Wangari Maathai - African experiences of America

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going to school my parents encouraged me to study hard and be like

you.” How I wished they had told me so!

But at that time in Kenya, 1959, the number of women who had

completed high school was very small and their options for careers

or higher education were relatively few. Women could become teach-

ers or nurses while men could be teachers or clerks in. an office, Being a clerk was a well-paid and highly esteemed job, because you would be in the mainstream of British Kenyan civil life. You would work in an office! You would be a member of the new elite class,

Although the nuns did not provide us with any career counseling, as graduation neared many of my classmates were signing up for train- ing in teaching or nursing. That was the end of education for them. I did not want to be a teacher then and I never tried to be a nurse. I wanted to go on with my studies, which for a girl was unusual. Back when I was at St. Cecilia’s, neighbors would say to my mother about me: “There’s no need to keep her in school. She cannot even become a clerk. She’s a girl, after all.”

Even my teachers and friends asked me, “What are you going to do? Become a teacher or a nurse?” But my mind was focused else- where, “I am not going to be either of those. I’m going to Makerere University,” I replied. Makerere was in Kampala, Uganda, and was then the only university in Bast Africa. Anybody who passed their high schoo] exams and could continue their studies went to Mak- erere, which was the epitome of education—the Oxford of East Africa. But aspiring to go there was very ambitious. Even though Iwas a good student, I was more hardworking than naturally bright, so my gaining admission to Makerere was still a gamble. .

“What if you don’t pass?” my teachers and friends asked. “What do you mean?” IJ asked. “Of course I will pass!” As it turned out, an opportunity arose that was to take me much farther west than Makerere—in fact, all the way to the United States of America.

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American Dream

y the time I graduated from high school in 1959, the colonial

B: for most of Africa was coming to an end: Ghana had become

a sovereign nation in 1957 and three years later many French and

Belgian colonies in West and Central Africa achieved their inde-

pendence. In Kenya, too, freedom was in the air. Although Jomo

Kenyatta was in internal exile and political activity was still lim-

ited, the “winds of change” that British prime minister Harold Mac-

millan said were blowing across Africa made Kenya's independence

inevitable. In 1957, black Kenyans were allowed to vote in elections

for the first time, and in 1959 the British government invited Ken-

yan politicians to London to negotiate over a new political order. In

1960, preparations for Kenya’s independence had begun.

A newly independent Kenya would need educated men and

women ready to fill key positions in the government and society

once the British administrators departed. To that end, in the late

195os the Kenyan politicians of the day, led by Tom Mboya, Gi-

konyo Kiano, and others initiated and encouraged contacts with

political and cultural figures in the United States, led by then-

senator John F, Kennedy, Andrew Young, and others. The aim was to

provide scholarships for promising students from emerging African

states to receive higher education in the United States. This would

also open up the United States to these former European colonies,

hitherto closed from the rest of the world.

Senator Kennedy agreed not only to fund the program through the

Joseph P, Kennedy Foundation but also to fly all the students to

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the United States at the foundation’s expense. Kennedy also pushed the U.S. State Department to expand its Africa scholarship pro- gram and make it possible toreceive the African students (the State Department initially had turned down Mboya’s request}. So began what became known as the Kennedy Airlift, which eventually saw nearly six hundred Kenyans airlifted to study in different colleges and universities throughout the United States.

When the Catholic bishop in the Nairobi diocese learned about the proposed venture, he decided to have students from Catholic schools in his area join in, As fate would have it, I had just com- pleted my education at Loreto-Limuru at the top of the class and was a favorite candidate for the bishop's proposal. I was in the right place at the right time, When I was informed of the opportunity to go to study in America, I did not hesitate: “Yes!” I said,

Thanks to the bishop and the nuns, I became one of about three hundred Kenyans selected for the “Lift” of September 1960. That was the fourth time my educational destination had been chosen for me and, as at my last two schools, I was to attend a Catholic institu- tion: Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas, which was under the management of Benedictine nuns.

I was very excited about this new development: It would be so much fun to go to America. It was-a great honor and privilege that people in both countries had such trust in me and had made this great opportunity possible. My parents supported me and were happy to hear that I had received a scholarship for further education in the United States. It was quite astonishing news, especially in my vil- lage, where girls’ education was still not fully appreciated. *

As had happened on my return to Nyeri in 1947, in September 1960 a whole new world opened up, one that reached for the first time beyond the borders of my own country. You can imagine what it must have been like when L twenty years old, boarded a plane for the very first time. Indeed, everything I saw or did for the next few days was for the very first time, The propeller-driven aircraft took off at midnight and flew for days, crawling across the sky: northward

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to Benghazi in Libya, then on to Luxembourg, Reykjavik in Iceland,

Newfoundland in Canada, and finally New York City.

As the Sahara Desert unfolded beneath me, I could not believe my

eyes. You can look at an atlas or read about how large the Sahara is,

put you don’t realize its vastness until you have flown over it. I

looked at the desert as dawn rose, fell asleep, and woke up hours

Jater to see still nothing but sand. We were flying too high to make

out people or animals or individual dunes. Instead, below were mas:

sive, fantastical formations of sand and the occasional green dot o1

mt was fascinating to be in Luxembourg, because I had only read

about Europe in books. I had never heard of this small country,

whose name sounded so beautiful and memorable. Why we stopped

in Luxembourg of all places is a mystery, but I loved feeling that the

geography I had learned in school was coming alive with the names

of places we arrived at or were near. All three hundred of us drove

through the winding streets from the airport to town for dinner.

In Newfoundland, a name I fondly remembered from my geogta-

phy class, we stopped for dinner, which consisted, so some students

told me on the plane, of frogs’ legs. I thought I’d eaten chicken and

was shocked that it could have been frogs, since I'd never considered

frogs edible before. Even before I had time to digest that piece of

information, the pilot informed us that we were about to land in

New York. Buses picked us up from New York International Airport

(later tenamed for President Kennedy} and took us to various hotels

in Manhattan. As part of our orientation, we toured the United

Nations, where dignitaries welcomed us to the United States, and

we met other young Africans who had also just arrived to study.

Coming to New York City was like landing on the moon. Fortu-

nately, ] was constantly in the company of my friend Agatha Wan-

geci, with whom I had studied at St. Cecilia’s and Loreto-Limuru.

Both of us were to attend Mount St. Scholastica. Together we fig-

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ured out this strange city and shared our experiences. As we walked the busy streets of New York, we were lucky not to be knocked over, since we spent most of the time staring up at the skyscrapers, which seemed to sway in the wind and touch the clouds.

Then there were the elevators! I had been in an elevator in Nairobi when I had received instructions on how to get a visa for the United States. But that elevator went only to the fourth floor. In New York I rode in elevators to the twentieth and thirtieth floors at lightning speed. I was convinced my stomach and heart would not arrive at the same time as the rest of me: How relieved I was when I reached the ground floor again and got out!

One of the things we had to do in New York was go shopping, of course. This led to my first encounter with an escalator. My initial reaction was to think of the irimii—powerful and noisy, slithering between floors, coming from nowhere and returning to nowhere. “Well,” I thought, sizing up the escalator, “everybody else is step- ping on it, so I’d better do the same.” While I made it safely to the next floor, one of my shoes didn’t and I looked back wondering how I would recover it. I had no idea that there was another escalator going down on the other side. Luckily, a good old New Yorker real- ized my predicament and brought my shoe to me with a smile on his face, [have never forgotten that man’s generosity and his warm wel- come to the magic city. Neither have I forgotten that first encounter with a moving staircase. Even today, I’m a little circumspect when I get on an escalator. .

Another aspect that amazed Agatha and me about New York was the.presence of black Americans. We could not believe that these were Americans and that they were as dark as we were and didn’t speak English with Kenyan accents! As a child in Kenya, I grew up thinking there were only three types of people in the world: black people, like me, pink people such as Europeans, and brown peo- ple such as Indians, Goans, and those from the Seychelles. I had assumed that all American Negroes, as we were taught to call them, were light-skinned. Therefore, to arrive in New York and see people

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as black as me going about their business was a shock. Agatha and I kept comparing some of them with people we knew at home:

“Doesn't he remind you of so and so?” We smiled as we compared the likenesses.

How little I knew about the Americas apart from what I learned from my geography class: the Appalachians, the Rocky Mountains, and the Andes; the Amazon rainforest, the prairies and the pampas

and the Great Lakes. I had also learned about the Mayflower, the Civil War, and the Indians (although probably more from the cow- boys’ point of view than theirs}, and I knew that the Americans had fought a war for independence from the British in 1776. In those

days in Kenya, there were few radios, no television, and very few films and little pop music to take America to every village. I found myself ignorant about simple things, such as knowing that Coca-

Cola was an American drink and that Indians in Kenya and those in America are different.

We didn't spend long in New York City. Myself, Agatha, and a young Kenyan man called Joseph Kang’atu boarded a Greyhound

bus with other students for our long journey to the Midwest, where we would spend the next four years studying. It would take us two days to get to Atchison on our bus, which was specially chartered to transport us to various colleges. We traveled through New Jersey to Pennsylvania and then to Ohio and Indiana. In the Midwest we began, to pass miles and miles of flat land full of corn that was per- fectly proportioned and ready for harvesting. I thought to myself, “Lord, have mercy! Where did they get all this corn?” When I found out that corn had come from the Americas and was not native to Kenya, I was stunned.

At each stop a few more students left the bus, and by the time we reached Indiana there were ten of us left. At one stop, we decided to get a drink at a local café. We saw a big sign for Coca-Cola, which,

’ along with Fanta, was a very popular drink in Kenya—in fact, they were the only drinks we recognized. While we girls looked around the café for a place to sit, the boys went up to the counter to order

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the drinks. A few moments later, however, they returned, empty-

handed.

“We can’t sit down and have a drink,” they told us.

“Why not?” we asked.

“Because we're black,” they replied.

A lightbulb went on in my head. “Even here in America and even

in a small, open café!?”

It was explained to us that we could have a drink but only out-

side. “Why should we drink outside?” we said, outraged. “Let’s go.

Let's get back on the bus.” So we did—without a drink. That was my

first encounter with racial discrimination in America. It was so

shocking because it was unexpected in my newfound home.

Years of colonial education on the subject of America had some-

how kept the African American part hidden from us. Even though

we studied the slave trade, the subject was taught in a way that did

not leave us appreciating its inhumanity. An African has to go to

America to understand slavery and its impact on black people~-not

only in Africa but also in the diaspora. It is in America that words

segrega-

tion,” “discrimination,” and “the ghetto” take on lives of their own.

wa, such as “black,” “white,” “Negro,” “mulatto,” “skin color,

The Greyhound bus finally rumbled into Atchison, which is in the

northeastern corner of Kansas. When we arrived we found a small

town along the Missouri River, best known as the birthplace of

America’s pioneering female aviator, Amelia Earhart, and a one-time

hub of several railroads, including the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa

Fe line. Benedictines were among Atchison’s first settlers, establish-

ing St. Benedict’s College for men in 1858 and its sister college,

which became known as Mount St. Scholastica, for women in 1863.

The women’s college was popularly known as the Mount and the stu-

dents proudly referred to themselves as Mounties. The emblem for

both colleges was the raven, which I used to see everywhere I turned.

The reception we received at Mount St. Scholastica was won-

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derful: nothing to compare with the one we had gotten at the café

in Indiana. The other students had obviously been told that Agatha

and I were coming. They were very welcoming, exhibiting the over-

flowing enthusiasm typical of Americans. Throughout our stay, the

girls embraced us so warmly that I do not remember ever being

homesick or lonely. They truly made us feel at home.

We quickly became aware that election fever was sweeping the

country and the campus and that the Nixon-Kennedy electio n was

less than two months away. The students knew that we were part of

the Kennedy Airlift and, even though I had no idea what Republi-

cans or Democrats represented, they assumed we were for Senator

Kennedy. The fact that he was a Catholic also added to the excite-

ment. Visiting local Democrats urged us to join the campaign and

asked us to speak at campus rallies supporting Kennedy..It was a

great introduction to campus culture—even before we unpacked, we

were plunged into the presidential campaign. We Kenyans on the

two campuses celebrated with everyone else when Kennedy won.

Just like the nuns at school in Kenya, I found the sisters at Mount

St. Scholastica very kind, and several became academic and personal

mentors and friends. Among them Sister Imogene, the college dean,

and Sister John Marie, my academic adviser and mentor in bio-

logical sciences, were wonderful people to be with. They gave me

a sense of belonging to the community and the feeling of being

at home, even though I was thousands of miles ‘from Kenya. Each

Christmas, Sister Marcella, who taught me home economics, would

make Agatha and me the most beautiful new dresses, taking great

care with the design and the sewing. I have never forgotten that ges-

ture or the times she and I would talk about my life in the United,

States and Kenya and what I hoped and dreamed of for my future.

My academic experience at Mount St. Scholastica was quite dif-

ferent from what I had known in Kenya. The workload was demand-

ing, although I made it to the dean’s list several times. I enjoyed

biology more than the chemistry I had focused on in high school,

so biology became my major, and I minored in-chemistry and Ger-

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man. The classroom presented challenges. Although the nuns were surprised that Agatha and I could understand so much English, we noticed the difference between speaking English as a foreign language and being surrounded by native English speakers. Critical analysis was not easy. We had little idea of English literature. The American students knew more about it than we did and could relate culturally to Shakespeare in a way we never could.

I worked hard at my studies and was pleased with the results, The sisters wrote each semester to my parents to update them on my progress. Since they couldn't read English, my brother Nderitu trans- lated the letters for them. He saved some letters from that period, and I was amused to read so many years later what Sister Imogene had written at the end of one semester: “Iam pleased to inform you that your daughter is doing highly satisfactory work, She seems well and happy and has made a most successful adjustment to life in the U.S. We are proud and happy to have students from Africa in our col- lege and we want you to know ‘that they are very fine representa- tives of their people.” ‘

In one of my own letters to Nderitu, dated February 28, 1961, I recounted my experiences of college life and my studies, as well as my responsibilities to him as my oldest brother and to the family. It is interesting to read this earnest, pious young woman’s words: “Your description of the adventure to the Aberdares almost made me homesick,” I told Nderitu, “This semester I am taking zoology, psychology, scripture, English composition, modern European his- tory, and sports. It’s quite a bit of work, enough to keep my little brain busy.” :

I assured Nderitu that the college was treating me well. “The nuns with whom I live are as nice as the ones I had at home. They have a big heart for Africans.” The dean of the college was going to send Nderitu a report and I was clearly concerned, “She will tell you my behavior and such things as 1 should not do, Should you feel that there is some weakness I... ask you kindly to let me. know and I will do my best to put it right.” Finally, I sought to allay any con- cerns he and my family might have. “Don’t worry about me, my

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dear. God is taking care of me. Give my best love to my mother and

all the neighbors. . .. am as sound as a bell.”

I quickly realized that Mount St. Scholastica and St. Benedict's,

although both Catholic’schools, were very different from St. Cecilia’s

and Loreto-Limuru. The education was broad-based and, on reflec-

tion, quite liberal. I marveled at the freedom that the students had—

young men and women kissing in public and watching films with

romantic scenes. In high school, we had seen Westerns and other

American and British films, but the romance had been blotted out

or edited. It astonished me to see young men and women walking

past the nuns holding-hands and the nuns not making any comment.

On the weekends, students held parties where men and women

danced—with each other.

In this and other ways, America was incredibly liberating. It was

also troubling. It made me think about what the nuns in Kenya had

told us. I began to ask myself, “Why was dancing so wrong? Why

was holding a boy’s hand so atrocious?” I came to understand that

my previous education had been very Victorian. I had been practi-

cally living the life of a nun, even though I hadn’t taken holy orders.

When I arrived in Atchison I was a very strict and dogmatic

Catholic. This was the time leading up to the Second Vatican Coun-

cil (196g-1965] and support for reforms in the Catholic Church was

growing. At the Mount, I began to look at religion differently and to

examine the issues confronting people of faith. During Vatican II I

began to question my faith: not to the extent of losing it entirely, as

happened to some, but wondering why behavior we had been told

was wrong was now deemied acceptable by church authorities.

In my schools in Kenya, for instance, we never ate meat on Fri-

days, and suddenly there were no food restrictions. It used not to be

possible to take Holy Communion if you had eaten anything after

six o’clock the previous evening and now that limit was three hours.

Mass every Sunday had been compulsory, but now Catholics could

attend services on Saturday evening instead. The Mass had always

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been said in Latin, but now services in vernacular languages were allowed. Even though Mass wasn’t compulsory at the Mount, ft found myself attending it quite often, partly out of habit and also because it was easy for me to get to the chapel. The Mass itself was much more personal, with fewer directed prayers. We could follow it in English in the prayer book rather than reciting the rosary ad infinitum. Though some of these changes were relatively minor, they made me think, Had God changed his mind? Was that possible? All this was strange and discomforting, and forced me to reflect on my faith.

The countryside in Kansas was also different from my home region, which is full of hills and mountains. By contrast, Atchison is as flat as a pancake. There were no hills for me to look up at in Kansas, but ° I did enjoy taking long walks along the Missouri River; known to me from maps but now very real. Unlike in Kenya, near the Equator, the seasons in Kansas are also very distinct. When we arrived in late September, we found leaves of green, yellow, gold, radiant red, and brown. Shortly after they dropped from the branches until each tree looked naked and dead. Although leaves fell from wild fig and acacia trees in Kenya, it was nothing to compare with the colorful leaves gathered in heaps, flying in every direction at the slightest breath of wind in Atchison. Never before had I seen so many leaves on the ground at the same time. No wonder the season is known as the fall.

And then there was the snow! I had seen the white ice on top of Mount Kenya and had not quite understood how it was frozen water, but I had never seen snow fall. And nothing could have pre- pared me for the cold weather when it finally arrived in earnest in January. I had never been as cold as I was during those winter months. Fortunately, the sisters made sure I was warmly dressed and, despite the cold, I do not remember being sick while I was in Atchison.

Another unforgettable experience of Atchison was the murmur of the winds, blowing through the branches of the leafless trees. I had

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geen trees sway and dance to the wind, but only in Kansas did the

wind whisper in the dead of winter. At first it seemed eerie, but I

soon learned to love that sound, which reminded me of violins. [had

never heard anything like that whisper, and still haven’t anywhere

in the world.

Spring was also very new to my senses. It reminded me of the

excitement of seeing seeds germinating after the rains fell at home. I

would watch as plants emerged from the ground once the snow had

receded. Buds appeared on twigs and branches and before you knew

jt trees would be clad again with beautiful green leaves, all at once.

Back home leaves would grow and fall throughout the year, so there

were never trees uniformly green or bare. What a miracle!

Summer in Kansas was hot and humid. That first summer, Aga-

tha and I worked on campus. These must have been the days before

air conditioners, because I remember Agatha and I trying to work

with one hand while we were fanning ourselves with the other.

waving hot air onto our faces and wishing for the cold highland air

of home.

The Americans were baffled. “Why are you fanning yourself?”

they asked me. “We thought that you'd enjoy this weather.”

Tlooked at them askance as sweat streamed down my face and my

back. “Let me tell you,” I said. “I’ve never experienced such miser-

able weather anywhere in the world.”

“Well, where else have you been?” They laughed.

“Well, you have a point,” I replied, appreciating that this was only

the second place outside the Kenyan highlands I had ever lived. Ever

since then I have appreciated even more the near perfect weather

in the Kenyan highlands. These seasonal changes also helped me

understand why people outside the tropics like to bask in the sun even when their skin is peeling off!

In those days, it was not possible for us Kenyans to go home and

visit: The journey took too long and it was very expensive. We

resigned ourselves to the fact that we would go home only when we

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completed our studies and, in the meantime, we consoled ourselves

with letters, although they could take as long as three to six months

to reach Kenya or the United States, Since then, the revolution in

communication has been extraordinary: telephones, including cell

phones, computers, faxes, and color television have taken informa-

tion technology to levels unthinkable forty years ago during my

days in Atchison.

Luckily, I made some good friends at the Mount. On off-hours

during the school year my friends and I would go window-shopping

in Atchison. I couldn’t afford to buy anything, but we enjoyed look-

ing at the latest styles of clothes. One friend with whom I have

stayed in touch is Florence (Conrad) Salisbury. She became a real sis-

ter. During most Christmases, Thanksgivings, and Easter holidays,

Florence would take me to her family’s house near Wichita.

I felt completely at home with Florence’s many siblings and lov-

ing parents. J would spend evenings chatting with her father at the

kitchen table as we sipped coffee and nibbled on biscuits that we all

had participated in baking. The Conrads’ house became like my sec-

ond home in Kansas. If I was not there making Christmas cookies

with Florence and her sisters, ] was back on campus doing the same

with the nuns in the kitchen. Or I would be packing books with my

great friend Sister Gonzaga, the registrar, to send to her favorite

schools in the Philippines.

Another friend was Margaret Malone from Texas. She was so fond

of her state that she kept giving me presents decorated with the Yel-

low Rose of Texas, which was also the nickname I gave her, since

she was a beautiful blonde. During my third year at the Mount

another student from Kenya arrived to join us, Mary Paul Gakunga.

Together, Agatha, Mary Paul, and I formed a great team and had a

very happy life both on campus and off. We have remained friends

and when we get together in Kenya we often reminisce about our

experiences at the Mount. ,

Among my other friends at the Mount were fellow international

students from China, India, and Japan. There was a certain bond

among the foreign students and sometimes we would be inter-

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viewed by the local press and asked to speak about our countries at

Jocal schools and functions, We also put on an international night

at the college so we could share our national heritage. I remem-

ber dressing up with a sheet over my shoulder to look like a typical

Kikuyu girl and teaching some of my friends dances from back home

~ . ag a way of sharing my culture with other Mounties.

We valued such events because they gave a sense of belonging to

our adopted community even though we were many miles from our

own. Although the alumnae office tried to keep us informed about

one another, years of separation and the responsibilities of family

made it difficult to keep in touch. In 2005, I traveled to Japan as a

guest of Mainichi Newspapers. When I informed them that some of

my college friends were Japanese and that the only name I could

remember was Shoko, my contacts at Mainichi told me that Shoko

was one of the most common first names in Japan. So] could hardly

believe my eyes when at a special luncheon the newspaper organ-

ized in Tokyo I saw my fellow Mounties Shoko Komaya, Grace

Mahr, Suzanne Tamura, Sonoko Takada, and Tuneko Shibuya, after

a gap of more than forty years! We hugged, laughed, cried tears of joy,

sang. our favorite Mountie songs, and enjoyed a most memorable

meeting.

During my time at the Mount, and especially during the national

holidays, families would open ‘up their homes to foreign students.

I was impressed by their generosity to us Africans at a time when

there was so much conflict between the races in the United States.

On television we saw protests and black people being cruelly treated

by policemen. Even then I did not quite absorb what was happening

and the long-term impact of what I was watching. The Mau Mau

» struggle for justice in Kenya had led me to believe that education

was part of the solution to many of the problems black people were

facing everywhere. But I was not adequately conversant with the

history, politics, and mind-set of American society.

I tended to bury myself in my books, but nonetheless I took an

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interest in the civil rights movement and learned a lot. I wanted to

understand it, and America in all its intricacy, and to see where I as

a Kenyan and a black woman fit in. I often wondered why I should

come to America to see black people being treated as harshly as I

had witnessed in Kenya as the British attempted to crush the Mau

Mau movement. While Britain was a colonial power, America was

“the land of the free and. the home of the brave”! So how was I to

explain such happenings?

Apart from the incident at the café in Indiana, I was saved from

discrimination during the rest of my stay in America, partly because

I did not move about much, preferring to stay on campus. Even

when I visited my white friends and stayed with their families, I

never experienced any form of racism. Nevertheless, during my time

in the United States, when the civil rights movement was violently

confronted, I became more aware of how institutionalized discrimi-

nation based on skin color existed in America. That I never encoun-

tered another direct experience of discrimination was an exception.

Many of my fellow Kenyan students elsewhere experienced racism

in finding jobs, places to stay, and friends.

Perhaps because the Mount was an almost all-white school and

there were only two African American students I did not inter-

act much with African Americans in Atchison. I never hit it off

as friends with the African Americans in college, even though they

were cordial. Much more friendly-and approachable were two women

support staff at the Mount. They took Agatha and me under their

wings and were quite maternal. One of them, Mrs. Collins, was a

short, hardworking woman who could have been my elder sister or

young aunt. She always had a smile on her face and we exchanged

niceties as we passed each other in the halls. Occasionally, we would

meet off campus for friendly chats. Sometimes, Mrs. Collins and her

coworker would take us to their neighborhood, where most of the

black people in Atchison lived, not far from the campus.

At that time, Atchison was segregated. As the women took us

around their neighborhood and the more affluent part of town, they

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pointed out to us the inequities in American society. The economic

differences between the neighborhoods were stark but not surpris-

ing to us, because the same divide was evident in Kenya. We blamed

our inequities on colonialism, while Americans blamed theirs on the

legacy of slavery. However, whenever we visited the two women’s

two-story houses, I thought they looked positively luxurious com-

pared to my mother’s house.

On some occasions, with the handful of Kenyan boys studying

at St. Benedict’s, we'd go dancing at what I recall were cold, large

halls mostly frequented by local black patrons. I was still learning to

appreciate American music. I was also learning to dance, because we

weren't allowed to dance at school in Kenya. As it turned out, we

didn’t dance much, and spent most of our time drinking sodas and

chatting with the boys. Some of those young men had been in Amer-

ica for several years and thought we were inexperienced and conser-

vative. They openly criticized us and encouraged us to change ‘and

become more like American girls. They were particularly critical of

our kinky hair, which they said would be much better if treated with

a hot comb.

Although none of us then was in a hurry to become a Ken-

yan American, the boys didn’t have to wait long, since by the time

we were in our third year, we could hold our place on the dance

floor with twists, rock ‘n’ roll, and whatever else was in vogue. Even

the hair got a touch of the hot comb. By the time we graduated, we

were fully Americanized. That is the lure of America. What it did to

me in Kansas, it continues to do to every generation around the

world.

During summer vacations, the nuns would find us jobs in Kansas

(City, Missouri, so we could acquire experience and skills to comple-

ment our studies. One such summer, Sister John Marie got me a job

in a tissue-processing laboratory at St. Joseph’s Hospital. We moved

to the big city and stayed in a house owned by the Benedictines

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that also hosted students from many other countries—Mexico, the Philippines, and India—as well as Puerto Rico, Like Agatha, Mary Paul, and I, these students worked in different places during the day but in the evening we all came together to form a pleasant inter. national community. At the hospital my task was to assist the laboratory technician responsible for Processing body tissue so it could be observed under a microscope. This helped the doctors and other experts determine the ailments of their patients. The skills I learned in this laboratory later proved immensely valuable in my academic career in Kenya. The technician was an African American who, by turns, was gen- tle and sarcastic. He thought me hopelessly naive about America and African Americans and decided that I needed some educating to

scarves.

Once the meeting began, much of what the speakers said contra- dicted what I had been taught in the course of my religious educa- tion at school, They said that Jesus was a black man and not a blue-eyed blond, that he had attended the University of Alexandria in Egypt, and had Spent much of his early years in Africa. For me that was not only untrue but also sacrilegious. I had never heard anything so outrageous! I was so shocked by such misrepresentation that I believed that J should not even hear it, because hearing it alone must be a sin, So in the middle of the meeting I left the hall, found a pay phone, and called the Priest at our residence for an immediate consultation, “Father,” I confessed,

moment, and I am not Nation of Islam meeting about Jesus!”

“You will never guess where I am at the sure I should even be here. But I’m at a and you should hear what they are saying

The priest laughed, perhaps to ease my anxiety. “What are you doing there?” he asked, “T know as a Catholic I shouldn’t be listening to this,” I replied,

“but I’m here and I’m not sure what I should do. Should I stay and try to respond to them or leave? They need to be talked to because they're giving wrong information about Jesus.”

To my surprise, the priest encouraged me to stay. “Just listen to what they're saying,” he said. “You don't have to believe it, but it’s good to listen. It will be interesting to hear what you think about it when you come back to the residence hall.” Not only did I now have permission to listen but the mandate to speak my mind.

So we stayed. They continued to speak about many things I found contradictory and unbelievable. All these years I'd been taught that believers. do not question faith, even when it does not make sense. One believed and the understanding came later. But here were peo- ple who were not teaching me but rather urging me to question.

Finally, I was given a chance to speak. “It’s not true that Jesus went to the University of Alexandria,” I said. “There wasn’t even a University: of Alexandria at that time. You are misinformed about the life and times of Jesus.”

I continued and when I was through, the main speakers on the podium turned to the audience: “You see how indoctrinated this sis- ter from Africa is! This is part of the problem and we must do what- ever we can to educate her and others like her.” I realized that I had probably wasted my breath but I felt extremely unsettled, I could see that they believed in what they were saying; but I also believed in what I was saying. After some time, Agatha and I decided that it was time to leave. It was also getting late and we had to get back to the residence hall before dinner.

The next day I reported to work, eager to tell my boss what had happened at the meeting and how I had informed the followers of the Nation of Islam that what they were saying was not true. “How are you so sure?” the technician asked, with a sly smile.

“Tjust know,” I told him, emphatically.

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“You mean,” he replied, “you've been taught so. Why do you think that everything you’ve been taught is true?” I looked at him with astonishment and asked myself, “Is he’ telling me that I may not have been told the whole truth?” I realized then that he also believed what I had heard at the meeting. “Perhaps he knows something I don’t,” I thought to myself,

I didn’t discuss the subject any further with him and he never

nm Americans, the Afri- can diaspora, or any knowledge of history or religion beyond what my Catholic education had taught me.

We Kenyan students in the Midwest felt Separated from the rest of the Kenyan community in the United States, especially from the majority who lived along the East Coast. Occasionally, however we managed to travel and attend meetings with other Africans stud yin in the United States that were organized by asi own

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emerging from a century of colonial rule and giving rise to new nation-states.

Then, as now, and despite the very modern forms of communica- tion in the United States, we had little access to news about Kenya in any media, unless it was bad news. Fortunately, there was little

bad news in Kenya at that time and we came to appreciate that no

news was probably good news. We did get the big news that Kenya _ “was going to become independent on December 12, 1963, and elec-

tions for representatives to the new government had been held in May 1963. To celebrate our independence, the Kenyans in Kansas got together with friends of Kenya, including many Americans, in the city of Lawrence, to eat, drink, sing, dance, and listen to speeches.

Much rejoicing took place, both in Kenya and abroad, as Jomo Ken-

yatta became Kenya’s first prime minister and, a year later, president. Sadly, our celebration of Kenya’s independence came only a few

weeks after the trauma of President Kennedy's assassination on

November 22. As news of his death reached the Mount that day,

classes were suspended and, in great disbelief and remorse, we prayed

for the peaceful repose of his soul. Shortly after, the college closed and students were sent home. Agatha and I stayed on campus and remained glued to the television, following the events as the pre- sumed assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was himself murdered by Jack Ruby. And it all happened as the world watched on television!

The night that President Kennedy died, I wrote with great urgency to my brother about what had happened and how I felt. “I admired him as a leader,” I wrote, “a lover of peace and a man who was very humanistic. I mourn with the Americans and with all those who know what it means to have an official shot dead.” I told Nderitu that even as the television repeated the news of Kennedy's death over and over again, “We find it hard to believe and yet it is so true.”

It was a momentous time for me, for many Americans, and for many around the world for whom President Kennedy will always remain the young, energetic, and charismatic leader who was not allowed to realize the dreams he had for America and the world.

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Through the Kennedy Airlift I had become part of his dream, and now he was gone before I could realize it. I mourned him like a member of my family. I am lucky that later in life I was able to develop working relationships and friendships with members of the Kennedy family who helped me understand President Kennedy better. I am privileged to know and work with Kerry Kennedy, Rob. ert F. Kennedy's daughter and one of JFK’s many nieces. For many years she supported pro-democracy activists in Kenya by working for human rights and democratic institutions.

My four years at the Mount, and the experiences I had both on and off the campus, nurtured in me a willingness to listen and learn, to think critically and analytically, and to ask questions. These skills stayed with me wherever I went from then on. The Mount also pro- vided me with a springboard to my next educational establishment. Some of the sisters suggested some of the American universities to which I could submit an application for graduate studies, which 1 was eager to pursue. Once I received my bachelor of science degree in 1964, I applied to and was accepted by the University of Pitts- burgh in Pennsylvania to study for a master’s degree in biology. The Africa-American Institute, which supported higher education for many Africans (and still does}, gave me a scholarship that made this possible. I had visited the University of Pittsburgh on a scholarship in the summer of-1963 to attend a six-week course on leadership, My course paper was on helping women in rural areas work together and promote development efforts, Little did I know that I would be putting that theory into practice only a decade later, when I would be inspired by rural women to initiate the Green Belt Movement.

In 1990, when I returned to Mount St. Scholastica after more than twenty-five years, almost everything except the buildings had changed: The Mount had merged with St. Benedict’s, become coedu- cational, and was rechristened Benedictine College. The monastery, which had been the exclusive preserve of the nuns, had thrown open

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its doors to the public and visitors could now mingle with the sisters

in their dining room. The nuns, who used to wear long black habits

and white flowing veils, now wore short dresses and skirts and even

trousers. They also exposed their hair, which was cut short. This

time, I was the one with the floor-length skirt and a headscarf! But

Atchison remained the same old, pleasant, and welcoming flat mid-

“western town that was home for four of the most wonderful years of

~ my life.

Ientered the University of Pittsburgh in September 1964 and stud-

jed biological sciences under the supervision of Professor Charles

‘Ralph, who became a good friend. Initially, he wanted me to research

the life cycle of the cockroach, but I couldn’t stand the thought of

cockroaches crawling all over me! Instead, Professor Ralph gave me

the chance to study the pineal gland, which lies deep in the brain

just opposite the pituitary gland. He wanted to know how the gland

develops and what its role is as animals go through life.

He chose to look at the gland in Japanese quails, because they are

smal! birds and easy to handle. I incubated and hatched the quails’

eggs and followed the development of the pineal gland in the brains

from egg to adulthood. The study constituted my master’s thesis

and fulfilled the requirements of my master of science degree. It also

further developed my skills in embryology, microanatomy, process-

ing tissues, and microscopy, which proved pivotal less than two

years later in Kenya.

Pittsburgh was much bigger than Atchison, a real urban center,

“ and much more industrial, although its rolling hills reminded me

more of home than the plains of Kansas. I had become used to big

towns because of the summers I spent in Kansas City, and so adapted

well. In the mid-1960s, Pittsburgh, like other manufacturing towns

in the United States, was coming to terms with the legacy of

pollution from a hundred years of the industrial revolution. This

turned out to be my first experience of environmental restoration,

because the city was already working to clean up the air. People

from Pittsburgh would tell me that they had had to paint their

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houses each year because-the soot made them look as dirty as the inside of a chimney, and that there was no point in hanging your washing out to dry because it turned black. Over the years, however, environmentalists’ efforts have paid off: Today, Pittsburgh is no longer shrouded in smoke, but is one of the most beautiful metropo- lises in the land.

The university was much bigger than Mount St. Scholastica, andI . interacted mostly with graduate students in my department, which was relatively small. I also spent a lot of my time with the other African students at the university. Except for going to the library or cafeteria or sporting events, I wasn’t very involved with the huge campus. Nor, as far as I could tell, was it a hotbed of radicalism. Dur- ing my years at the University of Pittsburgh, from September 1964 to January 1966, most people, including me, did not understand why America was in Vietnam and had not fully decided if they were for or against the war. (Although as a child of colonialism, the sending of troops to a foreign land was not wholly strange to me.}

An African American in my department was the only person I knew who was drafted. Unfortunately, he was killed soon after he arrived in Vietnam. That was my only personal experience of this conflict that was to have such a long-lasting impact on American society. When I visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washing. ton, D.C., I think of him in particular, mourn his loss, and honor his memory.

By 1965, as I was completing my studies at the University of Pitts- burgh, Kenya had been independent for nearly two years, The new government knew that many of-us who were part of the Kennedy Airlift were just finishing our degree programs. In an effort to recruit personnel to take over positions being vacated by British civil ser- vants, the Kenyan government sent officers to the United States to tecruit young Kenyans about to graduate. As part of this process, I was interviewed by a group of people from the University College of

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Nairobi (later the University of Nairobi}, including the deputy vice

chancellor. One of the positions available was research assistant to a

professor of zoology. -

Later, I received a letter from the college confirming my position.

[ would be involved with a project concerning the control of desert

locusts. The letter instructed me to report to work on January 10,

1966. This was to be my first “real” job and I took it very seriously.

[J was so keen to assume my new position that I sacrificed marching

at my graduation ceremony at the University of Pittsburgh and col-

lecting my master’s diploma.

When I left the United States, I was taking back to Kenya five and a

half years of higher education, as well as a belief that I should work

hard, help the poor, and watch out for the weak and vulnerable. I

knew that I wanted to teach in a university and share what I had

learned about biology. I wanted to see my family and to start a

family of my own.

Talso took America back to Kenya with me. When people think of

America they think of a vast, powerful, confident country—a place

where, especially in the big cities, people can be angry or brash. But

there is something about the United States that I experienced in the

early to mid-1960s and that I still see now. The country is an enor-

mous juggernaut with many smaller systems in it, from the govern:

ment to academic institutions to farming to transportation. In spite

of everything that comes to rock that larger system, whether it be a

hurricane, political controversy, or economic difficulty, the wheels

of the juggernaut do not come off but, indeed, keep turning as if

nothing else is happening.

There is a persistence, a seriousness, and a vision to America: It

“ » seems to know where it is going and it will go in that direction,

whether you like it or not. In America, if you can find your place you

can be treated very well, because its people are very generous. But

you have to be tenacious, innovative, and strong. Besides, you have

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to keep moving, because the machine will grind on, whether you are

on board or not.

I also returned to Kenya with a new name—my original one.

When I was born, my parents gave me the name Wangari. When

I was baptized as an infant, like other Christians in Kenya I was

trained to consider my baptismal name, Miriam, as my primary

name. Throughout my childhood I was known as Miriam Wangari,

and my father’s name was set aside. This was a legacy of the mis-

sionaries: Africans were taught to accept a certain amount of infor-

* mality, in which surnames didn’t feature. After I became a Catholic,

I dropped Miriam and became Mary Josephine, or Mary Jo, Wangari,

which is how I was known when I arrived in the United States. The

way surnames were forgotten in Kenya struck me as similar to how

many African Americans in the times of slavery and segregation

were known only by their first names, yet had to address white peo-

ple as Mr. or Miss, followed by their surnames.

At the Mount the sisters called me Miss Wangari. This began to

seem absurd, since I knew the term “Miss” meant the “unmarried

daughter of . . .” and I knew I was not the unmarried daughter of

myself. I decided to put this right and. began writing my name as

Mary Josephine Wangari Muta, so I’d be called Miss Muta. I then

reversed my primary and personal names, becoming Wangari Mary

Josephine Muta, and later dropped Mary Josephine because the

name had become too long, When I returned to Kenya, I was Wan-

gari Muta. That was what I should always have been.

The United States prepared me to. be confident not only in

reclaiming my original names but to critique what was happening at

home, including what women were experiencing. My years in the

United States overlapped with the beginnings of the women’s move-

ment and even though many women were still bound to traditional

ideas about themselves at that time, I came to see that as an African

woman I was perhaps even more constrained in what I could do or

think, or even hope for. This was to come into sharper perspective

when I returned to Kenya in 1966, thinking that the sky was the

limit for me. ,

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It is fair to say that America transformed me: It made me into

the person I am today. It taught me not to waste any opportunity

and to do what can be done—and that there is a lot to do. The spirit

of freedom and possibility that America nurtured in me made me

want to foster the same in Kenya, and it was in this spirit that I

returned home.

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