Our tour guide, a former prisoner, was an older man with an elegant manner and a belly protruding over his belt. He referred to himself as being from “the rank and file” of the African National Congress. He described fourteen years of work that he did in the same sunshine that beat down on us, how Mandela would set the pace for the other prisoners. Then he pointed to a small, dark cave on the other end of the quarry where they were allowed to eat lunch and occasionally use the toilet. “That,” he said, “was the best university in the world. That is where Mandela and others would debate
...more
