R. Pitso
45547483
"It privileges teleology and analogy over creative negotiation by Africans of the multiple encounters, influences and perspectives evident throughout their continent. It thus impoverishes the complex realities of those it attracts or represses as students (Nyamnjoh 2009:130)". Our environments, family and culture we grow up in play a huge role in not our our personalities but how we know what we know and how we apply our knowledge in our lives. Coming from a very diverse background entailing different cultures such as: Tswana, Sesotho and Coloured I was raised in a very diverse way which paved different ways I established the knowledge I have. My background not only entails different ethnic cultures but different locations where I grew up in that also include on my knowledge on where I know from. My father's side of the family (Sesotho culture) have a strict hand when it comes to respect and morals, children aren't expected to look elders in the eyes when greeting and are always taught to address them with their titles (Mme- ma'am, Ntate-sir) which played a big role in my understanding of respect as in this culture respect is demanded and not earned. In my mother's side of the family (Tswana culture) values such as being a Godly person, being submissive to demands being given to you and understanding your role in the family as a child. Rules were implemented either verbally or physically if you know what I mean( no I am not referring to abuse), children were meant to be seen and not heard, church was not a choice but a priority and you can only say yes when they send you to go get a glass of water for the 100th time that day. You might be asking yourself where the last culture I mentioned comes in, well here it is. I was raised by my grandparents which make part of two different cultures not just one- Coloured ( grandfather) and Tswana( grandmother). By age 8 I was fluent in two languages Afrikaans and English, weird because English was rarely spoken in our household but during holidays when I went to visit my parents the environment I was in was predominantly Zulu and English speaking people, which then forced me to learn one of the two spoken languages. Afrikaans was only spoken around my grandparents or among my siblings when we wanted to gossip, Tswana or Sesotho was only spoken around my parents as not only a way to show respect but to give off the sense that we have not forgotten our roots, which only taught me to live a double standard live if I'm being honest. My values, morals and mental stability strongly depend on which part of the family I'm around, if I am allowed to be free and loud, conservative and quite, or bold and not easily outsmarted. In the history of some of the cultures I mentioned I saw a re-occuring pattern ( Tswana and Coloured culture), women are seen as bold and the glue that holds or brings the family together, in the other culture ( Sotho) women were and are still being belittled only because men are seen as the superior gender in almost every aspect, glad I'm as stubborn as my mother, that way I don't depend on anyone to guide me and also why I see and accept the different views people from different cultures introduce me to.