“I belong on the coffee farms, back in Papua New Guinea”
I believe that one of the most beautiful results of human encounters is the gentle mark which people leave on each other.
I met Elizabeth in early May through my company. My work outside of photography is involved with global supply chains, so I got lucky to having a chance to meet her. I’ve never met a coffee farmer before, and how lucky was I to meet a cooperative leader? It took 33 years of living. It was definitely worth it.
We first met at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE), where she was sharing samples of her coffee, grown from PNG. What first caught my attention was her eyes. They showed confidence, story, strength, determination, and care. You know when you meet somebody, and you can feel the depth through their eyes? Elizabeth was one of those people. I watched as she looked deeply into the eyes of every person she met. Each interaction, sincere & honest. I felt that sincerity several days later, when I got to spend some time with her before her flight home.
Stepping back temporarily, let me give you a more surface level description of her. Elizabeth is a coffee cooperative leader in Papua New Guinea, in fact, the only female coffee cooperative leader in PNG. Directing and administering in Goroka, she is the voice that guides her farmers towards growth in the coffee production industry. Her farmers trust her vision and direction to protect them and helping them compete in the world of coffee trade.
Her stay here was short, a few days here in Melbourne. It was her second time visiting Australia and first visit to Melbourne, the land of (justifiably) coffee snobs.
I got to spend some time with Elizabeth once more before she left to PNG. While travelling down to south Melbourne together, I observed as she looked at various Melbourne architecture zoom by on the local tram and enjoyed how she shared her thoughts about the tram experience. While walking around the Botanical Gardens, we exchanged stories of our backgrounds & why we’re where we are today. Spending those few hours with Elizabeth taught me that leaders, although they need to be strong and stern, are also silly. When we encountered fancy structures and architectures, Elizabeth exposed her silly personality as she stuck silly poses and laughed at herself (with me) in the process.
Near the end of our time together, Elizabeth spoke about belonging and purpose.
Something she said to me that day struck me. She looked at me and asked, “Do you belong here? Do you have purpose here in the city?”
She proceeded, “I do not belong here in the city. What would I do here? I belong on the coffee farms, in Papua New Guinea.”
I understood that question as, “What purpose, what would I have to offer where I am now?”
”Do I feel fulfilment in where I am, what part of me I am sharing with the world today?”
Her question continues to linger in my mind, and may forever do so.
She taught me that each person has a unique contribution to offer the world, and they occur in different parts of the world. In this world where freedom and individualism are becoming mainstream, I cannot deny the feeling of simultaneous loneliness which can result our need for community, the beauty in knowing how and where we feel that we are making a fulfilling contribution.
To somewhere. To somebody.
Even in the arguments for the acceptance of meaninglessness, which I respect and to a degree resonate with, I cannot argue against the reality, which is that each living entity leave some sort of impact that moves this planet in some direction.
So dear reader, I bring this question to you. If you can fill in the blanks, what would you write?
“I belong on the , back in ”
Cheers,
Masumi