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Former Foreign Service National (FSN), Ian Kakuba, was the Information Management Specialist for Infrastructure and Security at the USAID mission in Kampala, Uganda. He is currently Founder & Chief Executive Officer of JudeanLLC, a start-up that seeks to empower Africa’s organizations to build modern, intelligent, and secure digital infrastructure. 

The first email arrived on a Friday evening.

It did not sound dramatic. It stated that the new administration would review ongoing USAID projects. That was not unusual. We had seen transitions before. Governments change. Reviews happen. Programs adjust.

We closed our laptops that evening thinking this was routine.

Within weeks, the tone shifted.

Another email arrived. Projects were being stalled. Funding was being withdrawn. The language felt heavier. Conversations in hallways became quieter. Social media grew louder. Information moved faster than clarity.

Then came the directive recalling overseas Foreign Service Officers to the United States within days.

That was the moment everything changed.

I remember the Mission Director calling us together. The Ambassador joined. Their message was simple and sobering: they had no more information than we did. There was no hidden plan to reassure us. No timeline to offer. Just uncertainty.

What I will never forget about that gathering was not only the message, but the emotion in the room.

Foreign Service Officers, FSNs, and colleagues from other U.S. Government agencies sat side by side. There were tears in many eyes. Some tried to hold composure. Others did not. We cried together. At moments we even laughed together, almost instinctively, as if trying to lighten the weight of what we were feeling. But beneath it all, our hearts were breaking together.

It was not only USAID that felt uncertain. Colleagues from the Department of State were facing their own “fork in the road” conversations. Peace Corps had just experienced a Reduction in Force. Uncertainty loomed over other agencies, including CDC. No one knew what the coming months would bring.

That room carried more than confusion. It carried shared vulnerability.

In that moment, titles did not matter. Grade levels did not matter. Agencies did not matter.

We were simply human beings facing uncertainty together.

For nearly nine years, USAID had been more than a job to me. It was community. It was structure. It was purpose. It was family.

The days that followed were unlike anything I had experienced professionally.

As part of the IT team, my role shifted from enabling operations to dismantling them.

We wiped devices. Disabled accounts. Collected badges. Deactivated systems. Packed servers. Logged assets. Each task was technical in execution, but emotional in meaning.

One of the hardest moments was escorting colleagues off the mission compound after we had completed the device wipes and deactivations. These were people we had worked with daily for years. People whose birthdays we celebrated. People whose children we watched grow.

Walking them out of the compound after disabling their access felt surreal. It felt final.

There is a particular kind of silence that fills a building when people leave not because they want to, but because they must.

After most staff had departed, I was one of three IT personnel recalled to complete the final shutdown of the remaining AIDNET infrastructure.

The compound felt different. Quieter. Emptier.

Turning off those systems felt like turning off oxygen for a patient in a coma. We had built and maintained that infrastructure. We had protected it. Strengthened it. Monitored it. Improved it.

Now we were powering it down.

Switch by switch. System by system.

It was one of the darkest professional moments of my life.

For Foreign Service Officers, there was at least clarity. They were recalled. Pathways existed. For locally employed staff, including FSNs like many of us, the future was uncertain. Rumors circulated. We did not know if we would remain, transition, or be terminated.

Eventually, termination letters were issued. Mission drawdown plans were formalized. What had felt surreal became official.

Going into the office each day without knowing whether it would be your last takes an emotional toll that is difficult to describe. Yet leadership tried. Counselling was arranged. Speakers came to prepare us mentally. Efforts were made to connect staff with professional opportunities.

Those gestures mattered.

A Different Kind of Strength

When that chapter closed, I stood at a crossroads.

What I quickly realized was that I was not standing there alone.

My family became my greatest support system during that season.

My wife did not panic. Instead, she became a steady voice of encouragement. She constantly reminded me that things would get better. She sent me open IT job postings. She helped me stay focused rather than discouraged.

My father did the same. He checked in frequently and even supported me in setting up the JudeanLLC office. What could have been a moment of defeat became, through his support, a moment of rebuilding.

My mother and sisters continued to check in, offering words of strength and reassurance. Their consistency carried me more than they may ever know.

My children, in their innocence, loved on me in ways that only children can. They were simply happy to have me home more often. In a season that felt professionally uncertain, they reminded me of what truly matters.

It was an eye opener. For years, I had been immersed in the daily demands of mission life, projects, systems, deadlines, and responsibility. That season forced me to see life through a different lens. It reminded me that beyond the work we do, there is family, faith, and purpose that remain constant.

The easy path would have been to remain stuck in the loss. Instead, through faith and resilience, I chose to build.

I founded JudeanLLC in Uganda, an IT and cybersecurity company grounded in the governance, operational rigor, and discipline I learned during my years at USAID. The standards we upheld did not disappear with the shutdown. They became the blueprint for what I would build next.

At the same time, consultancy work with CTN Solutions provided a bridge during the transition. It affirmed that the experience we carried had value beyond one institution. The skill set was transferable. The discipline was global.

Looking back now, what once felt like collapse was transformation.

The friendships remain. The lessons remain. The professional integrity remains.

I would not wish that abrupt transition on anyone. It affected colleagues, implementing partners, families, and communities. It came quickly and without warning. It disrupted plans and financial commitments across ecosystems.

But it also revealed something deeper: resilience.

Today, JudeanLLC stands as a continuation, not a replacement, of what those years built in me. The mission may have ended. The values did not.

• Service
• Integrity
• Collaboration
• Excellence

The lights went out in one building.

But they turned on somewhere else.

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