Basetsana Kumalo is filled with gratitude and excitement as she turns 50-year-old today. The former Miss South African penned a lengthy note about her journey over the past years. Basetsana talked about her family and how the values infused in her helped her become a better person in society at large.

“On the 29th of March, 50 years ago, it was God ordained and anointed that I turn fifty on Good Friday. I was born into the Makgalemele family to my dearly departed parents Ntate Phillip and Nomazizi Makgalemele, their third daughter after Aus’ Lerato and Maniko (Johanna) my younger brother who is the last born of the family Mojalefa was born two years after me,” she wrote.

“I was raised in a loving home where Christian values were instilled in us from a very young age. My father was a bus driver and my mother was a teacher, out of their 8-5 jobs, they were entrepreneurs, formidable and ahead of their time.”

 

 

 

 

 

“I gleaned and learned to be an entrepreneur from my parents home. My frame of reference is seeing them work exceptionally hard to put food on the table, clothes on our backs, shoes on our feet and a roof over our heads. My father used to say “Baby girl, hard work has never killed anybody.”

“The fundamental lessons I have learned from my parents have stood me in good stead throughout my life. I am the woman that I am today because of their tutelage and teachings. When I came into public life thirty years ago, I was embraced by the love of a nation, a rainbow nation in the new South Africa. A new democracy, a new dispensation, a new dawn, a new country.”

“Throughout all these years I have experienced a love of a nation in the most beautiful way. The zeitgeist of winning Miss South Africa in 1994 and being part of the first democratic elections was a poignant moment for me. I couldn’t have scripted it myself even if I had tried.” Baset gushes over her family and expressed gratitude for living half a century.