PH
Refilwe Modiselle was in her early teens when she saw for the first time another person apart from herself living with albinism.
It happened after the death of her father, her memory fails her as to the exact age.
Granddaughter to a family of church ministers, and the first born in a family of three successful women in entertainment, Modiselle was raised by her loving mother at one of the first black-owned corner houses in Orange Grove, Johannesburg, her family home.
We’re sitting in the lounge at her home, laughter soaring with the aura of comfort and love, as she reminisces over her childhood and awe-inspiring career.
On answering my question of whether she ever felt different growing up, she muses.
“Look, I did, but I don’t think I was aware of it because it’s one thing to feel it, to really feel it, and it’s another thing to be oblivious to it. My mother did an exceptional job; I think when you don’t make kids aware of things, they live in a fairy tale, so I think to a certain degree I did,” she says.
She drops a deep sigh, raises her eyes to her left as if to peer into a distant past and drags parts of it to the present.
She directs her gaze back to me, and with a pensive smile she hands me a piece of her memory.
