In 2000, Rye Barcott was a student on an ROTC scholarship when he first visited
the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. He wanted to understand the ethnic violence
he expected to face in uniform. Once there, Barcott befriended a widowed nurse
and a community organizer, and together they built Carolina for Kibera (CFK), an
NGO that breaks cycles of violence and develops young leaders in one of Africa's
largest slums. Barcott continued his work with CFK while leading Marines in
Iraq, Bosnia, and the Horn of Africa. He waged peace while fighting war, and
struggled to compartmentalize the experiences and resist darker forces. "It
Happened on the