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DESPITE THE NAME “Orchid Safari Club,” I’ve never seen anyone here actually wearing safari gear. So someone must have sent out the wrong dress code memo to a group that has shown up on the terrace decked out in deep-bush khakis. I noticed them peripherally last night at dinner, when I was dropped off here just after six o’clock, having narrowly made it over the border before closing time. I saw them, but at the time I was backed into an extended debate with a white man who was raised in an African colony and is now a maintenance guy for the Red Cross. He took a little too much pleasure in lecturing about women like me who clearly know nothing about the conflict, yet have the gall to fundraise and mobilize.

Tonight I’m exhausted and want to be alone. I arrive on the terrace in the early evening, before the hordes descend, and stake out my spot in the far corner. It’s buzzing with mosquitoes, but there is a soft breeze off the lake. I order chips and tea, the watered-down kind that tastes like it’s been run through a hotel room coffeemaker. I plug in my earphones and power up my laptop, as much in an effort to avoid tiresome conversation like last night’s as to appease my roaming desire to tell someone about my run-in with the Mai Mai, even if that someone is only a blank Word document.

But apparently I’m going to have a new lounge companion, as one of the would-be Dian Fosseys interrupts me and asks permission to take over a neighboring lounge chair. It’s one of those moments when life knocks on your door in the form of an annoying stranger and you just want to say, “Will you please go away? Can’t you see I’m trying to brood in loneliness here?”

In a disengaged fashion, I remove my earphones. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Mind if I join you?”

I don’t answer, but I motion approvingly to the seat, plug my earphones back in, and crank the volume, thinking, As long as you don’t talk.

The terrace fills quickly with NGO people just off work. The next cluster of chairs is packed beyond capacity. What a collection of people lands here on the shores of Lake Kivu! There must be a common thread connecting us, an emotional through-line explaining how we would all find this, of all places on Earth, the best place to spend our time and money.

A man with choppy, cropped silver hair walks across the terrace. He might be in his early fifties, perhaps a creative professional; clearly he’s one of the safari-goers given his ill-informed outfit. But he carries himself with the smooth stride of the ultraconfident. The head-to-toe khaki can’t contain his movie star cool. His is not the ho-hum handsome of Ken-doll stock models. His bold features give him a larger-than-life aura. Do I recognize him? There’s something familiar about him.

He stops to socialize with the aid workers already filling up the chairs nearby. I can’t say why he catches my eye every time I scan the terrace. Or I catch mine catching his, leading to an exchange of glances that’s a little too obvious for comfort. He is not my type. I’ve maintained a longtime preference for quirky, pensive, super-smart artists, so the regal, uberhandsome persona is like steak and eggs to a vegan. Not my thing. I dive back into my notes, trying to end this most-inappropriate man-interest. It’s not on my Congo agenda.

The safari crew takes over the remaining chairs surrounding me, so I know he’s not long behind. Within a few minutes, he joins his group in what I still choose to think of as my seating area. I try to concentrate on my notes, but can’t thanks to Mr. Wonderful’s companion, a wild-haired, wild-eyed, bandanna-wearing fellow who seems to me like a modern incarnation of Henry Morton Stanley, the kind of bloodthirsty disaster tourist you might expect to land on the shores of Lake Kivu. He loudly drones on with manufactured sophistication, critiquing the cheap knock-off African masks sold at Orchid’s front gate as though he’s discussing the finest of wines. I give up. Abandoning my attempt to write, I pull out my earphones and interject myself into their conversation. “What brings