Culture includes shared beliefs, values, attitudes, and norms that are passed down from generation to generation within a community or society.

Growing up as a young girl in a household where traditions and culture is adhered to and respected it can be really daunting and pressurising because there is a specific way that you need to live your life even if you do not agree with it.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A GIRL IN THE XITSONA CULTURE

There are specific gender roles and responsibilities and as soon as you are born you already have a role that you are intended to play in the community and the household, they even go as far as planning your marriage for you and finding the "right cultured and respectful boy" for you. When you reach a specific age, you are expected to learn domestic skills like cooking, cleaning and childcare while boys are sent out to the fields to learn hard labour because they are men and will lead households in the future.

When a girl enters their teen hood, they are taken to initiation school to learn "how to become proper women" regardless of whether they want to or not that is how they can be proper wives to their husbands. I never really understood this one rule because why do I need to go away from home for 2 months to be taught how to be a wife by someone who is probably not even married or divorced? it just does not make any sense.

SEXUALITY

The topic of sexuality is also a very sensitive one in this culture like my grandmother always says ''you can't be a girl and like another girl it is not accepted" such things are shunned upon and are considered a taboo in our culture although times are changing, and we have evolved as people. As a girl who likes girls, I find it really hard to be open about such things because I already know how I'm going to be treated by society and some family members. 

They take girls and boys who are homosexual to initiation school to ''straighten'" them because for some reason we are not normal people, and we need to be fixed since we are sick. This is an absurd belief, and it is mind blowing to know that we have people in this day and age that still practice this not understanding that we did not wake up and decide to be like this.

As much as there are traditions and rules in my culture that I do not really agree with, there are traditions that make sense, and I would also like to be part of also if given the chance like the ceremonies that are done when a woman is about to be married, they are so beautiful and they bring peace and happiness amongst family members. Elderly woman and the young ones come together there is cooking involved, singing of traditional old songs and stories about the olden days which are fascinating and make you wish you were born around that time.

These are just a few of the traditions that exist in our culture and as much as I do not agree with most of them, I am happy and proud to be born into such an amazing and unique culture and hopefully as time goes on, I can be one of the people that bring about change progressiveness in my culture so that the things that are not seen as normal or acceptable can be normalised and accepted for the betterment of us all.