Friday, December 10, 2004
Wangari Maathai: Kenyans' Voice of Courage And Justice - AllAfrica.com
Kenya's and Africa's first woman Nobel Peace Prize winner ... was one of the first a group students of Kenyan students given scholarship to study in the United States. While in the US, she landed in the hands of Catholic nuns at a small Benedictine college in Atchison, Kansas, where her life was" touched profoundly" during her days as a student in the l960s. ...
[She was] a lively person who came with nothing but $50 dollars in her pocket, a cardboard suitcase and her brains -- a person who was sometime homesick for nduma or arrowroots back in her native country.
She never expressed a desire to stay in the US because of its greater possibility for financial success. She always wanted to go back. It was always her aim to help her people" said Sister Joachim Holthaus, a dorm director and music professor in l960.
...
... a bigger shock came on her visit to her family home on the foothills of the Kenya highlands. She had grown up there, one of five children of parents who could barely read and write, yet had pushed their children to excel at school. Now looking out from hilltop home, she realized that entire crest had been cleared of trees and planted with tea. Along with neat squares of green were ugly scars of erosion sharp gushes sliced into denuded hillsides that could no longer absorb heavy rain.
Walking briskly down the dusty road she knew so well, she headed for a 200-year-old fig tree she had played beneath, as a child. lt must still be there, she thought. She broke into a run and reached a rise near her old tin-roofed school. The tree was gone. In its place was swathe of green tea. As she trudged home, Wangari tried to reconcile herself to the fact that Kenya needed cash crops such as tea to earn foreign currency to pay for imports. But most people were no better off, especially the women, who had to walk further and further for the firewood for cooking.
[I'd also recommend reading about her acceptance speech, where she encouraged us all "to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder."
She also said, "In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other," said Maathai, who wore an orange dress with a matching headband. "That time is now."
You can see a photo of her and read more about the ceremony at
http://www.canada.com/news/world/story.html?id=57131db8-9b71-4779-b803-041ca796f89d
The complete text of her Nobel Lecture is at
http://www.nobel.no/eng_lect_2004b.html]
Kenya's and Africa's first woman Nobel Peace Prize winner ... was one of the first a group students of Kenyan students given scholarship to study in the United States. While in the US, she landed in the hands of Catholic nuns at a small Benedictine college in Atchison, Kansas, where her life was" touched profoundly" during her days as a student in the l960s. ...
[She was] a lively person who came with nothing but $50 dollars in her pocket, a cardboard suitcase and her brains -- a person who was sometime homesick for nduma or arrowroots back in her native country.
She never expressed a desire to stay in the US because of its greater possibility for financial success. She always wanted to go back. It was always her aim to help her people" said Sister Joachim Holthaus, a dorm director and music professor in l960.
...
... a bigger shock came on her visit to her family home on the foothills of the Kenya highlands. She had grown up there, one of five children of parents who could barely read and write, yet had pushed their children to excel at school. Now looking out from hilltop home, she realized that entire crest had been cleared of trees and planted with tea. Along with neat squares of green were ugly scars of erosion sharp gushes sliced into denuded hillsides that could no longer absorb heavy rain.
Walking briskly down the dusty road she knew so well, she headed for a 200-year-old fig tree she had played beneath, as a child. lt must still be there, she thought. She broke into a run and reached a rise near her old tin-roofed school. The tree was gone. In its place was swathe of green tea. As she trudged home, Wangari tried to reconcile herself to the fact that Kenya needed cash crops such as tea to earn foreign currency to pay for imports. But most people were no better off, especially the women, who had to walk further and further for the firewood for cooking.
[I'd also recommend reading about her acceptance speech, where she encouraged us all "to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder."
She also said, "In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other," said Maathai, who wore an orange dress with a matching headband. "That time is now."
You can see a photo of her and read more about the ceremony at
http://www.canada.com/news/world/story.html?id=57131db8-9b71-4779-b803-041ca796f89d
The complete text of her Nobel Lecture is at
http://www.nobel.no/eng_lect_2004b.html]
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