I Am Because You Are: How the Spirit of Ubuntu Inspired an Unlikely Friendship and Transformed a Community

In 1998, Jacob Lief, a 21-year-old American university student, met school teacher Malizole "Banks"
Gwaxula in a township tavern in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. After bonding over beers and a shared passion for education, Gwaxula invited Lief to live with him in the township. Inspired by their fortuitous meeting-which brought together two men separated by race, nationality, and age-and by the spirit of ubuntu, roughly translated as "I am because you are"-the two men embarked on an …