The Foreign Service Journal, January 2012

F OCUS ON FS R EFLECT IONS A P ROMISE TO A ISHA 32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 2 hrough the dust and shim- mering heat waves, I could just make out the refugee camp in the distance. Makeshift tents and squat acacia trees strained against a hot wind blowing in from the southeast Ethiopian desert. It was August 2001, and I was making my first visit to the region as the U.S. refugee coordinator for the Horn of Africa. I was based in our embassy in Addis Ababa, traveling to oversee U.S. government protec- tion and assistance programs for nearly one million refugees in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Kenya, Soma- lia and Sudan. As our convoy of Landcruisers pulled into the camp housing several thousand Somali refugees, most of them from Mogadishu, crowds of young boys chased the ve- hicles and greeted us with energetic whoops and falsetto “war cries.” They laughed with a gusto that belied the intense heat and the squalid conditions. Ibrahim, my United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees escort, who was also responsible for assistance at the camp, stopped our 4x4 jeep. We disembarked to begin our inspection tour. He pointed out a water proj- ect we had helped fund for the camp, a small agriculture and forestry project supported by a nongovernmental or- ganization, and a feeding center. We toured the camp’s small, makeshift school and visited the clinic. At the clinic, I spoke with a refugee who was recov- ering from a gunshot wound he had suffered while guarding the camp’s water reservoir. A local camel herder had opened fire on the guard with an AK-47 when the latter prevented him from watering his camels. I also met a Somali mother carrying her infant son, who was suffering from hydrocephalus. She begged the clinic’s lone physician’s assistant to save her child. He was sympathetic, but told her softly that the infection was too far advanced. How, I thought, could I help these people? What could I do to make a difference for them in this I T TAKES A VILLAGE TO HELP AN FSO KEEP HIS PROMISE OF AID TO A S OMALI REFUGEE . B Y S TEVE H UBLER Steve Hubler, a Foreign Service officer since 1992, was the U.S. regional refugee coordinator for the Horn of Africa from 2001 to 2003, among many other assignments. He is currently the deputy principal officer at the U.S. consulate general in St. Petersburg.