I divide my 5 beans into 5 important people in my life:

Friends, family, community, neighbours and colleagues. 

I’m also using 5 different colours to identify these people:

Glitter, green, pink, black and red. 

Friends - glitter

Family - green

Community - black

Neighbours - red

Colleagues - pink 

[1] Friends

My friends are very important people in my life because they are always there for me, when I am in a sad situation they come and comfort me. They carry my problems and find the solution; they make me feel like nothing wrong has happened. When I am in a happy situation they are also there with me. I can even ask advice, they give me good advice. That is why I refer to my friends as glitter because they are shining. 

[2] Family

My family are the most important people in my life because they made my future become brighter. They take care of me when I’m sick. They send me to school. They taught me about god, my culture, when I have financial problems they take care of me even if I don’t have any problem they are always with me. I refer to my family as green in colour because the care they give me leads me to green pastures. 

[3] Community

The people of my community I live with are important to me because I share some ideas with them of how are we going to develop our community. I refer to them as black because we are and we fight development. 

[4]Neighbours

My neighbours are also important people to me because if I need emergency help my neighbours are the first people to give help, although sometimes they cause problems, some of them are jealous. That is why I refer to them as red in colour. 

[5] Colleagues

My colleagues are also important to me because they make my job easier. I stay with them from 8h00 to 16h30, from Monday to Friday sharing the tasks of the department, without them I would not do my job properly. My colleagues are all ladies. I refer to them as pink.

5 BEANS

1. GROWTH 
   To be able to grow anything, you need to make sure you know how you are going to go about getting the correct results.  When growing beans you first have to soak them in water until you see little sprouts from the bean.  In life to grow you need to nurture your talents and your God given gift.  By doing this you nurture your talents and gifts and then you are sure to get the best results ever.
2. VALUE
   If you have one bean in your hand, you must not just see one bean; you must know that, if you plant that one bean you will get a whole lot when it is time to harvest.  Often in life we don’t realise that the things we have hold such great value.  You might not realise it at that time but this teaches us to always value what we have and we must take what we have and think outside the box as to what we can do with what we have, or maybe we don’t really have to think outside the box, maybe we need to realise that there is no box. 
3. OPPORTUNITIES
   There are a lot of farming opportunities in our country and people can start farming projects in their communities.  Beans are easy to grow and when you plant one seed you are guaranteed to get more out than you put in.
4. I would then plant my one bean.
5. The last bean reminds me of my mentor at work, Zanele Mbeje.  During month end in our department it gets very busy and she always says “Eish, people times are hard, beans on toast…” 

1. White
   It is a clean and elegant colour, most designers prefer white when they design their things. White can be mixed or matched with any colour. Most churches use white in their church uniforms.
2. Blue
   We are surrounded by the sea, it is blue and the sky is blue too, if you look up in the sky where there are no clouds you just feel happy and warm and say, wow the sky is clear. Blue is the loveliest colour for the baby boys.
3. Green
   It is the source of life, everything we eat that comes from the soil is green. Green is a natural colour.
4. Orange
   I remember when I was 10 years old my grandmother bought me a 2 piece dress for Christmas it was a skirt and a shirt. I like orange because it reminds me of the good memories of having a grandmother, she used to tell us stories some of them were nice some were too scary but we enjoyed them. I real miss her a lot and sometimes I feel like crying when I’m thinking of my lovely grandmother.
5. Lime
   It reminds me of my friend who was knocked by a car on our way from school, we were doing grade 6 and she liked the colour lime. Every time she wore something lime she liked to ask us to guess what colour underwear she was wearing.  Then when we guessed many colours that are not the same as hers, she used to say “oh my friend I’m wearing my favourite colour which is lime and she pulled her uniform up so that we can see, so we laughed and enjoyed that.

Nhlakanipho Mark Sibiya - 5 Beans Memories 

I couldn’t think of anything very interesting about my beans. I spent the whole week thinking of what I can come up with, than over the weekend during a church service the Pastor mentioned something about never forgetting where you come from. Every pain you go through is not to kill you but to make you stronger. 

The first bean made me think of the first day I was born, my uncle who sadly passed away told me that the day I was born I actually opened my eyes earlier than a newly born should. So he named me Nhlakanipho which means Clever in English terms. 

The second and third bean I put them in pairs because to me it reminds me of our 2nd year birthday with a very close friend of mine who also sadly passed away 5 years ago. I put those in pairs because Promise and I started schooling together and we got along very well even our parents were friends. 

The fourth bean makes me think of my fourth year at University, this year was a very difficult year for me because in that year I was very emotional because my mother actually got very sick and with all the exam stress to add up to all of that I just couldn’t handle anything coming my way but with the grace of the lord we made it. 

The fifth one recalls my mum’s birthday which is on the 5^th of February. This day after my mother had recovered we actually made her day very special to show her how much we really appreciate her in our life’s and for being very strong and fighting for her life just for us. 

So to me these five beans mean a lot as they have revealed some important parts of my life of which made me what I am today, a strong young man who prays.

For seed of bean to be reproduced, it has to undergo a process of negation. A bean kept in the kitchen chest drawer cannot reproduce more beans. 

Two beans out of five were thrown on the lawn, and three were kept comfortably in a chest drawer. Amongst two, one got on to an infertile place then died and one luckily fell unto fertile conditions allowing it to develop and grew.

Amongst three from the chest drawer, by chance one fell out and ultimately got swept out to a fertile lawn and developed into a plant. The two kept special bean in the chest drawer got rot for good. They rot because they were protected from the sun, storms and winds. 

A husband and wife were staying together with five children, while all of them were biological kids of the husband. Mother had only three and she used to spoil them throughout their childhood, she never gave tasks. All domestic work was done by the other two; the two were sent to execute difficult tasks sometimes in the rain and all other sort of discriminations. One of them gave up and the one had a strong perseverance, until she became successful in life.

Among the three kids who used to be kept incubated by their mother, the two enjoyed the comfort zone where else one did not enjoy that relaxation zone and chose to sympathize and join those whom were discriminated. She also became successful too.

 In conclusion, if person experiences adverse conditions and if he is a life-long learner, she stands to become successful. And another lesson that you get from this story is that even if you live under luxurious material conditions learning can help you to live a long successful life.

When I was given the task to do something creative with my five beans, I had no clue where to start. As the week went on, I realized that I am generally a very organized person and everything I do must have a flowing nature. I had thought about my life and what I want to achieve in my life and what better way to depict this than with beans. I just thought that sometimes thinking about what you want to achieve can be stressful as it isn’t an easy road. Representing these goals with simple beans made me realize I can achieve one goal at a time and gives me a structure to follow without the stress. 

In my bean collage, the first depiction is of me graduating at the end of the year. After my graduation I would like to invest in buying my own home. The next step for me is to buy my German engineered sports car which is shown in the collage. When I have gained enough experience in industry I would like to start up my own business, which is represented by the bean behind the desk. When I have reached the stage in my life where I have achieved all my previously mentioned goals, all that is left for me to achieve is my dream of learning how to fly an aero plane.

If something as simple as beans can achieve all this, then so can I.

Sanjeev’s visual presentation.