On being an American overseas

This was a fascinating day of perspectives. Evans was our gracious host (along with his two beautiful and energetic children), and we were out and about the city of Nairobi. We started with a hillside view of the city where he pointed out the major buildings, including our second destination – the former site of the US Embassy that was bombed in 1998. The site is now a memorial garden and museum. A marker in the garden lists the 218 casualties of the bombing, and the striking thing is that all but about 7 of those names were Kenyans. It’s sad and disturbing when any lives are lost, but even more striking when those lives aren’t even of the nationality the terrorists are bent on destroying. People who are just doing a job. Inside the museum, one of the placards reads off the story of a Kenyan guard of the garage gate who is credited for saving even more lives. The original intent was apparently to drive the van full of explosives into the underground parking garage, but this quick thinking guard avoided gunshots and grenades and managed to keep the van out of the garage. Instead, they detonated on the street and took more lives of passers by – but it didn’t take down the whole building full of people.

After a visit to the very well done Kenyan National Museum (complete with exhibits of venomous snakes!), we drove back to the KU campus through “Embassy Row”. The location is stunning. The embassies are scattered throughout small valleys with all sort of lush tropical vegetation. They look more like garden estates (albeit walled off) than any embassies I’ve ever seen. Until we got to the new US Embassy. Wow. The previous embassy was an unassuming concrete block office building in the center of Nairobi. The new embassy is a gianormous structure with minimal landscaping surrounded by high gates and guards that keep anyone without granted access at least 100 yards from the building itself. It’s a military complex. Understandably.

And now I’m settled back in my room flipping through the TV trying to tire myself enough to sleep before a very busy day tomorrow. It’s news hour. All of the channels are showing local Kenyan news. Except for one. Al Jazeera. It’s fascinating. What’s striking to me is that we hear at home about how it’s a horrible station that’s run by terrorists, but you know what? The anchors are all British and American. And the news they report has largely nothing to do with us. Most of the news is just news – riots in France, cholera in Haiti, Chinese protests against the Japanese. Truthfully, it’s probably far more world news that what anyone in the US ever pays attention to (there is a whole great big world beyond our borders). And even the ones that are about us are quite well done and to the point – like the current story on the impact in public schools of cutting property taxes in Arizona. Of course, I've only watched an hour or so, but I just found it kind of surprising. Something to chew on.