Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Exploring Cultures

My grandmother told me she was Mozambican, my grandfather was Mokalaka from Botswana. That's on my mothers side. My other grandmother was Molete from Botswana, and I recently learnt that my grandfather was Ndebele from Zimbabwe. What does that make me? Well, I'm just a girl who grew up in Gaborone and came to study in South Africa where I met my Swati Husband who apparently looks just like me.

Aside from reading, one thing I absolutely love is exploring different cultures. I love to learn how different we all are and how very alike we are still. I like to observe a people from a distance and come up with my own assumptions only for me to get closer and realise that there is more, much more than my little ideas of who Nigerians are, who Zambians are, or Canadians. Those are titles of pieces of land surrounded by a fence.

There is more to a culture than national names. Within that large group there are smaller communities, they identify with one another some because of language, some because of religion and some culture. It is all so varied and dynamic that no book can explain a people to you. If you want to explore people, live with them, interact with them and learn from them. How pleasurable human studies are. I am talking about those one takes upon himself to broaden his mind. After you have begun you will realise that you have taken a climb out of the box and out there there are people roaming the world, not boxed in to a name or set identity.

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