We were just stepping out of our vehicle in the far reaches of Hagadera, one of three camps that make up the sprawling Dadaab camp for Somali refugees in northeastern Kenya, when it became obvious that we had stumbled upon a pocket of misery. A man waved his arms, and starting shouting, "No water! No water!"

As we walked into the area, a group quickly gathered and started the rapid fire explanation of their plight, with passionate interruptions and people struggling to be heard, testing the patience and talent of our guide, himself a refugee who arrived in Dadaab in 1992. As visitors from the outside world, in our case from Washington, D.C. and Refugees International, we had to hear their story.

The refugees, some 300 families in all, were new arrivals from Somalia, who fled fighting and drought, mainly from Mogadishu and Kismayo, over the past six months. Due to overcrowding in Dadaab, which was built for 90,000 people in the early 1990s and now holds more than 250,000, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, assigned this unlucky group to what was meant to be temporary shelter in an area outside the official Hagadera camp boundary.

The area is called N Zero. The zero is ominous. It suggests that the refugees have no place, they are nowhere, in blank space.

UNHCR is refusing to develop the site for fear of exacerbating tensions with local government and the host community. The refugees' stay there was supposed to be temporary. But their stay of a few weeks has turned into months, as the intended housing inside the official camps could not be prepared due to threats from people in the host community against NGO workers preparing the sites.

So, the refugees stay at N Zero. Their shelter is appallingly slapdash, made up of sticks, bits of plastic, old clothes (including stretched and halved designer jeans), most with gaps in the walls and the roofs. It looks remarkably similar to the housing for Somali internally displaced people in Afgoye west of Mogadishu, which Refugees International visited in March 2008.

For water the refugees have to walk long distances to access taps at nearby blocks within the official camp boundary. The Norwegian Refugee Council mercifully built a series of individual latrines down the middle of the dirt road that serves as the boundary of the official camp, cleverly figuring that latrines in the road did not technically violate the injunction against developing the site. For food, the refugees are registered and have ration cards, so they can survive.

Abdi, the man who first greeted us with the cries of "no water," provided a poignant exclamation point to our visit. He ran a spare parts store in Mogadishu, but was shot in the leg when he refused to join the shabaab Islamic militia. When he fled in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, his shop was looted and he lost his life savings, which he estimated at $15,000.

Now, at N Zero, he was baking small plain round cakes in a makeshift charcoal oven in front of his hut. Displaying remarkable generosity to his visitors, he offered us a cake fresh out of the oven. It was delicious. They sell for 10 Kenya shillings, about 14 U.S. cents. There was no way we could pay for the cake that he offered, his pride wouldn't allow it, but we insisted on buying two more, which he accepted.

I'll remember N Zero, the place for refugees at Dadaab that shouldn't exist. I'll remember the shelters that belie the name, the latrines down the middle of the road, and the passion of the refugees who want something better right now. But I'll especially remember Abdi, the spare parts salesman turned baker, with the dignity and the will to turn relief flour into cakes, in the broiling sun in an oven scraped together from scrap metal, to sell for ten Kenya shillings.

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