it in. sadly, the second time the bird tried to cross over he went too low and tumbled into the waves... lol, ok it may not sound funny but you really had to be there... it was quite a sight! anyways, onto the good stuff. arriving at robben island it was EXTREMELY HOT. i mean for real, it was probably in the 100's that day, whoo! we jumped onto a bus and took a tour of the island. we saw the limestone quarries where men had to work every day, monday through friday, no matter what the weather was like. there were no bathrooms and no shade except for one cave, which is where they would have their meals. it was brutal. inside the prison things weren't much better. there were absolutely no whites on this island, only coloureds, indians and blacks. no matter how bad a crime, whites were never put on the island. there was also a lot of discrimination on the island between the races. the lighter your skin, the better food and treatment you got. meaning indians were treated the best and black africans the worst. you were given a bucket with fresh water in the morning to use all day for washing your self and going to bathroom. this would sit in your cell overnight and then be washed in the morning. mandela used the same bucket for over 10 years. they could only get one visitor every 6 months and they had to be older than 16. english and afrikaans were the only languages that could be spoken so if you were a prisoner or visitor and didn't know those languages, you would sit across from each other... and not speak a word. all of the tour guides at robben island had, at one point in their lives, been prisoners on the island. our tour guide told us about his experience at the end. he was a political prisoner, thrown into jail for being a part of the ANC and trying end the injustices blacks and coloured faced every day in apartheid. for 5 months he was put in a holding cell, tortured and abused by the government who was trying to get information out of him. the last three months he was held in the cell completely naked. in order to get information out of him they would sit him on a chair and strap electrodes to his privates, shocking him over and over. this kind of abuse happened every day at any hour. when he told us about this, i was in complete shock. how could someone treat another human being like this... like an animal?! after those 5 excrutiating months he was brought to robben island where he was sentenced to a life prison. luckily, after 6 years he was released due to the end of apartheid. that was in 1992. now, 14 years later he as come back. not because he wanted to but because he had to. he was out of a job and out of money and needed to support his new family. please pray for his healing because we could tell that he still has a long way to go in the healing process. it was so heartbreaking to hear his story and the pain that he went through because i will never understand what it felt like to be in his position, or anyone else at robben island for that matter. it was a difficult place to go but also a place i will never forget. that day, unfortunately, was also the day that i started to get sick. so, for the next week i was stuck in bed and the toliets. it was not a pleasant experience though i have to say i felt a little guilty because i seemed to be such a wus compared to all the guys who suffered at robben island. but, eventually i started to get better and on saturday i took the taxis all by myself to the shopping center (which was quite the experience)! winding my way through the markets, i just inconspicuously (or so i thought) tried to follow people who looked like they were going shopping and finally found my destination. that night my family took me out to sea point and we watched the sunset on the beach and ate ice cream. it was so beautiful! i came prepared and whipped out two ziploc baggies and dragged sharoneze down onto the beach to look for shells in the dark... we found some pretty cool looking shells and even a few small sponges!! sunday was church and chilling with the family and feeling sick again :(. from monday to wednesday we had camp for the first year students which was a little scary but lots of fun. i had some great conversations on tuesday with a guy from Umtata and another guy from limpopo. it is such a blessing to have people at this college who are so fired up for Christ! it is definitely a totally different experience from what Bethel is like (and i'm loving it a whole lot more!). nothing else too exciting has been happening, just still working on a lot of homework that is due from our history on south africa course. today i'm going to an orphanage in kyalietsha with one of the ladies i met at camp so that should be tons of fun! last night was my host mom's birthday so they're throwing a huge party tonight, woo hooo! tomorrow me and my family and people from church are going to some lagoons to swim so it should be a hoppin' weekend! i hope you all are doing well. i miss you all so much!! continue to let God work in your life and please keep me in your prayers. love you all, melissa