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By Nancy Dorrance
with photography by Bernard Clark
While still reeling from the loss of her 16-year-old granddaughter and 84-year-old mother over the space of six horrendous days in September 2019, Sipho Ibeakanma found herself in the drive-through lane at a Kingston fast-food chain. “It was more of a diversion than anything else. I was trying to escape from my thoughts and feelings,” acknowledges the soft-spoken but engaging woman now, as we sip tea in a cozy alcove of Pedal Works Café and Studio on upper Princess Street.
When the drive-through server informed Sipho that her bill had been covered by the previous customer, she was shocked. “Everything changed for me in that moment,” she says. “That simple act of kindness brought me out of my despair and reinforced my belief in ‘paying it forward.’”
It was the kind of gesture Sipho associated with her childhood in Zimbabwe, where extended family members routinely lived together and looked after one another. When she moved to Kingston as an adult, she couldn’t understand why many people living on the streets seemed to struggle alone. “At first I felt so homesick, but I knew my pain was temporary,” she reflects. “These people didn’t have that comfort.”
Even while finding her own footing in a new country and culture, Sipho vowed that one day she would do something to make their lives more comfortable. . . .
