I have albinism, so my skin, hair and eyes do not have any pigmentation. So, in terms of my skin, obviously I don’t look like anybody else. I am considered a coloured person in South African terms, so I stay in a predominantly coloured community.

These days things are a lot better, but when I first came here, people would stop in the middle of the road to stare at me, to make comments, or to say something, and it affected my self-confidence a lot. I was very shy, I never wanted to be out and about or I tried to be inside mostly and I wanted to avoid interaction with other people as much as possible because, over the years, I have been rejected so many times and people would just ignore me completely or treat me like I have some condition that is contagious and so on.

But also, on a personal level, because of my skin, I still can’t be out in the sun for long periods of time, because my skin gets burned and then it is very, very, very painful, so now I am much wiser that I was years ago.