The Foreign Service Journal, July/August 2018

24 JULY-AUGUST 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL What I Learned I would like to pass on the following advice for those who may become survivors and helpers in the future. • Get involved in the community and help to grow teams that learn how to do things together. This will be essential in catas- trophes and highly satisfying otherwise. • Be kind to yourself, and be kind to one another. • Take care of your people—and take care of yourself, too. • Allow spouses, family and friends to take care of you. • Seek professional help to stay resilient. • To help after a crisis, be clear about your mission and adapt to reality. • Build a bridge between “we” and “they” to create the trust that will make recovery easier. • Don’t expect this to end any time soon. Catastrophes breed crises, and some go on for years. • Find meaning in the event—the “treasures among the ashes.” • Do not depend on the media or our political leaders to keep the story alive or create change; both have short memories. • Remember, it will get better. The Very Worst Moment in My Life Howard Kavaler Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations Environment Program At approximately 10:15 a.m. on Aug. 7, 1998, I saw my wife, Prabhi Kavaler, for the very last time. I told her that prior to meeting her for lunch (she worked in the embassy as an assistant general services officer), I would go to the Community Liaison Office in the front of the chancery to see if they knew when the school bus would come the following Monday to pick up our two young daughters for their first day of school at our new post. Prior to going to the CLO, I stopped into my office to save a cable that I was drafting. On arriving at the CLO, I heard a loud sound, followed some 10 seconds later by an even louder noise. The ceiling started to collapse on us, and the chancery was enveloped in darkness. Through clouds of dust, dangling wires and debris, I searched for Prabhi where I thought her office was once located. I could not find Prabhi, and she did not emerge from the embassy. I finally got a ride to our temporary quarters, where I told my two daughters, 10-year-old Tara and 5-year-old Maya, that in all likelihood their mother had been killed in an explo- sion at the embassy. That remains the very worst moment in my 69 years. Having packed our bags, my longstanding housekeeper, the girls and I went to the home of our very good friends, Steve and Judy Nolan. Sometime during our stay, Ambassador Bushnell visited to express her condolences to me. Shortly after receiving the formal notification of Prabhi’s death, my daughters, house- keeper and I were driven from the Nolans’ residence to Jomo Kenyatta Airport, where we boarded a flight that was the first leg of our journey back to the United States. Take Care of Your Family and Your People Paul Peterson Regional Security Officer On the morning of Aug. 7, I was sitting in one of my first Country Teammeetings, having arrived at post in mid-July to assume the duties of the regional security officer. The meeting was being held on the fourth floor of the chancery in the ambassador’s office. The acting deputy chief of mission was presiding, as the ambassador was out of the building for a meeting. We were discussing the security briefings that my staff provided to incoming employees—information on Nairobi’s critical crime threat could be disconcerting to new arrivals, and the question was whether we could tone it down. A few minutes into this conversation, the windows on the back wall of the office blew in, throwing members of the country team from their chairs to the floor and showering us with debris. In the wake of the explosion came an eerie silence, lasting several seconds. I was struggling to crawl over some of my col- leagues and head downstairs to Post One to find out our status, when I heard the screaming of people in pain and horror. As I found my way down the darkened stairwell, I realized two things: We had been seriously damaged by an apparent attack, and this wasn’t going to help me lighten up my briefings. Panicked employees, some whole, many injured, poured into the stairwell. I assisted several injured employees down the stairwell to what had been the lobby and turned them over to other employees. People deal with stress differently. Not everyone can deal with a tragedy of this magnitude and continue to operate effectively. —Paul Peterson