Donate NowMary Wiltenburg, for the Pulitzer Center
Acting US Ambassador Larry Andre (center) addressed refugees in Mtabila about their prospects after they leave the camp.
It was an awkward assignment. When acting US Ambassador to Tanzania Larry Andre pulled into Mtabila refugee camp in April, in a convoy of mud-darkened Land Cruisers that disgorged a crowd of United Nations and government officials and embassy personnel, he looked uncomfortable.
Before he stepped into the thick orange mud, I had never actually seen my country being represented overseas, person-to-person. Larry, a veteran Africa hand, had arrived at this camp of 40,000 Burundians in northwest Tanzania to deliver an uncomfortable message: Uncle Sam does not want you. What I saw that afternoon made me both proud and embarrassed to be an American.