14/4/2016 Day 4 of 7 sea days to Cape Verde

Still thinking all the time about Grandad Roy. Love to all the Ashpitals xxxx

My oh my,  we can feel certainly the equatorial heat today. Definitely in excess of 30C. An indoors day was needed today, even breakfast on the deck in the shade at 9 this morning was a bit too hot for us Brits (not all I have to say, some are still getting roasted and turned out on their sunbeds. There was at least one casualty of the heat today, as one man collapsed on deck 13. He was stretchered away.)

So we have entertained ourselves indoors, more art, drawing and painting a monk seal.  Pam Carter is the name of the art teacher, quite eccentric at the same time as being an inspirational woman and artist, and as if that wasn't enough, cancer and stroke survivor. She is accompanied by her husband, a former rugby player now confined to a wheelchair as a result of his career, for whom she is also a carer. Maximum respect to them both.


On the subject of inspirational we then went to Chris Lubbe's third and final talk, this one was about the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ( links to a BBC feature narrated by Fern Britton) after apartheid, and the appointment of Desmond Tutu to chair the commission using a restorative justice and amnesty approach.   The Commission had three functions: human rights, amnesty and reparation.  Hearings took place between 1996-1998, starting in the Western Cape.
  How to forgive was at the heart of the work of the commission, but in needed full disclosure and engagement of the perpetrators. How to be listened to as part of  catharsis for the victims and their families. There is a SA government TRC site for background and ethos.  On You tube there are full hour long broadcasts of the interviews by the TRC (warning of horrific details) for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRE_eM_LtR4
 Today's talk was really visual - clips of state sanctioned violence, in particular an event referred to as the Trojan Horse Massacre, where police hid in a container and then just burst out opening fire on everyone peacefully demonstrating - I have now linked to You Tube.  He showed us photos from the commission, and added profoundly moving narrative.  There are still so many things I would like to know, but it will have to wait until I am at home, with access to libraries and internet for research. I have found another documentary which gives a more information (if you watch please be prepared for the reality), and I have also found the following 21 minutes of summary really helpful.




There was time for a few questions and answers today too. One was to ask about the presence of segregation before apartheid was enshrined in law - eliciting an uncomfortable response about the regime imposed by British and Dutch colonialists. One was to ask why there's so much inequality even now 20 years on. The answer was respectfully that 300 years of inequality cannot disappear in one generation,  I have learned so much from these three sessions and feel absolutely privileged to have been here at this time. Two of these 3 sessions are on a loop on channel 2 in our cabins now too, so I will be able to review the details I may have forgotten.

Tonight after dinner we decided to go to the Curzon theatre to watch the Headliners Theatre Company perform "Blame it on the Boogie", but unfortunately there were some technical difficulties and the show was cancelled just after it started.  The "pit lifts" went down below stage level, and as it was a dance performance it was too dangerous to carry on.

We are now back in the cabin watching parts of Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy interspersed with Liverpool v. Borusia Dortmund. It's a great thing to be able to study the map of Africa in our cabin and to learn where we are in relation to Gabon, Cameroon and Nigeria, and how we will be sailing towards Cape Verde to the west of Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Liberia and Senegal.  They were just place names, and I never really placed them on a map before.  I hope I remember all this. A few years ago I learned all the locations of all of the USA, I think I'd be hard pushed to remember even 10 accurately nowadays. Losing what I don't use unfortunately.

Our current location after another 440 nautical miles towards Cape Verde is 1 degree south of the equator and 6 degrees west, so we didn't cross the equator overnight as I had expected.  Instead we have been told it will be overnight tonight, and then we are back in the Northern Hemisphere for the final stretch, visiting the Islands - Cape Verde, Canaries (Tenerife and Gran Canaria) and Madeira before returning to Southampton.