Coffee and camels..

“To be content with what one has

is the greatest and truest of riches…”

- Cicero, On Duties

Here name was Botha, and her ‘…black as coal eyes…’ were rich, liquid pools of mystery and stories yet untold.  This not the sort of thing one expects to find at six o’clock in the morning in a hotel in Dallas, Texas…and yet there we were!

The day before had been one of those unexpected ‘…classroom of life…’ opportunities to get a measure as to whether I was getting a better handle on life.

I belong to professional society that was having a site visit to Dallas for its national convention.  I had been added to the team a little late in the process, and was looking forward to seeing some of the venues for the upcoming conference in the fall.  In fact, the primary convention site and hotels had been chosen several years before….this visit was to choose between some places for smaller events around the edges of the meeting itself.

The team visited three facilities the evening of my arrival – it was great fun going behind the scenes of the Dallas Hard Rock Café and Mickey Gilley’s famous honky-tonk western saloon and music hall.  Both places had seen their share of the famous, the not so famous, and the ‘…über famous!'  The site visit also provided time for personal interaction with the rest of the site visit team – a good thing.

One never knows…

Getting there had been a bit of an adventure.  Traveling from the West Coast in the U.S. requires some planning, particularly when heading east.  Because of the three hour difference to the east, the airport is packed like sardines for the early morning flights…like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul - people everywhere! 

Whatever the airlines give you as an appropriate time to arrive at the airport, on those early morning flights heading east out of San Diego – seven days a week – getting there even earlier is a smart and wise thing to do.  Then by eight or nine AM, the airport, relatively speaking, seems like a ghost town.

The flight would take three hours to Dallas, in the Central time zone, which was two hours later.   Knowing I didn’t need to be at the hotel until dinner, I headed out mid-morning – no problem…dinner was 5:30PM. 

“No problem…”, that is, until the flight was cancelled with no warning.  The airline assured me it was not an issue; I would be sent out on the next flight.  That was great, except the chess board had now been changed and the arrival window for dinner gone from a relaxed ‘…get there…clean up a little…feet up for a little while…’ to ‘…the dinner party will either be gathering to depart the hotel, or will already be gone by the time I arrive! ‘  

The lesson?  It didn’t stir up a hornet’s nest of anxiousness accompanying situations like this in my earlier years – a win!

All worked out well…I slid into the lobby of the hotel just as the group was gathering to leave.  The team leader smiled and said, “Head up to your room.  Do whatever you need to do. We can wait a few minutes.”  The evening was great fun and went well…all objectives accomplished.  There would be a quick tour of the Dallas Convention Center in the morning, back to the airport and home.

Oh yeah, breakfast…

I had tucked in early after our evening out, got a great night’s sleep and was ready for the day.  There was a very small hitch in the morning…well there were two very small hitches.  I’m a pretty early riser, and first thing in the morning put on the coffee pot to start my engines.  I had drunk the room coffee the night before after returning from dinner – I know, it’s a gift to be able to drink coffee at night and go straight to sleep.  That would not be a problem because most hotels have early morning coffee…for some reason; this one didn’t have coffee until 6am – no room coffee…no ‘house coffee!’

Six it would be then! 

At 5:50AM, I was waiting at the restaurant hoping someone would take a little compassion on me and let me get seated early…at least to get that coveted cup of coffee.  5:55AM – enter Botha.

“Would you like to sit down sir,” she said with a lilt that gave her African origin away, but where?  I’m not that good.  “Yes I would,” I replied with pleasant deliberateness.  “Well, why don’tcha sit right here in this booth.  I’ll bet you would like a cup of coffee.”  What a mind reader!

Botha was black as coal with matching eyes, and what appeared to be a little less than five feet (1.5 meters) in height.  She looked to be in her mid-sixties, and had the sort of personality that begged the question…you know – how did you come to this country?

The story...
She was Ethiopian and in her younger years had been a journalist under the Emperor Haile Selassie.  In that time, she felt driven to write about the conditions in her country and found herself in jail where she was beaten and molested.  After being let out, she continued to write. 

Fortunately for her, she received warning the government was going to arrest her again.  In the dark of night, she reported leaving Ethiopia on a camel, crossing the Sudan; eventually finding herself in Algiers.  From there it was France, Great Britain and finally here to the United States.  What an adventure!!

I asked her how she liked living here, and she described how grateful she was to live in this country, and to have the life she was living.  Life she was living?  A mid-sixties woman working long hours for small wages and tips?  Grateful for what?  Poverty? Serving people who didn’t even acknowledge her as a person,…whose wealth so exceeding her standard of living that even breakfast in the place she worked would be well beyond her financial bounds.  Are you kidding me?

The reminders are important…

Ah yes, but a “…man’s [woman’s] life is more than the things that he [she] possesses…” Yes indeed.  For Botha had something none of the money in the world could buy…gratitude for her life as it was…for the struggle…for the breath. 

As we chatted in those brief moments, before the rush of the maddening crowd, we touched each other.  I don’t mean we shook hands or patted one another on the shoulder, I mean “…we touched each other…” and it was really good.

She said, “You are my first customer, and God brought you to me for a blessing at the start of my day.”   I replied with a little more energy after that cup of coffee, “You are my first waitress, and there is little doubt God brought you to me for a blessing to start my day.”  She grinned and leaned over closer saying, “Thank you Jesus…we both been blessed.”

Breakfast done…

I left that morning thinking about the scriptures and philosophers I had read…how they extoll the virtue of chasing life, not riches…how they admonish the emptiness of seeking pleasure…how they encourage the importance of finding one’s place in life and performing their duty – not their profession – their duty as a human being. 

I thought how Botha might share life’s meaning with the hoards and hoards of us who believe that a little weight loss, a little extra money, a little more make up, or status might help us get over the hump of life.  She hadn’t read all those writers or tried all those things to find meaning.  She just got up every morning with gratitude and did her job in the community of man.

I hopped on the glass encased elevator, watching her as I headed up to my room on the 22^nd floor and I couldn’t help but smile as I heard her voice in that gentle lilt,

“Thank you Jesus…” and blessed we were!

- ted