S Bothma

(52998452)

Learning Activity 2: Based on study unit 3

I frantically wake to the sound of my alarm playing another Doja Cat song. I slap my arm around on the bed trying to find my phone to hit the snooze button yet again, but quickly came to my senses when the bright light of my phone displayed the time as 10:00. The day has already begun and I am still in bed. I can hear the birds calling to each other in the trees and the smell of brewed coffee brings me to a sitting position, my roommate has probably just left for her first class.

I force myself to get ready and as the cold water of the hostel shower hits me I can’t help but to wake up. If you ask me that’s enough to put a person in a bad mood. I walk from the bathroom to my room, still wet, leaving a trail of drops proving my existence. I smell the stench of cooking in the hall and realize that I have not eaten anything as my tummy starts to rumble. I get dressed in a green skirt and black top, still trying to look good but still in a comfy manner. I don’t know if I was just hungry but the cheese toastie I ate was perfect as the cheese was in between hot and stretchy but still cold enough to eat.

I pack my laptop in my purple laptop bag, the bag I paid an arm and a leg for and now my computer doesn’t even fit properly, and I am of too class. I walk the long trail from Heide, past Karlien and then my favourite part, “The Duikweg”. It is so interesting to me that  different cultures and diversity can be displayed and explained by art and how the the artist’s that painted in the duikweg summed up the classic college experience by using perspectives from all creatures and old tails. The stairs is not my favourite part though as they find a way to leave even the fittest people out of breath.

I make my way to my first class already getting hot from the scolding sun of Potch, which I am not use to. Past me runs a monkey as if he was late for a class or something, typical for the Potch campus. I finnish my lectures and make my way back to the hostel to do some work.

My back aches as I attempt to finnish al the work I have to do before our exciting hostel Aksie tonight. I give in to the loads of work and start getting ready by putting on make up and doing my hair in such a manner that it still flatters my face, that is hard for a girl. We trough on some shiny glitter and called it a day.

Me and my friends enjoyed ourselfes in Gonnie’s Gat by dancing and meeting new people. The music was loud but the good vibes were flowing and we where having the time of our lives. I end of the day by getting into bed, setting my alarms for tomorrow and falling peacefully asleep.

Simoné Bothma

52998452

Learning Activity 1

In the following blog I am going to reflect on what I have learned in Study Unit 2 and how stereotypes, exoticization and misinformation has had an impact on my life.

I have learned that even though our world and mindsets as a human raise have progressed, we still tend to go back to our old ways of understanding different people. “The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways in which different peoples behave in similar situations that he is not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs” (Horace,1956:503), as is our mindsets of today. We as citizens tend to fall back on previous events which impact our behavior towards a certain topic like, stereotyping. These prelisted events created “otherness”/ the ability of humans to separate themselves from others appose to different backgrounds.

As I watched the video of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talking about the danger of a single story I couldn’t help but to think of the fact that most American’s believe that wild animals roam freely in the streets of Africa or that all Africans stays in huts. This is a perfect example to explain that a single story comes down to the fact that people create their own reality and therefore their own perspective about people by relying on stories from the past.

This mentioned facts all contribute to how people treat others different from them and therefore to the facts explained in Unit 2 of Social Anthropology.

 

Reference List:

Horace miner, 1956, Body Ritual among the Nacirema, https://www.jstor.org/stable/665280