One of the most interesting experiences in Cape Town thus far was a tour of the Slave Lodge Museum. I found the slave lodge to be a fascinating look on the history of slavery in Cape Town, but also how the effects of slavery are still felt today. People from across Africa and parts of Asia were brought to the Cape to serve as slaves. Even after the end of slavery in the 1830s many of the former slaves held onto their identity and communal ties. One such example is the Malay community. However for many people in modern Cape Town this tie to their past has been lost. Perhaps one of the most striking moments of the tour for me was when we were standing at the slave auction block, on a traffic median, in the middle of road, almost unmarked. There was a man sitting on it and Lucy, the tour guide, politely asked him to move. She said, “Do you know what this is?” He did not and she explained the historical significance of it say, “Brother, our ancestors were sold here.” I found this statement to be fascinating for a number of reasons. The first was that she referred to a stranger as brother, showing a great level of familiarity if not biological connection, but it was also the fact that she said our ancestors. By using this pronoun rather than, your and/or my, she bound them together, creating a link of common history, of shared identity that is the essence of community and the definition of Ubuntu.
