The Foreign Service Journal, July/August 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2018 43 and my family back home knew that I was all right when they saw my face flash by on CNN. Injured and bleeding people were everywhere. The bomb was an attack on the United States, but the vast majority of its victims were Kenyans, and they had to bear the largest share of suffering. We went into “self-rescue” mode since Kenyan emergency services were stretched to the limit coping with the rescue effort at Ufundi House. Our medical unit set up a first aid station on the sidewalk, quickly evaluating, treating and arranging emergency care for the injured at local hospitals. They saved more than a few lives in the process. The RSO was in charge of site security and recovery operations. Search and rescue teams were formed and completed multiple top-to-bottom searches of the embassy, dig- ging the last injured person from underneath a pile of rubble just before sunset. Everyone pulled together and got on with what seemed logical and necessary. USAID immediately created space in their office building for an operations center and an interim embassy. Over the ensuing days, weeks and months, every employee of the 14 U.S. agencies in Nairobi played a role in the recovery and recon- struction effort. Many spouses and family members made equally significant contributions. There was no manual for how to deal with such a crisis, but we did have an exceptional leader in Ambassador Prudence Bushnell, and she never let us stop being a Country Team for a single moment. More importantly, we never stopped being a community. Indeed, those bonds only grew stronger with time, and we became more like an extended family. That mutual support, and a shared commitment to help the families of those who died and the seriously injured, provided a clear sense of purpose and, in my view, were the things that got us all through the catastrophe. Ask Yourself What You Can Do George M. Mimba Information Systems Manager (FSN) It was a beautiful, sunny morning. The embassy motor pool driver had just picked me up frommy residence. I was scheduled to leave for Accra at 11 a.m. to attend the Africa Bureau systems managers’ conference, but first I needed to go to the embassy together with then Information Systems Officer Chris House. I would be lying if I said I could describe the sound. It was too much for my senses. It was a big, ruthless blast that shook the entire building. I was thrown and landed on the floor on my belly. Walls started falling, ceiling and debris coming down on me. I was being buried alive in a place that was my second home. A place