Dr. Wangari Maathai Plants a Forest

by Rebel Girls

  “Trees!” she said suddenly. The other women looked at her, startled and a bit confused.

  “Wangari?” Vert said. “Are you all right?”

  Wangari stood up and raced to a blackboard in the corner. She drew a diagram like the one she remembered from her childhood textbook, but with arrows pointing to the center instead of around in a circle.

  “Every problem comes back to one thing,” she said, scribbling furiously. “The women need firewood to cook. They need food for their cattle and goats. They need shade, and fresh fruits, and healthy streams and soil to grow their crops. And what provides all that?” She put down the chalk and stepped away from the board. In the center of her notes she had drawn a giant tree.

  The room was quiet.

  “Who’s going to go around planting all these trees?” a woman asked, folding her arms across her chest.

  “We will,” Wangari said. “The women of Kenya. We’ll teach other women how to do it. Who knows this land better than the women who have been living on it for generations?”

  “We could even pay them for every tree they keep alive, help them earn a bit of money for their families,” Vert said. Wangari smiled. Her friend got it. She always did.

  Some of the women still looked doubtful. That was all right. It took people a while to get used to something new. The woman with the crossed arms gave her a tough look. “You really think planting trees is going to make a difference?” she asked.

  Wangari looked out the window. A hummingbird was hovering outside, its tiny wings beating tirelessly.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But we have to try.”

  * * *

  As an instructor, Wangari knew that before you could teach someone how to do something, you had to do it yourself. With that in mind, she organized a big party to show people in Nairobi how easy it was to plant a tree. She had the perfect day for it: June 5, 1977, World Environment Day.

  On the day of the event, Nairobi’s Kamukunji Park was crowded with families, students, and government officials. In her bright, patterned dress, Wangari looked as joyful as a flower bed. Lined up on the ground were the day’s guests of honor: seven young potted trees, each honoring a community leader from a different ethnic group in Kenya.

  Wangari and six others picked up shovels, and cheers and whoops rose from the crowd. As Wangari plunged her shovel into the earth, she remembered tending her garden in Ihithe, and she felt once again the joy of working with the land.

  When the holes were dug, Wangari and the others carefully lifted the young trees from their pots and placed them into the soil. The trees were shorter than she was. Wangari hoped that by the time the kids running through the crowd were old enough to bring their own children here, the trees would be tall enough that their canopies would touch one another, like a green belt across the sky.

  The Green Belt Movement! That is the perfect name for our project, she thought.

  But even as she admired their work, she felt an uncomfortable presence behind her. She turned around to face a sour-looking man in a suit.

  This was Daniel arap Moi, the vice president of Kenya. The NCWK had invited several important people from the government to the party, and many of them came. Only Moi looked unhappy to be there. His face made clear that he did not think much of trees—or of this celebration.

  “I thought you were an educated woman, Dr. Mathai,” he sneered. “Why are you working the earth like a common farmer?”

  “I thought you were an educated man, Vice President,” she replied. “How can an educated person not recognize how precious this earth is?”

  His face turned hard and cold before he walked away. Wangari had a bad feeling that they would meet again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wangari carefully patted the soil around a little green seedling. “Now you just give it some water…” she said to the group of women before her. “There! When you’re all done planting, it will look like this.” She sat back and gestured proudly at the seedling. She’d come to this village straight from the university, and dirt now stained the skirt of her long blue dress.

  “What if it doesn’t grow?” a worried-looking woman said.

  Wangari’s favorite students at the university were also the ones who asked lots of questions.

  “Madam, what is your name?” Wangari asked.

  “Grace,” the woman said.

  “Have you ever grown anything before, Grace?”

  “Oh, many crops,” Grace said. “Arrowroot, potatoes, greens…”

  “And did they grow well?”

  Grace nodded.

  “Then do what you did then. Use your woman sense. When it looks dry, give it water. If pests attack, drive them off. And if you need help, someone from our organization will come,” she said. “All I am asking is that you try.”

  * * *

  Wangari and the other Green Belt Movement volunteers bought almost every seedling in Nairobi. With nowhere else to put them, Wangari volunteered her home. It looked like a tiny forest was threatening to swallow the house.

  Her children loved it. Waweru and Wanjira chased each other through the plants. The youngest boy, Muta, could often be found crawling among the tiny trees, just as Wangari used to curl up under the arrowroots.

  “It’s not that I don’t like trees,” Mwangi said. “But do they all have to be in our house?”

  “It’s only temporary,” Wangari said. “I need to put them somewhere before we take them to the villages for planting.”

  “But they’re everywhere!” Mwangi grumbled. “I can barely make it out my own front gate. And…good Lord, what did I just trip on?”

  He reached down into a dense patch of green and felt around. He came back up with a blinking, surprised-looking Muta covered in leaves and dirt. Mwangi shot Wangari a warning look. “I want them out of our house. Now.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, holding up her hands. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  * * *

  That wasn’t the only reason the trees couldn’t stay. Travel was difficult on a seedling, and many died on the trip from Nairobi to the countryside before they could be planted. It would be better if women cared for the young trees close to their homes. All they needed were seeds.

  There was just one problem: no one would sell them any seeds.

  Wangari stood before a forester behind a big desk. She waved her order for several thousand trees, but he seemed unmoved.

  “We can pay for them. Why on earth won’t you sell to me?”

  “Women have no business planting trees,” he said. “It requires science. Men go to university for years to become professional foresters. And you think you can just hand some seeds to women who can’t even read and suddenly there will be new forests across Kenya?” He waved his hand and laughed at the idea.

  Nonsense, Wangari thought. Tree planting is simple: dig a hole, put a tree in, water it, and care for it. Even women who had never gone to school could do those things.

  Wangari thought of her mother tending a newly sprouted plant and of the way she tried to protect each one. This man had clearly never seen the clever ways women worked, even without schooling. She would have to show him.

  “Why don’t you come with me to see how the women have raised their trees so far?” Wangari said. “If you’re satisfied with the way the plants look, you give me the seeds. And if you aren’t, I’ll never bother you again.”

  * * *

  Wangari and the forester pulled up to a village outside Nairobi. As they got out of the car, a woman came hurrying down the path toward them.

  “Dr. Mathai!” Grace called. “We have so much to show you since your last visit.”

  Grace led Wangari and the forester past dozens of young trees that looked as strong and healthy as those in any Nairobi nursery. Women in bright-colored headscarves were tending the shoots and plucking away weeds.

  The forester reached out to touch one of the young plants. A woman smacked his hand away. He pulled it back sheepi
shly.

  “At first it was difficult,” Grace said, showing them into a mud hut lined with shelves of seedlings in clay pots. “The goats were eating our seedlings before they could even grow. So we put our youngest trees here.”

  “You have no irrigation. How do you water them?” the forester sputtered.

  “Like this,” Grace said. She picked up a tin can and dipped it into a waiting bucket. Water poured from holes punched in the bottom, like a watering can.

  The forester didn’t say a word during the drive back to Nairobi. When they arrived, before they went their separate ways, he paused.

  “Come back to my office tomorrow,” he said without looking at Wangari. “You can have your seeds.”

  Wangari waited until the car had pulled away to clap her hands with joy.

  * * *

  It was late when she got home. She closed the door quietly, expecting everyone to be asleep. She was surprised to see Mwangi sitting in the living room. He looked annoyed.

  “Where have you been?” he said. “It’s late.”

  “I’m sorry, it was a long day—but such a good one! We got the seeds we needed…”

  “You spend too much time on those trees,” he complained. “You have a family at home. You are married to a politician. Why are you doing things for these women all the time? They can’t vote for me. They can’t pay you.”

  “I promised to help them,” Wangari said.

  “That doesn’t mean you have to.”

  “Is that so?” Wangari said, growing angry. “Is that how you feel about the men who voted for you because you said you’d help them find jobs?”

  “That’s none of your business!” Mwangi snapped. With that, he marched off to bed.

  * * *

  The next night, Wangari got home late again. The children were asleep in their beds. She stepped into her bedroom quietly, but something was different. The gentle snoring she always heard at this time of night was gone.

  She switched on a lamp. The bed was neatly made. Mwangi wasn’t there. His clothes, his books, and even his toothbrush—they weren’t there either.

  Mwangi had left.

  Is there anything worse than losing the person you once loved? she thought. And then she realized: yes. The worst thing would be losing herself. If Mwangi did not like her choices, it was better that they go their separate ways.

  She closed her eyes. In the morning, she would tell the children, and they would begin their new life. But tonight, she would get some sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Now that Wangari and Mwangi weren’t married, it didn’t seem right to still have his last name. At the same time, Wangari didn’t want to give up the name that she shared with her children and that reminded her of the happy times they’d had as a family. She decided to keep the name, but make it her own.

  A Kikuyu person pronouncing “Mathai” would say it like this: “Ma’athai.” If she spelled her last name with two a’s instead of just one, Wangari could create a name that honored all the different parts of her life—and belonged to her alone. Now she would be known as Dr. Wangari Maathai.

  She made one other big decision, too: she was going to run for election. She wanted to become a member of Parliament and have a say in Kenya’s government. According to election rules, she’d have to quit her job as a university professor. It would be worth it, she told herself, if she had a voice in the laws that affected people’s lives.

  * * *

  Late one night, after they’d both finished marking papers at the university, Wangari and Vert sat in the NCWK offices looking over letters from communities around the country asking to be part of the tree-planting movement.

  “There are so many!” Vert said as she flipped through the pile.

  Wangari was happy to see how much people cared about their environment. But she was also worried for Kenya’s future. The old president had died, and the new president was Moi, the unpleasant man she’d met at Kamukunji Park.

  Since Moi became president, the government officials were less helpful to her and to her fellow Green Belt Movement volunteers. She thought she knew why. Whenever she met someone who wanted to plant trees, Wangari asked them where they thought the problems with their land had started. And the answer was always the same: the government.

  The government sold away public land that used to belong to everyone. The government cut down the national forests for money.

  It wasn’t right. So along with planting trees, Wangari started teaching people how to stand up for their communities. She explained that if the government wasn’t making sure that villages had clean water or was ruining the environment by chopping down trees, people had a right to speak up. They could write letters to newspapers or elected officials, or they could organize protest marches. That was how a free country worked. Wangari felt like she wasn’t planting just trees anymore. She was planting ideas, too.

  “We wanted Kenya to be free,” Vert said, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. “What good is independence if the new rulers are going to destroy the land just like the old ones did?”

  “We need people in government who want to lead. Not just rule,” Wangari said. She felt even more sure about her decision to run for Parliament.

  * * *

  A few weeks later, Wangari was asked to report to the board of elections. She knocked on the door of the Nairobi office.

  “Dr. Maathai,” the head of the election board said. He was grinning in a way Wangari did not like at all. “I’m sorry to have you come so far just to get bad news, but—you cannot run for Parliament. You must end your candidacy right away.”

  Wangari felt her blood run cold. “Why?”

  “We’ve looked at your old voting registration records. And it seems that you forgot to check a box on your form back in…let’s see…1979.”

  “That’s silly! That’s a mistake, not a crime.”

  The man shrugged. “Rules are rules.”

  “Are they? The rules don’t seem to count when President Moi’s government is selling away the land.”

  At that his smile disappeared. They stared at each other across the desk. Wangari was furious, but she knew she would not win this battle. With any luck, it would not be too late to get her job at the university back. She stood up to leave.

  “Oh, and, Dr. Maathai,” the man said, his evil grin returning. “Don’t bother calling the university. Your position has been filled already. President Moi made sure of that.”

  * * *

  Wangari walked the streets in a daze. She was not allowed to run for Parliament. She had lost her job. She was even going to lose her home—the house belonged to the university. If she didn’t work there anymore, she couldn’t live there, either. She dreaded telling her kids.

  She wanted to cry, to shout, but there was no one to hear. She took a deep breath. Wangari never liked to dwell too long on troubles. No matter how bad things got, there was always some way forward, even if it took a while to find. In the meantime, she’d keep working at the Green Belt Movement.

  As she opened the office door, she half hoped no one would be there. Instead, she entered a room full of cheering, celebrating employees and volunteers. Vert swept in and grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “Wangari! It’s fantastic. Have you seen this?” she said, shaking a paper in front of her.

  Wangari looked at the name at the top of the letter: the United Nations Voluntary Fund for the Decade of Women.

  The organizers had heard about the Green Belt Movement. They wanted to give them some money. A lot of money, actually—enough to keep the Green Belt Movement running for years.

  Wangari became the full-time director of the Green Belt Movement. Women planted trees in rows a thousand trees long, truly creating the green belt she had imagined.

  But she was about to confront her biggest challenge yet—right in her own backyard.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was late at night when the knock came on Wangari’s office door. />
  She didn’t recognize the young man standing there. He looked frightened, and he kept looking over his shoulder as he stepped inside.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” he said. “I am so sorry to bother you this late. It’s just—something terrible is happening, and you’re the only person I could think of who might be able to help.”

  He rustled through his bag and pulled out a tightly folded packet from the bottom. He unfolded it onto a conference table. It was a map of Uhuru Park, one of the biggest parks in Nairobi. Uhuru meant “freedom,” and that was what the park was meant to be—a place where all Nairobi’s people could feel free and peaceful. It gave them a cool, shady place to escape from the bustle of the city and reconnect with nature, for no money at all.

  But under President Moi, nothing in Kenya was truly free.

  A blueprint showed plans for a huge skyscraper right in the center of the park. Inside would be Moi’s main office. With at least sixty stories planned, it would cast a shadow over everything below it. A giant parking lot would also cover the green grass. There was even a spot marked for a giant statue of President Moi.

  “This will ruin the park!” Wangari said. “When do they want to start?”

  “Right away. These plans are supposed to be top secret, but once I saw them, I knew someone had to do something.”

  “You did the right thing,” Wangari said.

  “May I ask you just one favor? Please don’t tell anyone how you found out about this.”

  The young man’s eyes were full of fear. There were rumors that bad things happened to people just for criticizing Moi or his decisions.