The Foreign Service Journal, January 2010

I n 1986, when I was deputy director of the Office of East African Affairs, I made a tour of U.S. embassies in the region. My itinerary included Dji- bouti, a small desert country at the southernmouth of the Red Sea. Neigh- boringEthiopia and Somalia, then at rel- ative peace, had been warring for years. That conflict had been com- pounded by drought and famine. As a result, many thousands of ethnic Somali tribesmen from the Ogaden region of Ethiopia had sought refuge in Djibouti. They were confined to United Nations-run camps located in the arid hinterland of one of the most desolate nations in Africa. After a dusty, hot, half-day’s drive from the capital, I arrived at one of the camps where several thousand refugees had been grouped for months, essen- tially on a moonscape. This refugee camp was a bleak and seemingly hope- less place. Yet the elders of the camp committee greeted me graciously and guidedme on a tour of their squalid do- main. We wove in and out of little lanes between the stick huts. Green plastic sheeting provided cover from the sun. Bags of U.S.-donated maize and tins of vegetable oil were stacked in the food distribution warehouse. A one-tent school was operating. It had little more than a blackboard, but children sat in rapt attention as their teacher lectured, and then recited back what they had heard. Outside the small clinic, the day’s clients — pregnant women, wailing babies and those worn out from the ills of the region—waited patiently. Inside, several refugee nurses dispensed what care they could. They proudly proclaimed that childhood im- munizations were up-to-date. Flies buzzed incessantly. Elders bemoaned their plight: their suffering from war and famine, their flight from their homes, especially their loss of goats and camels. They noted that the youth were bored in the noth- ingness of the camp, and all were stymied by the inability to look ahead. They were compelled to live day by day. Of course, they asked for America’s help, especially in rectifying conditions in Ethiopia so that they might be able to go home. The camp committee was most anx- ious that I see their newly acquired well, water pump — provided by a grant from the U.S. government — and gar- den. We walked up a rock-strewn ravine past the cemetery, where several new graves gave mute testimony to the ravages of disease and malnutrition. Beyond, nestled on the slope of the valley in a region where not a single blade of vegetation was visible for miles, was a small patch of green. The elders showed me how boys carried water from the new well to the plots, where they hadmanaged to coax several scrag- gly tomato plants and other vegetables from the hard earth. The chief pointed with pride to the first watermelon, about the size of a small soccer ball. He then had it picked. He presented it to me with great ceremony and thanks for America’s con- cern and assistance. I was over- whelmed. The camp’s children were desperate for this sort of nourishment, yet it was given unhesitatingly to a stranger — to someone who obviously had no need for it. I had to accept it, for this was a gift from the heart. I man- aged to utter thanks and a few words of encouragement. We then shared the bits of melon. In the years since, I have always been struck how people with so little, and with such great need, could give so easily. Yet we, with somuch, find it hard to give a little. ■ Retired Ambassador Robert Gribbin spent many years in East and Central Africa, first as a Peace Corps Volunteer and then as a diplomat fanatically com- mitted to in-country travel. His many Foreign Service postings include stints as Rwanda desk officer (1977-1979) and deputy chief of mission (1979-1981) and ambassador in Kigali (1995-1999). He is the author of In the Aftermath of Genocide: The U.S. Role in Rwanda (iUniverse, 2005). A dusty, hot, half-day’s drive from the capital, the refugee camp was a bleak and seemingly hopeless place. 64 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 0 R EFLECTIONS I Remember a Gift B Y B OB G RIBBIN