Graaf-Reinet

This town was the 4th town founded by the Dutch East India Trading Company in the Cape Colony.  One of the primary purposes of the colony was to resupply Dutch trading ships going around the Cape of Good Hope.  The colony moved back and forth from Dutch to British control as the Dutch Golden era began to fade and the British Empire emerged.  The Dutch farmers in towns like Graaf-Reinet resented British prohibitions against slavery and taxes.  Ultimately, the set off on the Great Trek and travelled further inland, crossing over the Orange and Vaal rivers, founding the Orange Free State and Transvaal.  There were of course wars, Boer War, Xhosa Wars, the Zulu were defeated.

So today in a post Apartheid South Africa we can rent our own little prison cell and stay in a charming Dutch Colonial bungalow that feels like a jailhouse.

Even the keys look like jailer keys and Jesus is protected by razor wire.

This type of security was here during Apartheid as well.  As we walked through town I could only wonder what thoughts ran through the minds of the now free black South Africans that live in the shantytown as they stroll down the streets knowing that the bars and razor wire are there to protect the people inside from them.  Oddly, the model has been copied and you see razor wire on one room houses made of courragated tin.