…was the Slave Lodge.
I mean, we did go there. It was, after all, a mere 5 minutes walk from our hotel, the Mandela Rhodes Place (which I shall talk about in a later post).
When we got there, I entered the cavernous entrance hall without hesitation. I walked into the next room, where some posters and fragments of human bones were displayed. And I was okay up to that point.
But the moment I took a few steps into the next room, I felt…strange. I am absolutely certain that what I felt was NOT fear (as in, feeling like there’s something behind you and all your hairs are standing on their end). I just felt like…I couldn’t breathe. That there was a certain heaviness bearing down on me. And that there was so much chaos inside me and all around me that I just blurted out “I’m sorry, I can’t go in there” and I immediately walked out of the room where we were in, past the reception, and out of the front door as fast as my legs could carry me.
Looking at the history of the Slave Lodge, I now understand why I felt the way I did. Apparently, the place was built in 1679 as the slave lodge — as the name suggests — of the Dutch East India Company. It is believed that up to 9,000 slaves, convicts and mentally-ill persons lived in the building between 1679 and 1811, crammed with some 600 people at any given time. Only God knows how many people have been tortured, have suffered and have died in there.
Call it a near brush with the paranormal if you will. All I know is that I’ll never forget that place for as long as I live.
Click here read more about the heritage of slavery in South Africa.
Probably, I would do the same like you.