It happened on the way to war

the long version

In 2000 Rye Barcott spent a summer in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. A college student heading into the Marines, he sought to better understand ethnic violence--something he would likely face later in uniform. He learned Swahili, asked questions, and listened to young people talk about surviving in poverty he had never imagined. Anxious to help but unsure what to do, he stumbled into friendship with a widowed nurse, Tabitha Atieno Festo, and a hardscrabble community organizer, Salim Mohamed. Together, this unlikely trio built a non-governmental organization that would develop a new generation of leaders from within one of Africa's largest slums. Their organization, Carolina for Kibera (CFK), is now a global pioneer of the movement called Participatory Development. As Barcott continued his leadership in CFK while serving as a human intelligence officer in Iraq, Bosnia, and the Horn of Africa, the tools he learned building a community in Kenya helped him become a more effective counterinsurgent and peacekeeper.--From publisher description.