IN THE COMMUNITY
PROFILE OF A FIRST YEAR STUDENT
Communities comprise of a wider range of racial groups, religious groups and backgrounds. Rhodes University is one of the communities that offer a wider range of people from religious backgrounds thus creating a rainbow nation which facilitate the development of religious facts which might end up in some coercion. It was one such an afternoon when I collided with Nicky Moubray whilst we were waiting for Law tutorial.
Nicky is a first year student who is doing Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Law and Classical studies. She is 19 years old and she comes from Gauteng province. Nicky was so happy being a Rodent because it was one of her wishes to experience university life. After spending many years with her parents she had never experienced a life without parents being closer to her offering comfort. She was pretty happy with almost everything she found at Rhodes. The problem came when she was not offered the type of food she needed. To this issue, it was no laughing matter to her, her face became a mirror which broadcasted far fetched thoughts. Different dried food was placed on her table and to that, she said was the supplement she resorted to after the warden had failed to organise something from the dining hall. On the dietary issue, life was no longer an easy going way because she was also having weight loss.
From her memory recall, she said that when she was still at home she just thought that she might encounter several problems in trying to interact with people from different religious backgrounds because she is from a Buddhist. Nicky used to perceive non Buddhists as lost people without direction but after having encountered many non Buddhists she began throwing some compromises about some of the beliefs. Sparkles struck her face when she recited a day when she was just caught up in a conversation with a lady from the Muslim religion. ‘I spend four hours trying to convince her about our religious view but she ended up convincing me on other issues that I failed to give answers’’, she laughed loudly, ‘ she is now my friend although I used to say that I don’t want to befriend non Buddhists .’
Religion to Nicky is what sustains her because when she speaks about Buddhism, she tries to capture your attention by giving a vivid explanation and try by all means to indoctrinate religious morals in you. Nicky describes Buddhism as a religion of the western and central Asia growing out of the teaching of Gautama Buddha that maintains sorrow and suffering are inherent in life and that one can be released from them by ridding oneself of desire and self delusion. Her voice reached a high pitch when she said that, People need to reach this stage of enlightenment, I also want to be like Buddha.’’ To them there is no heaven or hell, but punishment is so immediate because if misfortunes, illness and all bad things happen to them they are not yet enlightened, so it is a punishment for failure to live well. One way of enlightenment, is through the daily routines of meditation which is carried by sitting and paying attention to what is happening in their bodies.
One of the happy moments was when she was told a story of Buddha by her mother. There was a man who had a wife who was so lazy and could not do her dishes, clean the house or cook. She was only there to sit and sleep. Buddha paid a visit to them and told her that there were seven types of women. There are, murderers who destroy their husbands by running with other husbands. There is a thief who uses his husband and run away with other men after obtaining all the wealth. There is a friend type of a woman who is an equal partner and loves her husband whole heartedly. The mother type of a woman babies everyone and scolds the husband as she does to her children and lastly the slave type of a woman who is just an object of oppression. Lastly, she chooses to be the slave woman.