It Happened on the Way to War (42 page)

“It's stupid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” I said, but I was thinking,
What are we really doing here? What if Salim is killed? How could our work ever justify such a loss?
They were the same type of thoughts that had haunted me when I sent my Marines out on missions.

Salim looked out over Kibera to the south toward the soccer field where we held our first focus group discussion and beyond it to the green hills of Nairobi National Park. “You know what I think?” he asked.

“What?”

“I think it's love.”

“Love?”

“Yes, love. We need more love. Mama Fatuma taught me that at the Children's Home, my grandmother, too.”

“Love, yeah, man, I hear you.”

“That's what this is about.” Salim tapped his foot against a clay tile.

“The clinic?”

“Yeah, during the violence, the thugs, they came here for it.” Salim painted the scene. There, outside the front gate, a roving gang of a dozen men with machetes showed up to loot the construction site. It was late in the afternoon and many of them were drunk on bloodshed and moonshine, stumbling about as they pounded on the metal gate and tried to break in. The lock wasn't strong and wouldn't have held them back for long had the neighbors not heard the clamor and come out to investigate. The neighbors—men, women, grandparents, and children—formed a human wall and faced the thugs.

As Salim spoke, I imagined myself there, standing with the neighbors, facing the thugs who might attack and kill us all. I looked down to my hands for a weapon, but found nothing, no machete, no pistol, no hammer. Even my Spyderco was missing.

“What are you thinking about?” Salim asked.

“I wish I had been there, with them.”

“No, that would not be good. This isn't your fight, not even mine. It's theirs, the community's. That's the only way. The community came because they knew the Tabitha Clinic is theirs.”

I tried to visualize the community during the clashes. I saw Kibera burning and a band of residents outside the shell of our half-constructed clinic, rebar reaching toward the sky, shouts, chaos, a people facing machetes and making a stand. A human wall.

“That's it, isn't it? It's the community's,” I said. “And Tabitha, she felt that way, too. Imagine if she were here with us now.”

“But, Rye, she is.”

I closed my eyes. The sun's rays felt warm and good against my face. Salim was right. I turned to him. “Before she passed, Tabitha said, ‘Don't quit pushing this thing.' We won't quit.”

“No, my brother, we won't.” Salim placed his hand on my shoulder and looked into the community. There in the crisscrossing alleyways
mamas
balanced jerricans of water on their heads; children kicked soccer balls made of plastic bags and twine; and men hauled the bricks and mortar to what would become the largest clinic in Kibera. “We won't quit pushing because they won't.”

A Note on the Author

RYE BARCOTT cofounded the nongovernmental organization Carolina for Kibera (CFK) with Salim Mohamed and Tabitha Atieno Festo while he was an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After graduation, he served as a Marine in Iraq, Bosnia, and the Horn of Africa. Barcott earned master's degrees in business and public administration from Harvard University, where he was a Reynolds Social Entrepreneurship Fellow and a George Leadership Fellow. He serves on the boards of World Learning and Three Ships Media, and works at Duke Energy. In 2006,
ABC World News
named then Captain Barcott a Person of the Year for his dual service to Kibera and the Marine Corps. In 2009, he joined the inaugural class of TED Fellows. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and daughter.

Copyright © 2011 by Rye Barcott

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Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Barcott, Rye.
It happened on the way to war : a marine's path to peace / Rye Barcott. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-60819-217-5 (hardcover)
1. Kibera (Kenya)—Social conditions. 2. Social service—Kenya—Kibera. 3. Community
development—Kenya—Kibera. 4. Slums—Kenya—Kibera. 5. Poor—Kenya—Kibera. 6.
Carolina for Kibera. 7. Barcott, Rye. 8. Volunteer workers in social service—Kenya—
Kibera—Biography. 9. Volunteer workers in social service—United States—Biography. 10.
United States. Marine Corps—Officers—Biography. I. Title.
HV446.5.B37 2010
362.5'56092—dc22
[B]
2010030544

First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2011
This e-book edition published in 2011

E-book ISBN: 978-1-60819-501-5

www.bloomsburyusa.com