TREE OF LIFE

Assignment 1: Individual Reflective Essay

K Radebe (22238479) 8/19/22 Cornerstone101

Introduction

In this assignment I will develop a tree of life structured essay where I will talk about
where I come from and how growing up there has helped shape me as a person. In
my opinion it is not easy to grow up and mature into a person that you always
thought or wished you could be as a kid. I want to say I tried my best and I know my
family and friends tried their best to support me on my journey and also helped
shape my life as it is today. Firstly, in this tree of life structured essay, I will be telling
you about my family and culture where I will talk about the place I grew up, which will
be the roots and trunk of my tree. Secondly, I will talk about the branches and leaves
that would be my personal and educational journey. And lastly, I will talk about the
blossoms and fruits of my tree of life and that would be what I had achieved
personally and educationally throughout my journey.

A. The Roots and Trunk

My name is Kwanele Radebe, and I am the youngest among my siblings on both my

mother’s side and my father’s side, but I grew up living with my mother. I also grew
up living with two older siblings which are my uncle’s daughter Sinenhlanhla and my
blood brother Mazisi. I was born and maturated in Newcastle at a small peaceful
suburb called Ncandu Park. Ncandu Park is a peaceful place where there’s almost
no crime and is also rich in nature as there are many interesting places to go to like
the Chelmsford Dam, which is one of the largest in the province, and the Ncandu
River is also an option to visit as its green waters flows across the city. I also like the
people from this developing city as they are one of the kindest you could find, there
was that day when I lost my money for transport and one of our teachers offered to
give me a lift for free, I was amused by the generosity and that taught me to not only
care for myself and also other people. I grew up and matured in a Zulu family and
obviously my home language is Zulu. During the weekdays our mother would travel
to Tugela Ferry so she could go to work and return home on weekends, so during
the week it was just the three of us and our dog Ghaddafi, and we also learned at the
same school. Growing up living alone with my siblings at a young age I can say that
it has made me strong and not find it difficult to live alone in a new place because it
was not hard to adapt to the life here in Pietermaritzburg, but it was also hard
growing up without an adult being present most of the time because there are things
I found hard to learn without an adult such as respect and religion. There are many
things that can disturb the way you would like your future to be if there is no adult to
guide you and warn you from things that can harm your future, and I say this
because I had experienced it growing up. While I was still in high school, I used to
bunk classes and there was no one to warned me that this could harm my future and
only learned that when I saw my marks dropping at school and almost failed the
tenth grade. I am a Christian by religion, because it was what I was taught at home
growing up. I found it hard to inherit being a Christian growing up because respect is
what churches are built around, but as I matured I then understood why my family
roots chose to be Christians and that is because what is taught at church is very
helpful in being able to live with other people with ease and peace because being
used to going to church teaches a person to have respect and value other people. All
this growing up alone and learning my religion has helped shape the person I am
now and that also made me understand that no one is better than me and, I am not
better than anyone, it does not matter where you come from, we are all the same.

B. The Branches and Leaves

Firstly, I would like to thank the Lord for not giving up on me and helping me being
able to be where I am now because I could say that I am proud of what I have
become and achieved along the way growing up. Looking at what I am proud of from
my personality, the most pleasant to me is that I am a people’s person because I can
blend in with any people and I am able to understand other people for what they are
and how they behave, I can see this because back at home in Newcastle I have very
different friends than who I have now here in Pietermaritzburg as they have different
personalities beliefs as my hometown friends like being active and outdoors, and my
friends from here at school like being indoors not being active but I can enjoy
company from both sides. I am also proud that I was able to turn out the way I am
now which is to be strong and to be aware of what you need in order to thrive in life
and also be independent even though I have not reached that phase in my life but I
know how would I be able to live when I reach that stage of life, and I thank my
mother for that because she was the one that would always try to guide me of how
should I do things so I could have a pleasant future. One of the things I regret most
in my life is doing drugs when I was in high school because it held me back in life
and there are many things that I could have achieved that are good and would be
proud of in the future such as having a career in soccer and I use soccer as an
example because it was once my dream and one of my friends which I grew up with
followed his dream and done all he could to succeed and succeeded, and now he is
playing at the very highest level in our country which is the PSL, which showed that it
was possible if you push yourself and believe in yourself. Not that I am not proud of
what I have become and what path I am taking but there are things that I would have
liked to do better and some not even try to do such as that of drugs. While I was
doing the tenth grade my friends and I used to bunk school so we could smoke weed
and drink lin. Around where I live in Newcastle it was easy to get these drugs
because we had a pharmacy near our community where we would get Lin, and at
the pharmacy they never suspected that we did drugs because all they could see is
kids that just want to buy medicine because they are sick not knowing that we would
use the medicine as drugs. I regret doing that because that held my life back and
also contributed towards quitting my dream which is soccer because I did not have
time to go to practice because I was using all the time and honestly there is nothing
much you could do when you are high because you get lazy, and I was even
suspended for two weeks at school because I was bunking classes but they did not
know what I was doing during that time. Even though I was using I could pass at
school and that contributed towards being blind from seeing what was holding my life
back. I quitted doing drugs when I was on the twelfth grade and that is when I had
my first girlfriend. She was the one that helped me realise that doing drugs is holding
me back in life, she convinced me by making me aware of what I can do and how
much it can improve if had not used drugs. She knew that I could pass at school
even if I use drugs but made me realise that if I had not used drugs, I would have
maybe been an A student instead of being just average. In grade 12 I quitted drugs
and my marks at school went up and even passed my matric with a B and was able
to follow my second dream which was becoming a qualified civil engineer, currently I
am still on my way there where I want to be as I am still studying for my diploma.
There is nothing I would like to change in my life because I am the way I am because
I went through those experiences and there are a lot of things that I would not have
learned if I had not experienced any challenges or achieved things during the
journey of my life.
C. The Blossoms

There are many important achievements I have enjoyed in my life and that I am
proud of. One of the things I am most proud of is passing my grade 12 with no
subject being under 60% because that year was the hardest with a lot of work, but I
pulled through with the pressure of the work at school and succeeded. Achieving this
was very important for me because my dream was to become a civil engineer and to
qualify to study for the qualification, I had to pass my twelfth grade with both math
and physics over 60%. I would like to see myself being independent and able to
afford to live anywhere I want to and being able to build my own family. And to be
able to do all this I would have to start by following my dream of becoming a civil
engineer and building a strong mentality so I could be able to withstand the
challenges of trying to be independent. In future I would like to live in a peaceful and
safe society but where it would be easy to get to know the people around it. That
would be good for building a family and that is suitable for young people to mature
and learn in.

Conclusion

During my journey maturing into what I have become I learned that things happen for
a reason, but I am the only one who can alter the way things will turn out and who
can shape my future the way I want it to be because the things I did, the choices I
made and the experiences I had been through are the ones that made me who I am
now and I would not want to change a thing from them.
References

• http://www.siyabona.com/Newcastle-KwaZuluNatal
• http://www.history.com/religion