The other UN ambassadors were similarly generous toward my family. Halfway through my tenure, Boubacar Boureima, Niger’s Ambassador to the UN, told me that the African ambassadors were “all talking” about how much they enjoyed getting to know Mum and Eddie and seeing Declan and Rían race around the apartment. The inclusion of three generations of my family in large gatherings, he said, “was creating a different impression of the United States,” one with which they could identify. “Family matters so much to Africans,” he explained. “The big power seems much more open to us.” I had not been
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