You Don’t Come Here For The Coffee

Back home, Lenore subsisted on approximately 8 shots of espresso, 2 liters of skim milk, a 3⁄4 cup of raw cane sugar, and a teaspoon of cocoa powder a day. There were other items on the menu, but she could keep functioning without all of them. Coffee, however – the nonfat venti latte, preferably times four – she could not live without.

But sometimes life calls us into places and onto adventures that push us past our possible. We venture – when the call is strong enough – into unknown worlds – worlds that sometimes don’t look much like anything familiar.

As Lenore sat – perched on the end of her bed, somewhere in the dark recesses of a northern Kenyan refugee camp, in a room she shared with a lizard and possibly some frogs – she waited for the call sign from the base. For 45 minutes she tried unsuccessfully to toggle the Internet from her phone to her laptop. Meanwhile, she waited for ‘Alpha Gama 4.2.3.1’ to come crackling through the radio to check that she was alive and accounted for.

As the iPhone and the laptop attempted to connect for the umpteenth time, she gazed through tired eyes at the spinning rainbow pinwheel on the computer screen. She found herself daydreaming that the call sign would miraculously come with an announcement that fresh coffee was now available at the mess hall. She envisioned throwing open the door and rushing out into the dark night with her two flashlights in hand, skipping in slalom form over and through the post-rain puddles that had come alive with leaping frogs. She would arrive at the mess and be met by a glorious venti latte.

Just then her reverie was abruptly ended by a knock at the door. Other roommates – of the reptilian, amphibian or invertebrate kind – were less surprising than a knock at the door at any hour. But especially after sunset. It was past 7 o’clock and all the residents of the UNHCR compound would be sat in their own bungalows awaiting curfew and the callsign. What awaited Lenore as the source of the knock on the other side of that door was even more unexpected.

She froze and waited in suspense – partly in disbelief of her own ears – until the knock came again. This time it was accompanied by a voice. It sounded like an unfamiliar American woman’s voice and this struck Lenore as less probable than the lizard addressing her with a throaty ‘Jambo!’ and so again she waited. Again, the knock came and the voice – this time more persistent.

‘Hello!? Is anyone there? I’m looking for the base.’ The whole thing seemed so strange to Lenore that she nearly forgot to answer her pleading visitor. But then she got up and made her way across the minuscule dormitory room and cautiously stood on her side of the closed doors. ‘Hello?’ she answered the woman’s voice. ‘Who is it?’ ‘My name is Janet Anthony’ the voice came back.

With a security level matched by the likes of Juba, Beirut, and countries like Afghanistan, it was near impossible for a westerner to infiltrate the refugee camps or compounds. Every morning at 7h45 the 4-by-4s would gather at the center of the compound and wait for their staff passengers before heading outside the gated compound security wall in a high-speed convoy that looked much more like a scene from the original The Italian Job than a safari.

In a tense environment like that, people didn’t pop round for coffee on a warm summer’s eve. It took Lenore all of two seconds to run down the list of muzungus she knew to be with her in the camp – Janet Anthony was definitely not one of them. She knew every other white person’s voice within the confines of those high-security walls.

Curiosity got the better of her precaution as Lenore pulled open the door to meet her strange visitor. The sight she was met with was both ordinary and peculiar all at once and for a moment Lenore just stood there staring as her brain raced to make sense of the visual input.

Here stood Janet Anthony – a woman American in appearance (outside of the United States they tended to all somehow look the same) yet of the type that wasn’t ever found with the backdrop Janet Anthony had behind her.

In reality, it was pitch black, but Lenore could still see in her mind’s eye what lay behind this woman in daylight. She had seen American tourists on safari and Janet Anthony came with all the same accouterments – from khaki money belt to backpack. But never had she seen such a figure in a refugee camp.

Janet Anthony was dressed for a full-fledged safari. Lenore imagined that the last time Kenya had seen such a get-up was when Karen Blixen landed from Denmark. ‘I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the refugee camps,’ she could imagine Janet Anthony’s autobiography opening. She had the soft canvas pith helmet and the kerchief and was pretty much only missing the colonial case.

It was surreal.

Finally, she spoke. Reckoning this lady to be harmless, Lenore invited her strange visitor in with ‘it’s late – you can’t get back to the compound’s base office now. Come in.’ Janet Anthony took a seat on the spare bed opposite Lenore’s. And from there she began to tell her story. Her strange story that demystified the curious whys and hows of how on earth she got to Lenore’s door.

Lenore was staying in a small housing unit on the compound – only some 400m away from the ‘mess’ as they called the cafeteria. But she found everything looked so similar and after sunset it definitely all looked the same. It wasn’t safe to walk around anyway. The regulations set by the UNHCR were stringent and with good reason. Several years ago three aid workers were kidnapped. Janet Anthony’s presence in the refugee camps made no sense.

I came over to Africa from Texas. Our Lion’s Club organizes this trip every year to the Kruger Park in South Africa and I’d never gone on it but this year I thought, why not? You know, what have I got to lose? You only live once. My girlfriends Sheri and Teresa went last year and they kind of convinced me to give it a shot. So here I am.

The dots did not connect for Lenore. The refugee camp was at least 4,000km away from the Kruger and already over 400 clicks from Nairobi. They were less than 100km from the Somali border and nobody was on safari there. It was desolate, removed – you didn’t end up there en route to anywhere but nowhere.

But Lenore continued to listen and Janet Anthony carried on.

My girlfriends from the Lions’ had such an amazing experience last year. I saw when they came back from that first trip that something had really touched them – something they couldn’t really explain in words. I wanted to experience whatever it was they had. So, when my husband Jack told me we wouldn’t be able to do our usual Hawai’i trip this summer because of a big business deal he had to work on in Phoenix, we decided I could go on this Africa trip instead with our friends from the Club.

How that landed her in a remote UN compound in Sub-Saharan Africa, Lenore still didn’t quite grasp. The woman could see the perplexity in her face and happily went on in her story in an effort to clarify.

I was a little nervous – and Jack was too – about letting me go without him to a country and a whole continent neither of us has ever been to. But our friends from the Club were so reassuring and we knew the whole trip would be so well organized. Well, somehow – I guess because I booked too late – I ended up on a different flight from the group. I last saw them in Amsterdam when I boarded my flight to Nairobi. I was supposed to be routed through there to Johannesburg. And it was supposed to be simple and we’d all meet up again at the Johannesburg Airport.

I don’t know what went wrong. But I got to Nairobi and was met by a young Kenyan man named Peter who took me to one of those small puddle-jumper planes. It had UNHCR printed on the side of the aircraft but I figured they were just recycling jets. It never dawned on me that the plane would take me here. I’m still not sure who Peter was waiting for – or why I thought to follow his lead. I guess it was all pretty new and I was just jet-lagged and happy to have help finding my way around!

Things were starting to crystallize in Lenore’s mind. But she still couldn’t fathom how Janet Anthony had made her way past all the tight security measures she herself had had to navigate.

Lenore’s mind flashed back to the previous trip when she and her assistant had been denied access to the flight north and had been forced to remain in Nairobi to carry out whatever training they could there at the U.N. offices.

Janet Anthony watched Lenore’s expression as she told her story. As she did, it seemed to begin to finally sink in – the absurdity of her journey began to dawn on Janet Anthony herself. How on earth did this naïve American tourist lady unintentionally breach all this security?!

Lenore leaned in and listened on.

So we arrive at this… place… and I’m the only one on this plane. We get out and there’s this commotion because about the same time another little airplane lands and all these containers of supplies start getting unloaded and people are shuffling around and this guy asks me to get in line at this window where it says ‘passports’ but no one’s there. So I wait but no one comes and no one seems to be paying any attention to me. So finally, I just walk through, right. I mean, what am I gonna do? Stand there till sunset? And it’s 5 pm now and I hear the sun sets earlier so I’m thinking I’d better get to a hotel. By now I’ve realized I’m not in Johannesburg, this is not an airport, it’s an airstrip, but I figure I still can’t be that far from somewhere, so I keep going. Besides, no one is approachable to take any questions, I mean, they’re all scurrying about. It was a little strange, but I thought – you know – I’m in Africa, it’s gonna be different.

Anyway, I’m on the other side of the window now and there’s this Jeep. I thought maybe they’re like airport taxis and I approached it and the driver is standing outside and goes to open the door for me and so I get in. I’m not sure what to tell him – don’t really know where I’m supposed to go – but he doesn’t seem to need to know ‘cause he gets in and starts driving. I figure there’s only one hotel or something so I don’t say anything. I try to ask him questions about the area but his English is pretty broken so I just tell him about Texas instead. He just smiles and keeps saying ‘yes madam.’ I guess I got so caught up in explaining college football to him that I’m not even thinking anymore about where we’re going. Suddenly we’re here – well, close by – he drops me at a sort of office and goes in and says something to this lady I found out is named Joyce. Then he drives away. Only then did I notice that we were in a whole convoy of vehicles and I see my driver and a whole string of other 4-by-4s speed away.

Joyce has me sit there in this funny waiting room area and gives me coffee and these cookies. Then suddenly she packs up, locks up and gives me instructions on how to get to the head office. So I start walking in the direction she pointed – I figure it can’t be far – but I can’t see anything, and well then I stumble upon your building here. And yeah, here I am. I’m on my way to Kruger Park but I guess sometimes you get detours, right!

She laughs. Lenore stares. Her mind is reeling and she just can’t make sense of this impossible situation – but here she is.

‘Oh!’ Janet pipes up again – with levity more becoming of a story about a walk in the park than about an accidental – and highly improbable trek – across Kenya’s desert lands into a high-security international aid camp. ‘I still have a packet of the coffee from Joyce’s office. She gave me a whole bag. So sweet.’ She pulls out a beautiful bundle of coffee wrapped in the traditional red tribal Masai cloth. ‘But I’ve also got some Folger’s sachets I brought from home!’ she pulls America’s favorite and worst instant coffee out of her backpack with delight and satisfaction.

It’s all a bit much for Lenore to take in – and again, she finds herself staring at the American woman and the coffees. Janet Anthony helps herself to the electric kettle that’s plugged in on the little table by the door and goes about making them the Folger’s coffee.

The kettle was a luxury Lenore had somehow managed to procure from the main office. It sat there in the most basic of bungalow rooms – a stark contrast to the cold-water-only shower – the mangy mosquito net tenting the thin foam mattress bed and the threadbare curtains that were permanently drawn (for security reasons.) And now this luxury kettle was getting ready to brew the anti-luxury of anti-luxuries: instant coffee. Meanwhile, the Masai laced bag of beautiful Kenyan coffee beans sat discarded by Janet Anthony on Lenore’s little nightstand. The oxymorons and paradoxes came cascading down her mind.

Lenore can’t figure out anymore what to be more perplexed by – the improbable visitor, the sudden presence of real indigenous coffee in her room, this woman’s preference of Folger’s over pure Kenyan coffee, or perhaps that she was here at all.

It’s been a grueling week and the magnitude of the misery has caught up with her today. There had been moments of participants miraculously procuring and sharing Lindt chocolates (mysteriously un-melted in the 38 ̊ weather), and many walking two hours each morning to get to the interpreter training.

There’s a resourcefulness and a resilience amongst her students that motivates her to carry on. And carrying on wasn’t always easy. She’d powerlessly received a barrage of complaints about conditions in the camp – having no agency herself to do anything about the status quo. She’d watched armed guards and multitudes with missing arms or legs waiting outside her classroom window every day.

Each moment held in it a lot to take in – and there was an awful lot of them. These moments seemed to fly at her like the gnats to the convoy vehicle’s windshield as they flew down the open, bumpy road – never stopping or slowing their procession for fear of attack. Some things were so slow here, yet it moved at 60 km/h. It was exhausting. And strangely exhilarating. The slow predictability and security of life in western European affluence were ultimately more exhausting. And Lenore tried to remember that now.

Before her now still sat this stark reminder of western reality – sipping an instant coffee and looking over at her expectantly. Lenore realized Janet Anthony had finished her story and asked her a question. She didn’t remember hearing the question, but her interpreter brain had nonetheless taken it in and was retrieving it from her short-term memory. She responded.

‘Janet, we need to get you out of here.’ Just then the radio crackled, ‘Alpha Gama 4.2.3.1,’ Lenore grabbed the radio, hit ‘talk’ and gave account for herself. She hesitated a split second and wondered if it did any good to try and account for her strange visitor. Having no idea in that moment how to make sense of it and relay the story in a message over radio, she left it. The radio crackled again, ‘thank you’, and went silent.

Everything felt like it had gone silent. Even Janet Anthony just sat there quietly – the reality and magnitude of her situation perhaps having settled in as she recounted her journey.

Lenore explained that they would need to stay put now until sunrise at 6 – curfew was on. She prepared the spare bed for her guest, showed her how to turn her shoes upside down so the lizards wouldn’t make their home in them overnight, and then suggested they hit the lights and get some rest. Each day in the refugee camp had the potential to feel long and unpredictable – and in case returning Janet Anthony to her safari went as un-smoothly as her arrival from Texas did, they had best get their sleep.

Lenore’s alarm went off at 6 am as the equatorial light was breaking over the refugee camp. Straight away she looked across the little room at the sleeping American lying the in the spare bed. She was still there. She was real. Momentarily, she debated slipping out and leaving the lost stranger there until she could figure out what to do with her.

But the tourist didn’t give her that option – she awoke with a start. She arose promptly to embrace the task of preparing the morning’s cup of Folger’s coffee.

‘The best part of wakin’ up!’ she declared to Lenore, on whom the cultural reference was somewhat lost. It tasted worse than the Kenco they served at the mess. Lenore had discovered that when all other food deliveries failed, there remained a steady supply of both Kenco coffee and Cadbury’s chocolate powder. She had taken to concocting a blend of the two with equal parts hot water and milk (when available.) It wasn’t her traditional venti latte – decorated with Austrian whipped cream and dusted with cocoa powder – but it wasn’t nearly as bad as anticipated.

As Janet Anthony’s best part of wakin’ up came to completion, Lenore thought about just bolting for the mess and creating her own morning beverage. Lenore thought she could remember the way to the mess – the one that was only 400m away and yet confusing to get to. From there she’d be able to catch one of the vehicles passing through and get them to take the American to safety and she could walk herself to the classroom where day 3 of interpreter training was due to begin at 9 o’clock.

Before the two packed up and left the humble abode, Lenore tried to explain to Janet Anthony the reality of the situation. She tried to unpack for her how extraordinary it was that she had found her way into a remote refugee camp in northern Kenya and attempted to gently break the news to her that it was actually a dangerous place. Life in the refugee camp was no safari.

Janet Anthony listened intently and her eyes widened as Lenore went on. Eventually, she began a series of repeated exclamations of ‘oh my gawd, oh my gawd.’ Fearing that she might have traumatized the poor woman, Lenore thought that the sooner they leave the better. They headed out for the mess hall.

It had rained heavily the night before and the arid terrain, cracked deep below the surface, was in a losing battle with the flooding waters. The Lion’s Club safari at the Kruger would seem like a walk in the park to Janet Anthony once she finally made it there.

The rain had cooled the camp down overnight, but still, the air temperature was on its steady climb to reach the afternoon high of 38 ̊C. Already at 7:30 in the morning, they could feel the heat. The rain had settled the dust and the air was clearer for now, but still, Lenore felt the place sapping her strength. It was the heat. It was the air. It was the demanding work and undependable circumstances. It was the third day without coffee. It was the responsibility of this lost tourist. It was the third day without coffee.

‘You don’t come here for the coffee,’ she thought. She looked over at the American, with her Folger’s tucked away somewhere in her bag. And some didn’t mean to come here at all.