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.

Learning Activity 2

As a first year student my routine has changed completely ,from the time I wake up to the time I sleep and everything else in between . Take today for instance my body and my mind were found in a bit of a scuffle because mentally I had to be up but physically I just could not get up.

After a long back and forth I finally decided to wake up and get ready for the day ,the sun was already shining and birds were chirping it looked and sounded like it was about to be a good day. The first thing I do is reach for my phone and scroll through tiktok for my Big Brother Mzansi updates, then I made my way to the bathroom to shower ,wash away the smell of yesterday  then I brushed my teeth and went back to my room to get dressed and get going . Picking out an outfit turned out to be another hassle because I was bloated and I felt really fat nothing seemed to look good for me to wear but my cargo jeans ended up winning at the end and a baggy cream white top with my least favorite sneakers .

I attempted to make breakfast I obviously failed because I am a horrible cook but I did not throw up after eating so a win is a win. After that dissatisfying breakfast I went to school met some of my friends and we caught up on everything that happened to us the previous day individually, also we submitted our assignments for kcom  so we were proud of ourselves for doing that.

I attended all my classes although I was in a bit of pain I soldiered on and made it through till the last class in the evening , I was so happy to be on my way home after the exhausting day I had .The minute I got to my room I just jumped on my bed and napped for 2 to 3 hours when I got up I was a bit bummed to find out that we had loadshedding but like the soldier I am, I soldiered on until the electricity came back then I showered, had my dinner and then went outside to chat with a few of my peers ,we had a lot to talk about so I had to cut our catch up session short because the books were not going read themselves and Lawrence's blog was not going to write itself .

After all that studying I took my well deserved tiktok break and then I had my mandatory end of the day glass of water, prayed to god and thanked him for a educational and amazing day then I went to bed to catch up on my beauty sleep.

The word stereotype can be described in a lot of ways and can also have a lot of examples as everyone has different beliefs, however as a concept it is described as a widely held and oversimplified idea or belief about a particular group of people.

Growing up in a place full of traditional,uneducated and misinformed people I have a few stereotypes of my own. To give an example where I grew up I was told women and men can never be equal and if that ever happened the woman would be considered disrespectful. I remember my grandmother saying ''Your grandfather did not want me to go to work or to school and he would beat me up whenever I brought it up''. With all of that I grew up thinking that as a young black woman growing up or being from a family of a few educated people I would also suffer the same fate as my grandmother.

As I grew up and got to see the world for what it was and the people for who they were , I realised that what I had been told or taught from a very young age was just a single story based on what happened to them and how they were brought up also. I had a rude awakening to life and I am actually glad that I did because now as I am writing this blog I am a first year student at a university that is well known for being'' white people dominated'' and i am having the time of my life.

The day we open our eyes to the new reality and see the world for what it is now is the day our lives will change forever ,let us not let our single stories define us or our future we are the new generation and we should write stories that will change this world for the better seeing that the ones who came before us failed dismally.