Unbowed

Unbowed

Adult herstory

"Two weeks into mbura ya njahi, the season of the long rains, my
mother delivered me at home in a traditional mud-walled house with no
electricity or running water. She was assisted by a local midwife as
well as women family members and friends. My parents were peasant
farmers, members of the Kikuyu community, one of the forty-two ethnic
groups in Kenya and then, as now, the most populous. They lived from
the soil and also kept cattle, goats, and sheep."
Not hardly the way you'd expect the autobiography of a Nobel
Prize lauraete to begin?
I was in the Women's Resource Center the Tuesday of the final
week of UMaine classes. I could not believe my eyes. In its library
was a copy of Unbowed, the autobiography of Wangari Maathai, one of my
all time sheroes! Here was her story in her own words. The
downside: I had to finish and review it in days. In fact I have a
little over two hours now to finish this piece and return the book.
So why am I at the Cinco de Mayo festival scarfing down tacos instead
of holed up in Fogler Library?
I like living on the edge. You know?
Anyway Wangari was born in 1940 in Kenya during a period of
rapid national change. Her great-grandparents were born into a pre-
Europeon nation. The first whites to enter were the missionaries.
They were closely followed by others with much less pure motives.
When Africa was being carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey among
Europeon nations whites were urged to populate Kenya. They were given
the most desirable land. The legitimate owners (who could practice
good resource stewardship) were displaced to "native reserves".
(Doesn't this sound like what went down in the United States?)
Conversion from a livestock based to a cash based economy and the
imposition of taxes that could not be paid in goats led to many men
having to work apart from their families in cities. This led to stuff
like prostitution and the spread of STDs. (Recall we just set read
Auma's Long Run and learned that this situation led to the rapid
spread of HIV/AIDS in Kenya in the 1980s and 1990s?) Wangari's father
was in the first generation of men to have to spend most of the year
apart from their families.
One of the worst consequences of this land grab was that the
people who understood the value of natural resources and the need for
conservation and sustainability were replaced by people in it just for
short term profit. A lot of deforestation and the replacement of
trees suitable for the environment with quick growing imports resulted
in bad stuff like the loss of precious soil and drying up of water and
climate change. A shift from a traditional diet to more westernized
foods accelerated malnutrition and disease.
Wangari realized that deforestation was at the root of all her
nation's crises. She set out to get native trees planted all over her
country to turn things around before it was too late. Sounds
innocuous, right? It wasn't seen that way in Kenya. For decades she
was stalked, beaten, and jailed for her work. Those trying to silence
her and stop her work reached into the top levels of government.
Wangari was too focussed and determined to give up. She
eventually was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. If you want to read an
inspiring, empowering true story, you owe it to yourself to read
Unbowed.
Wangari wrote Unbowed in the hope that readers would come to
realize that we will find our greatest joy in service. If each of us
does what he/she/they can within unique life circumstances, together
we can achieve the seemingly impossible.
Wangari ends her manuscript with a parable. There is a forest
fire. Most of the animals flee. The hummingbird, in contrast, tries
to stop the fire by dropping water on it. When the fleeing animals
claim that she is too small to make a difference--what does she think
she's doing?--she replies that she is doing the best she could. That
is the mandate for all of us: to be engaged and persistent even when
it feels like we are dripping water on a forest fire.
On a personal note, I have spent my life to date being like the
hummingbird, doing the best I can under the circumstances I find
myself in from childhood on. During my eleven years on school
committee, for example, I did my best to get people to see the
elephant in the room wrongness of stuff that everyone else accepted
like teaching to standardized tests and financing education through
property taxes. In graduate school I am currently working on issues
like food insecurity on college campuses. I aspire to be a food
service manager in a way that emphasizes teamwork and collaboration
and creates a welcoming, affirming, safe, and valuing space for
workers at all levels.
A great big shout out goes out to all my fellow hummingbirds.
There! I did it with 32 minutes to spare. Pays (or at least doesn't
hurt) to be a party animal.
jules hathaway


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