Unbowed: A Memoir (Vintage)

by Maathai, Wangari

  When I finally get through passport control, everything is a whirl of questions, hugs, handshakes, long embraces, and tears of joy. We have all changed, grown grayer, taller, or thinner. “Nderitu!” I cry to the young man I think is my oldest brother. The young man laughs. “No! I'm Kamunya!”

  “Kamunya,” I reply, embarrassed at mistaking him for my oldest brother, “you've grown so tall!”

  My parents look at me. “What happened?” they ask. “You're so tall. And so thin! Didn't you eat enough?”

  Even though they say this lightheartedly, I can sense the concern in their voices. “I'm all right,” I assure them. It is true I was much thinner than when I left Kenya. But they didn't need to feel sorry for me. In the United States, I was considered just right: slender, but not skinny; the perfect size for the red hot, close-fitting, A-line dress I was wearing that day. To my family, though, I looked like I hadn't eaten enough in years.

  We all somehow managed to fit into an old car borrowed from a friend and drove to Bahati Estate in Nairobi, where some of Mur-ango's family lived. The car radio was playing a recording of one of Jomo Kenyatta's thundering speeches. I sensed that this was a historic moment: It was not only the first time I had heard his voice, but it was the voice of President Kenyatta. He was urging us to return to the countryside and create wealth from the land by growing coffee and tea and developing our agricultural industry. As all of us listened to the Mzee (Kiswahili for “respected elder,” as Kenyatta was called) on the radio, nodding along with what he said, I almost felt like shouting back to him: “Here I am, Mr. President! I'm back and ready to join in the building of our free country.” I felt a deep sense of pride at being a Kenyan.

  I was buoyed by the enthusiasm and optimism I sensed around me. I could almost hear myself agree with the concluding words spoken by the great American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” These thoughts dominated my mind in the days and months that followed as I reconnected with my country and my people.

  We were welcomed warmly at Bahati Estate and enjoyed lunch with friends and neighbors. Because Bahati was typical of the crowded, one-bedroom houses assigned to Africans in the days when Kenya was a colony, there was not enough space for all of us to sleep there. So that afternoon my brothers and I drove to the high-class New Stanley Hotel in downtown Nairobi and I stayed there for several nights. This would have been unthinkable before independence because of the color bar then in effect that stratified society into three racial layers: white, brown, and black. As black Africans, we would not have been allowed to eat or drink, let alone sleep, at the New Stanley.

  While I was at the Stanley, family and friends came to visit. They were as excited as I was to be in the hotel, and I shared with them how the color bar was practiced in the United States and the progress of the civil rights movement there. After a few days in Nairobi, my family returned to the countryside: my father to Nakuru, my mother and Kamunya to Nyeri, and my older brothers to their places of work outside the city.

  After all the troubles that Kenya has had since independence, it is difficult to convey how exciting that time was. We felt that Kenya's destiny was in our hands. It truly was a whole new world, and yet, forty years on, in some ways the potential of political independence and the elimination of racial barriers have yet to be realized. My generation and those that followed failed fully to appreciate and take advantage of the great opportunities that that breakthrough presented. Instead, Kenyans have often engaged in retrogressive and destructive practices that continue to frustrate and retard the realization of the promise of that time.

  In those early days of 1966, of course, I had no inkling of what would happen in the coming decades. I simply got ready to report to work that Monday, January 10. With great enthusiasm, I presented myself to the professor of zoology, my new boss. To my dismay, without blinking an eye, he had the audacity to inform me that the job had been offered to someone else. I was shocked. “But you wrote me this letter,” I protested, showing him the handwritten letter of appointment on official university letterhead and signed by him. “I've come all the way from the United States of America.”

  The professor was immovable; I might as well have been speaking to a stone. In my desperation I went to the office of one of the professor's superiors to plead my case, but he supported his colleague. “Because the professor wrote the letter to you on the letterhead of the Department of Zoology rather than the office of the chancellor,” he replied without shame, “and because it is hand-written, the letter is not official.” I was devastated. I couldn't understand how someone— and a professor at that!—could be such a hypocrite. How could the college claim no responsibility for that decision? What was I supposed to do?

  I decided to pursue the matter in different offices. I found out that the zoology professor had indeed offered the job to someone else, and that that person was someone from his own ethnic community. To add insult to injury, that person was still in Canada. It was the first time I had encountered that form of discrimination. Was it also because I was a woman? Perhaps not, but it wasn't long after that, when seeking another job at the same institution, that I encountered sexism from the same men. Both ethnic and gender barriers now were placed in the way of my self-advancement. I realized then that the sky would not be my limit! Most likely, my gender and my ethnicity would be.

  What I did not know then was that tribalism and other forms of corruption were going to become some of the most divisive factors in our society, and they would frustrate the dreams of the Kenyan people after independence. What I suspected then, and I know for sure today, is that the letter I received from the University College of Nairobi was official. But the professor of zoology practiced tribalism and sexism and denied me the job. There was nothing I could do about it; such issues were neither admitted nor discussed. The official verdict was that there was no vacancy because the position had been filled. I was left to find another job, if I could.

  Anyone who has lost a job knows that it's not easy to find another one, especially when you are desperate. In my case, it took several months, during which I first stayed with two old school friends, Agatha Wangeci and Miriam Wanjiru, in Westlands. This was a lively, predominantly Indian area, then opening up to different races as the color bar came down and the ability to pay became the determining factor in where you could live and what luxuries you could enjoy. It was during one of my job-hunting expeditions that I ran into a brother-in-law called Nderitu Mathenge, who invited me to stay with his family in Nairobi.

  Nderitu was an assistant dean at the very recently established School of Veterinary Medicine at the University College of Nairobi and his wife, Elizabeth, was, like me, a graduate of Loreto-Limuru. Nderitu must have seen how vulnerable I was as a young woman just returned from America, because he not only invited me to live with him and his wife but was very protective and reassuring. “Don't worry,” he would tell me, “You'll get a job.”

  It was while I was living with Nderitu and Elizabeth that I met Professor Reinhold Hofmann, who had been sent by the University of Giessen in Germany to establish Kenya's own Department of Veterinary Anatomy in the School of Veterinary Medicine. Professor Hofmann was looking for an assistant to help in the microanatomy, or histology, section. I had an interview with Professor Hofmann and he offered me a job, precisely because of the particular skills in processing tissues and using microscopes I had developed in the lab in Kansas City and refined at the University of Pittsburgh. At that time, University College of Nairobi was a constituent college of the University of East Africa at Makerere in Uganda, so I had indeed, after six years, finally fulfilled my high school ambition of getting to Makerere University.

  As fate would have it, the Department of Veterinary Anatomy was separated from the Department of Zoology only by a beautiful courtyard lined with layers of colorful bougainvillea plants. From my
window, therefore, I could see those who could have been my colleagues in the study of locusts a few months earlier. I'm sure by then they had forgotten our early encounters, but I hadn't. To this day, I wonder how my future would have unfolded had the professor of zoology been fair and honest.

  Initially, I was disappointed I had not joined the Department of Zoology because anatomy is a very specialized science and I had wanted to study something more general. However, I gradually found that working with tissues and studying them under the microscope was very interesting. Not surprisingly, given Professor Hofmann's background, some of my colleagues were German and we used some German textbooks. Even though the work was completely new and very challenging, the German I had studied at Mount St. Scholastica proved useful, and I quickly became engrossed in my studies. I virtually forgot about the locusts.

  The university's main campus is in Nairobi's city center, while the departments of veterinary anatomy and biological sciences were and still are on the Chiromo campus, a mile away. The campus was comprised of low-rise, L-shaped buildings, open staircases, and many windows, organized around a grassy courtyard. In the years that followed, the Chiromo campus became my second home as I buried myself in books, microscopes, and slides. I progressed in the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and eventually became part of the research and teaching team.

  I registered for my Ph.D., for which I would be required to use an electron microscope. At that time, the University College of Nairobi had only one electron microscope, in the Department of Human Anatomy, so that is where I did my work. Professor Mungai, the head of the department, allowed me to use the microscope in their department and visit their laboratories. They were amused by my interest in human anatomy. Occasionally, I would steal into their department and have a look at their specimens. It was very different to look at and handle the remains of a human being. It reminded me of my own vulnerability and insignificance, and that we should value our short time on this planet. I did not have the same reaction to the animal specimens.

  I loved working with the students during their first years in their pursuit of doctorates in veterinary medicine. They came to us young, eager, and vibrant. When I began teaching, all the students were male and they found it difficult to believe that I had the qualifications to be their instructor in anatomy. I was a woman, after all, and in my mid-twenties, so not much older than them. It wasn't always easy to deal with the students or my male colleagues. The latter would often tease me: “Do you really have a master's degree in biology?” they would ask. I knew deep inside they doubted my capabilities, but I also knew I was better qualified than they were. As for the students, they quickly learned who was boss and to take their work seriously. A failing grade from me counted as much as it did from my male colleagues, and that was a language they understood.

  Soon after I began working with Professor Hofmann, I made a decision that enhanced my independence but was not very smart. I decided I needed a car. Nderitu and Elizabeth lived far from the center of Nairobi and had only one car, which made our commute into work complicated. One day I said to Elizabeth, “Let's go and buy a car. I have money.” So I went to the bank, withdrew all my money, and bought a tiny, white, brand-new Toyota, with cash. I didn't even know how to drive! In many ways, I wasn't a very good investor then. If I knew then what I know now, I would have invested the money in a house.

  But I was young, it was the swinging sixties, and now that we had a car, my friend and I could truly be mobile young women around town, together or separately—once I learned how to drive. This gave me a deep sense of independence. I also received a university flat, next to the women's dormitory on campus, and became a warden for the women's hall. It was very safe and close to town, so to me it seemed perfect.

  Nairobi in the 1960s was known as the Green City in the Sun. It was a pleasant place and very livable, and had many open spaces, although a number of them have since been built on. Nairobi National Park, a piece of wild grassland that still sits on the edge of Nairobi, was much larger then and the grasslands weren't far from the city center. Nairobi then had fewer than half a million people, a sixth of its population today.

  In the early years of independence and through much of Kenyatta's time, most of the development in the country was concentrated in Nairobi. Eventually, if you had nothing, you went to Nairobi, but in the 1960s it was the professional class that came to the city. Although Nairobi was relatively small compared to, for example, New York, it was along with Johannesburg and Cape Town a main hub in sub-Saharan Africa and we were proud of it.

  There were no street children and no slums. Even Kibera, which is now the largest slum in Africa, had few inhabitants. Its land was still covered in trees and vegetation, although then, as now, there was little infrastructure. (Even today, Kibera's half a million residents have limited access to electricity and running water.) Nairobi's buses then were seldom overcrowded, garbage collection was regular, and the whole city was clean. My women friends and I would regularly stroll among the small shops and cafés in the city center without fear of being mugged or raped.

  My friends and I also enjoyed Nairobi by night. We went out to clubs, chatting and dancing to the British and American rock ‘n’ roll, rumba, and all the dances then in fashion. In the 1960s, you didn't dance alone! So a number of young men, many of whom had also studied in America, went out with my friends and me. We had a comradeship based on our shared experiences in the United States. Nevertheless, while we were enjoying ourselves, we were also being constantly reminded by our close friends who were getting married that this freedom was probably not going to last forever.

  While my family never put pressure on me to find a husband, my aunt Nyakweya the storyteller always made it her business to declare that a woman's biological clock ticks constantly. Any time I attended a wedding in Ihithe, she would remark on the importance of a woman marrying in good time—not waiting for too long and not paying her debt to society. She would look at me out of the corner of her eye and hope I was listening to her every word. I would smile back at her playfully, but I got the message!

  In April 1966, I met Mwangi Mathai, the man who would become my husband, through mutual friends. He was a good man, very handsome and quite religious. He had grown up in Njoro in the Rift Valley, not far from Nakuru, where his parents had relocated from Nyeri. He had also studied in the United States and worked for various corporations in Kenya before he entered politics. He was always a very good businessman, and in many ways he introduced me to the business world, even though I really felt more at home with books and blackboard chalk at the university. When I eventually let my family know I was going to be married, Aunt Nyakweya could not hide her urge to celebrate. As tradition demanded for a woman, she ululated four times in my honor. I could see that my mother and aunt were genuinely happy for me and knew that I was happy, too.

  That first year back in Kenya was a busy one. In addition to starting my job at the university and meeting my husband, I also needed to assist my family. To that end, I brought my two sisters Beatrice and Monica to Nairobi. My idea was that since neither of them had gone to university, they should learn a trade, such as typing, to make them more competitive in the job market and able to support themselves. They also needed a place to stay and something to do. So I rented a small shop on the corner of Second Avenue in the Eastleigh area of Nairobi and established a general store that sold milk, soft drinks, vegetables, grains, snacks, and other general provisions. When they weren't studying in the secretarial college, my sisters worked in the shop and lived in an apartment at the back.

  I did not have much capital to build the business (it was all tied up in my car!), but I did my best. I would wake up very early in the morning and go to Marigiti, the city's largest food market, where I would buy vegetables and bring them to the shop. Then I would report to the university looking so professional that they'd never imagine I had spent the morning out buying vegetables. At least twice a week I would replenish the supplies fro
m wholesale shops in the center of town. In time, Beatrice excelled at typing and found secure employment as a secretary in a government office. Monica became very interested in the business and ultimately became the shop's manager. Early in 1967, Professor Hofmann told me that he anticipated the arrival of many more electron microscopes in Kenya and asked me to consider deepening my knowledge of electron microscopy and carrying out some of my Ph.D. research at the University of Giessen. I assured him of my interest in doing this and left for Germany later in 1967. Before I did, though, I asked Mwangi to help my sisters manage the shop and look after my car. As it turned out, while I was away my small business flourished, so much so it needed more space. Mwangi sold my car to raise some capital for the shop, created a company out of it, added more capital, bought the building, and made himself a minor partner. When I returned to Nairobi, I hardly recognized the place: The original business had been incorporated into Mwangi Investment Ltd., which eventually became a huge operation.

  I stayed in Germany for about twenty months. I missed my family, friends, and Mwangi, but going to America had made me adaptable. When I get into an environment, I tend to take it as it is. I don't presuppose what it should be like, so I'm therefore not disappointed if it is not what I expected; instead, I'm excited by its newness and difference. I knew I would not be in Germany forever, so I tried to enjoy my time there and apply myself. In the United States, everything had been new: I was twenty years old, it was my first time living in another country, I was in college and far from home. But when I went to Germany I was twenty-seven, more mature, more focused, and working on my doctorate. I also felt stable in my personal life; I was, after all, engaged and looking forward to getting married. Unlike Mwangi, however, I was not in a huge hurry. He was obviously worried I might stay in Germany longer than was good for his plans. Therefore, he wrote me many letters and sent emissaries to persuade me to return to Kenya so we could start our family.