Bon welcomes new receptionist to dining staff

Mthabisi George Sibanda is the newest addition to the Bon staff working the weekday dinner shifts at the front of house. He has quickly made an impact on LC students with the handwritten inspirational messages and poems he tapes to the front of the register. Sibanda is currently working on his Master of Laws (LLM) in animal law at the Lewis & Clark Law School, and loves live concerts and theater. I was fortunate enough to sit down with and interview George for this article, and rather than summing up his story, I will let him tell it. 

Babus: “Before we started, you mentioned that you like to read, what have you been reading?”

Sibanda: “I read a lot of autobiographies and a lot of civil rights movement writings. There is a book by a former Acting Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa. His biography is titled ‘My Own Liberator.’ I like the style in which he portrays his life story; it’s more like a memoir. I’m still trying to get my hands on his second one because I recently learned that he wrote another one. I think my love for reading began with reading a set of books called Pacesetters. Pacesetters were like a collective of books by different authors, a kickoff for teenage readers. I still remember some of my favorite titles like ‘Pains Of A Maid’ and ‘Camera Never Lies.’ I grew up also with a little bit of Reader’s Digest. I used to go from cover to cover on Reader’s Digest. The nice thing is that you can always revisit the stories that you liked.”

Babus: “How did you end up coming to Lewis & Clark?”

Sibanda: “Really out of pushing myself to take a leap of faith, because when I applied to Lewis & Clark, I actually was on a hospital bed. I had been looking for a diagnosis for something very rare. At that time, there were nights when they used to call my family to come, like to spend their last hours with me. But to actually have been able to get out of that without my own doing made me realize that there is a higher power that’s looking out for me. I believe it’s God. 

“I was struggling to move, then I gradually realized I couldn’t run anymore. It eventually led me to be in a wheelchair. So I was in the hospital, and they were looking for a diagnosis as to what was really happening to me. I did blood tests, lumbar punctures, MRIs, x-rays, everything. They could see that for the function of my lower limbs, the issue was coming from the spinal cord, but they couldn’t find where it was. The pain I was getting was from the area of the lumbar spine. It was so hard for me to actually understand exactly what was happening to me. Even my skin had changed. I was turning a grayish complexion that was so unfathomable for the people that were around me. The biggest problem was the diagnosis of what was happening. I eventually got diagnosed with diabetes, but when they tried to treat that, they realized the problem of the lower limbs was not going. I got to meet a doctor in South Africa, and she grouped up with a few of her friends who are neurospecialists. They were able to find that I had diabetes plexitis, and that was what was affecting me. I think in simple layman’s terms, there was no functioning around the nerves on my spinal cord. I had lost sensation, especially in my right leg, which is still the problem, which is why I’m still using the crutch, but there’s progress. I went from a wheelchair to two crutches, and now I am on one crutch.”

Babus: “How did you get involved with the Bon?”

Sibanda: “I was offered a 50% scholarship to come to Lewis & Clark, but, you know, coming from Africa, the fees are very high here. You could have whatever you think you have, but when you convert that money to U.S. dollars, it’s almost nothing. But I came too because I really wanted to do this program in animal law. I wanted to go after corporate accountability, especially on ethical decisions that affect animal law. I thought this was my lifetime opportunity to do it. Even though I did ask to be considered for a 100% scholarship, unfortunately, I was not. And so when I got here, I realized I did need some financial assistance. A friend of mine from Brazil took me to a walk-in interview at the Bon. And so they were interviewing me, they said, ‘But what can we do for you? I mean, you are on crutches and wouldn’t be able to stand at the back for a long time or assist effectively in the kitchen.’ So I said to them, ‘Give me your reception area. I’ll do my best.’ I remember Jen saying, ‘Okay, I’ll give you a shot at the reception area.’”

Babus: “What got you interested in animal law?”

Sibanda: “Corporate social responsibility is what got me interested in animal law. I had lived in South Africa for 17 years and worked as a candidate attorney, and I moved from that to corporate. I got exposed to regulatory compliance when I was working there, and I realized that there are so many corporate ethical decisions that are taken that affect all types of animals. You’d find illegal dumps that end up with radioactive waste getting into our seas, so that affects our aquatic animals. Sometimes network companies move their cell phone towers because societies are complaining of the cancer possibilities, so they think it’s better to cause this cancer to animals. Property developments that are done without proper quantity surveying affect insects that are part of and contribute to our ecosystem. Corporate social responsibility does not only end with just giving a little bit by building a road or a bridge in a society, it’s a holistic thing. A lot of companies subscribe to sustainable development goals and they actually incorporate animals because they have to do with the entire ecosystems. Nobody is holding these companies accountable, so that’s what got me interested in saying ‘I need to protect animals from unethical decisions that are taken by corporations.’”

Babus: “So you lived in South Africa for 17 years, where were you before that?”

Sibanda: “I’m originally from Zimbabwe. I was born in a place called Bulawayo. I actually grew up in different places around that city, because I grew up with a family where we didn’t own a home of our own, so we would almost always be renting a backyard room from someone. We were always moving. There’s a place called Makokoba, it’s like the number one township of Bulawayo, with very high density. It’s the township that I can say really made me, and perhaps maybe even Thorngrove and Nguboyenja.”

Babus: “What do you think was the most influential part of growing up? What made you who you are now?”

Sibanda: “I was surrounded by so many different people that influenced my life, including my mom, but also I grew up with some sort of rejection, some sort of stigma of the fact that my parents were not married. We grew up closer to my mom’s family because we were all raised by my mom. My mom had this fondness for her younger brothers because she partly raised them, but I grew up sensing some sort of resentment from them. It was something that I didn’t understand because, from a young age, I knew how much my mother loved her younger brothers. When my mom was around they were a bit nicer, a bit more tolerant of me, but when my mom wasn’t around, they were actually very hostile to me. It’s like they didn’t want me at all. Fortunately, I got to meet people, especially from church, who were not related to me at all, but they got to love me so much. I think that’s partially the reason I am here today. Someone taking care and making sure that you’re right, not only physically, but making sure that you’re right mentally and emotionally. I saw this from people who were not my relatives. It was people that I met at church, people that became friends. I always care about how I make other people feel because when I look back, I want to give back through my actions to the people that actually made me. There were so many people that could have easily been strangers that actually became my family, and there were people that were my family that could have actually been my family that ended up just being people I’m related to.”

Babus: “How has that influenced your writing?”

Sibanda: “I grew up questioning my self-worth. At some points, I doubted if I was worth a smile from someone. When someone smiled at me, there were times when it got scary because I didn’t know what was coming next, because I was so used to these people that called me names. Then I thought I could use it to express to someone that ‘Listen, your worth is not determined by someone else or from someone else. You define your worth, and so within you, actually determine that which makes you worthy.’ I mean, some of these poems have become very impromptu, it’s just as I get there and I sit there, I think about a few things that I went through that day, and I’m like, ‘What could I want someone to know to make them feel better or to make them happy?’ Then I just start writing.

“If you go to my book, of the things that I write, you might be confused as to what I’m writing about, because I don’t directly put out things and say, ‘This is what I’m going through.’ I try to find a creative, subtle way. I always tell people that you can love poetry, but if you’ve never learned the critical appreciation of poetry, you’ll never hear the message behind the message. That’s how I write. Many things that I write, people might not be able to get the pain that I’m expressing, the fears, the hurt, my tears behind the ink. But, if it makes you smile, it makes me happy. It’s part of my intention.”

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Isaac Babus

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