US Embassy Tour - A Brief Visit to the Homeland

About a month ago I put in an inquiry to USAID (United States Agency for International Development) about getting a tour for our group. Since our program is all about international development, I thought it would be cool to see where our tax money goes to help develop other countries. USAID is the largest foreign donor to Kenya. To give you an idea of what USAID does for Kenya, 99% of HIV/AIDS patients on ARV’s (Anti-Retro Virals) receive their medicine from USAID. While the sustainability of the program is in question, there is no question that USAID saves countless lives in Kenya. Anyways, a few weeks ago I got an email back from someone with an @usaid.gov email address with the greeting “Greetings Fellow MSIDer”. Come to find out, a grad student who did MSID-Kenya a few years ago never left Kenya and has been working at USAID since then. After chatting back and forth for a while, we decided that we would have her come and talk to us during class. She came on Monday to talk to us for about an hour and a half. Very interesting stuff and it’s a topic that I have become interested in. She was also able to get us in for a tour of the US Embassy in Nairobi today. After a lengthy process of clearing security, we were able to get into the compound and get a tour of the building. We didn’t get to go into any of the “this is where the good stuff goes down” places because they all require a certain security clearance but it was still really cool to see the building. We could definitely tell that we were back on US territory because everything was spotless and clean. The smell of Pine sol was very welcoming. While we were on the tour we saw a blind man navigating his way through one of the hallways. The lady giving us the tour guide stopped and said hello to him but quickly moved us down the hall to show us a picture. The US Embassy in Kenya was bombed in 1998. Hundreds of people died including around 14 Americans and about 30 or so Kenyans working at the Embassy. That’s not including the vast amount of people outside the building. The picture we were standing in front of was a large group of Kenyans who were the Kenyan survivors of the attack. In the front row was a man with the same walking stick. This man had survived the blast but had been so close to the source of the explosion that he became blind. All these years later, he still works at the Embassy. Things have changed considerable at the Embassy since then. It’s a few miles away from downtown now and it is a “blast proof” building which makes it look like a jail. The experience of being at the Embassy was great. Not only was it nice to be back on US soil but it was nice to see the life of a Foreign Service Officer. This is a career that I have recently been kicking around in my head. If there is one knock on the MSID program it’s that it will make you question everything that you thought you wanted to do with your life. I kind of figured this would happen but as I’ve told my Mom and Dad, I didn’t think it would hit this quick or hard. A lot of us in this program are in the same boat. While it may be frustrating it’s like starting a new journey. Who knows where it will take me. In other news, Carrey is leaving in a few hours to go to school near Kisumu. He’ll be a Freshman!!! They are actually called Form 1’s. Since he delayed for a few weeks going to school so that he could get into a better school (I’ll explain the education system here in another post) he will be coming back for midterm breaks in a week so it won’t be too bad. Time in Nairobi is winding down. I leave two weeks from Sunday for Kisumu. It’s gonna be a hot one.