Suddenly, while kneeling between these large green cabbages' leaves, I was looking at the sun fading away and being replaced by large white clouds as if the rain were very close. I remembered the other prisoner. Madiba was his clan name. I admired his intelligence, his charm, and dignified defiance. He always spoke a word of peace and unity. The day I met him, I watched the boat that took me to Robben Island disappear in the clear blue water between the sky and the sea. It was a day that the sun shined in its brilliance and the clouds parted in the sky, almost welcoming me to my new home with open arms. I stayed here for eight long years. I learned a lot from Madiba.
             - "Wake up Brille!" said Hannetjie, the new warder, when I dropped a cabbage that rolled to his
             - "I am not sleeping," I said while fixing my glasses.
             - "Ok, the whole Span will be skipped three meals," he replied.
             - "I dropped it; why would you take their meals away. Take mine only," I pleaded.
             - "Listen to me, little kaffir, I do not take orders from you. I am the baas here, and you are
             As I was trying to reply, Hannetjie gave me several blows on the head, and my glasses fell. I quickly retrieved them, and I was glad they did not break. I apologized to my comrades in the cell, but I swore that I would steal something to feed them to redeem myself. Madiba used to talk about honesty. I heard his voice talking to me as if he were right in my ears. "No, I said, I can't think about honesty now we are all hungry." I was never brutalized in my life before, but I have seen men being treated like animals and being deprived of their dignity. Sometimes, they cried like desperate children for grace and mercy; they were hanged instead.
             I was physically in the cell, but my mind traveled very far back to that small village of Benoni where my family was probably still living. My father who was very old and could no
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