When first you look at her, she strikes as you the bitchy type, but the minute she talks you get to see another side of her, that she actually sweet . Getting to know Bonisiwe Mngoma a second year BA student was an interesting experience, she is very open about her life and she’s not scared to say whatever. Bonnie (as known by her friends) says she has always been the girl who been misunderstood. To most people she is known as a wild party animal, but she there a side of her that people don’t know. They don’t know she’s just a fragile creature, who loves and treasures people close to her heart. She says that she always portrayed wrong and people often get the wrong impression about her, “most people that I know always tell me that I’m a crazy girl whose an alcoholic because when I’m out they always see me drunk”, she says.
“I think of my self as a friendly person, it’s just as a Gemini (her star sign) I have a split personality, there’s a Bonnie that people know when they see me at the club and there’s another that’s very private that most people don’t know she’s only known by her close friends.” She says that she quite different from the girl that knew in high school, back then she was a bit more reserved “Rhodes really changed me because I didn’t drink in high school as much as I do now, its different because everyone drinks and the place just consumes you”. Sometimes she wonders why she didn’t prepare for varsity because first year bought so many surprises in her life.
Another thing that’s been a problem for her since coming here is the issue of choosing the right friends and learning to trust people “I have had lots of people that I thought were my best friends but in the end they betrayed my trust, I guess first year was about learning not to trust too much, my trust has become limited now”. Another thing that limited her trust is a break up with a boyfriend who she left back home in Newcastle (KZN). She found out from friends that he was getting married with some other girl, while they were still dating. “It was really a down point in my life because I didn’t see that coming, I really didn’t expect him to hurt me like that and it was one of my worst experiences in first year” she says. She says maybe that’s why she’s got issues with relationships and guys “I’m not a relationship person, I’m over men and falling in love it’s so overrated”. She says one day she would love to have a boyfriend at some point but the problem is whenever she starts falling for someone she ends up being hurt, “I always fall for the wrong guy”
All in all she says that coming to Rhodes changed her, “It actually made me discover my self, it made me see a different side of me that really scares me at time, and I sometimes feel I have lost my innocence, I have tried so hard to preserve it. But she says deep down there’s a bit of innocence still in her but it gets clouded by other things, if people got the time to get to know her better they know her better “I’m a softie at heart”.