THE REST OF ELIAS' STORY
You cannot imagine how the name of Robben Island made us afraid. It was a prison from which no one escaped. There I spent the hardest time of my life. But when I got there Nelsom Mandela was also there and he helped me. Mr Mandela began a school for those of us who had little learning. He taught us during the lunch breaks and the evenings when we should have been asleep. We read books under our blankets and used anything we could find to make candles to see the words. I became a good student. I wanted to study for my degree but I was not allowed to do that. Later, Mr Mandela allowed the prison guards to join us. He said they should not be stopped from studying for their degrees. They were not cleverer than me , but they did pass their exams. So I knwe I could get a degree too. That made me feel good about myself.
When I finished the four years in prison, I went to find a job. Since I was better educated, I got a job working in an office. However, the police found out and told my boss that I had been in prinson for blowing up government buildings. So I lost my job. I did not work again for twenty years until M r Mandela and the ANC came to power in 1994. All that time my wife and children had to beg for good and help from relatives or friends. Luckily Mr Mandela remembered me and gave me a job taking tourists around my old prison on Robben Islannd. I felt bad the first time I talked to a group. All the terror and fear of that time came back to me. I remembered the beatings and the cruelty of the guards and my friends who had died. I felt I would not be able to do it, but my family encouraged me. They said that the job and the pay from the new South African government were my reward after working all my life for equal rights for the Blacks. So now at 51 I am proud to show visitors over the prison, for I helped to make our people free in their own land.
