EP 11 Wangari Maathai - Mama Green I Women And Resistance 🌍

In this conversation, Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla explore the life and legacy of Wangari Maathai, a renowned environmental activist and the founder of the Green Belt Movement. 

The discussion covers her early life in colonial Kenya, her education, and the impact of colonialism on the environment. It highlights the role of women in environmental conservation, the challenges they face in leadership, and the intersection of gender and environmental issues. 

Maathai's philosophy and activism are examined, culminating in a call to action for listeners to engage in environmental stewardship.

Takeaways

*Wangari Maathai's life was deeply intertwined with the environmental struggles of Kenya.
*The Green Belt Movement not only focused on tree planting but also on empowering women.
*Colonialism had a lasting impact on Kenya's environment and societal structures.
*Women play a crucial role in environmental conservation and community resilience.
*Cultural identity is essential in understanding environmental issues.
*Political resistance is necessary to protect natural resources.
*Maathai faced significant challenges as a woman in leadership roles.
*The environment and economy are interconnected; sustainability is vital for both.
*Maathai's legacy continues through the Wangari Maathai Foundation and ongoing environmental efforts.
*Every individual can contribute to environmental conservation by planting trees.

Chapters

00:00  Introduction to Women and Resistance
01:17  Wangari Maathai: A Life of Activism
04:10  Colonial Kenya and Environmental Impact
09:22. Education and Gender Inequality
10:52. The Journey to the United States
20:25. Return to Kenya and Early Career Challenges
21:20. Gender Discrimination in Academia
23:39. Marriage, Divorce, and Public Scrutiny
30:26. Resilience and Continued Activism
32:07  Cultural Reflections on Gender and Power
32:44. Colonial Impact on African Identity
34:39. Disintegration of Family Structures
36:52. Education and Cultural Erasure
38:43. Resistance Against Authoritarianism
41:35. Environmental Activism and Legacy
47:19. The Green Belt Movement and Women's Empowerment
51:09. Connecting Environment and Society
54:58. The Importance of Trees and Sustainability
01:03:36. Legacy and Continuing the Fight

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

Transcript

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (00:00.391)
time.

Adesoji Iginla (00:03.948)
Yes, greetings, greetings, and welcome again to Women and Resistance. And first things first, manners. With me, as usual, is my co-host, Mrs. Aya Fubara Eneli Esquire. And how are you, my sister?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (00:26.697)
I am doing well. I am doing well. Glad to be in conversation with you.

Adesoji Iginla (00:32.142)
Yes, always a pleasure. My name as usual is Adesuji Ginla. And we continue our quest to understand the role of women, our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sometimes just the ordinary woman walking the streets. Because we've gone through so many, I mean, at least 10 now.

with our latest iteration, who is none other than Professor Wangari Maffai.

Before we delve into our, we would enjoin everyone to turn up next week where we will be putting all the previous people that have sat on the podium to my left.

in conversations with each other. And that is, and also, you know, get some questions from the audience as to how the stories of the women have impacted them on a day-to-day basis. But without further ado, Wangari Mathai, who is she? And what are we talking about her today?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:59.263)
take a deep breath because my life if I can be so audacious to say it could be a thing of movies just the scope and breadth of my life and I died very recently compared to a lot of the people that I know you've already talked about I made my transition in 2011 so I am

Adesoji Iginla (02:01.582)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:29.247)
of the age of maybe, if I lived, I would be the age of maybe some of your mothers or your aunties or maybe even some of you who are here. So this is not ancient history at all and the work continues. As you started with the introduction, I was a professor, but I'm gonna start at the very beginning. My name is Wangari Uta Matai.

Adesoji Iginla (02:34.988)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:58.587)
It is spelled with two A's, Matai. And I will tell you how I came about that name. I was born on April 1st, 1940. So was born in this month. And I was the third of six children, but the first girl. I grew up in what would be considered colonial Kenya.

Adesoji Iginla (03:05.421)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:29.331)
and in a small village of Ijite. This was nestled in the central highlands of Kenya. Of course, this was an area that was very much coveted by the white settlers. And there is actually an area that is considered the white highlands because what the settlers would do is

Adesoji Iginla (03:33.112)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (03:52.044)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:56.709)
as they were invited to come to Kenya, they would settle in the best parts of Kenya, where the land was most fertile, where there was clean water, where there was the most vegetation. And to do that, they would displace us, the indigenous people. I was born in a land that was lush and generous.

Adesoji Iginla (04:13.326)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:20.861)
where the river beds were alive and the trees stood like elders, guardians of our community. But over time, I watched that beauty wither. I watched land being swept away from a lot of different things that human beings were doing that initially started with the colonizers and then has continued.

I've watched the land be stripped, the forest cut with gnome.

concern about the long-term environmental impact of these choices, these decisions. The soul of my people were tied to systems of power that did not see us, that did not respect us, and that ultimately,

educated us not to see ourselves either and not to respect ourselves either and my people continue to suffer as a result of this. I chose to fight back not with weapons of war as you may have covered in the past, not with a sword, not with

a dagger not with a musket, a pen. I fought back with plants, with trees, with seedlings. I chose to fight back not with rage, but with a resistance that is rooted in love. And some may have questions about my choices.

Adesoji Iginla (05:55.401)
A pen or a pen.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:21.471)
and how effective they were, but these were the weapons that I chose, our seedlings. When I was still a toddler, my mother took me to live with relatives in a nearby town. This was actually very advantageous to me because my father, who had four wives, he was a Christian, which he was really...

I would say like the first generation of Christians in Kenya, there were others before him obviously, but my grandparents for the most part had resisted becoming Christians. Eventually my grandmother actually was baptized on her deathbed, but my father was supposedly a Christian, but.

That form of Christianity also allowed for embracing some parts of our culture. And so he had four wives. And my father worked on...

what those of you in America or in the Americas, not just in the United States because we know this happened across the Americas, would consider plantations. But these were settlements where the white people owned the land. But they provided land for us to come and work. Similarly to the sheer cropping in the United States of America.

Adesoji Iginla (07:40.366)
stations.

Adesoji Iginla (07:54.317)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:01.191)
We did not own the land, but we were assigned land on their land where we could grow, yes, we could grow our own food.

Adesoji Iginla (08:06.208)
essentially squatters.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:11.069)
But we could not sell the food out on the marketplace per se. We had to sell it to the owner of the land who then could now sell it on the marketplace for much higher value than what they paid us. So it was a system that kept us destitute. But my father was actually skilled. He could drive. He was very good at repairing engines. He was a mechanic of sorts.

Adesoji Iginla (08:28.558)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:38.655)
and his service was very much valuable to the white settler, whom he had a very close relationship with. Now we can talk about whether that was reciprocated or not. I would say that by the time the white settler decided to sell his land, he did give my father 25 acres of land.

He also gave land to the Catholic Church that was then able to build a school that is still in existence. So I suppose you could say he was one of the more benevolent white settlers. But on this settlement, there were no schools for the children of the Africans. And so when my mother left to live with relatives in Ijite,

Adesoji Iginla (09:21.494)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:36.659)
there was actually a school within walking distance. And my uncle who lived there had all his children enrolled in school. And my older brother was also enrolled. And my brother came to my mother and asked my mother why I was not in school. And my mother didn't really have any reason. She could have.

Adesoji Iginla (09:54.947)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:59.334)
insisted that I stay with her because that would give her extra hands to work in the fields. We all grew our own food. We ate very well. There was no issue of malnourishment. My grandmother, don't have records per se, but she lived, we think, till about

Adesoji Iginla (10:04.724)
and on the fields.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:21.727)
the mid 90s. And that used to be the norm. That of course is not the norm in Kenya today, where the average age for men dying is about age 40. And where you see a lot of malnutrition with the children and you see millions of women dying from iron deficiency because of malnutrition really. But that was not always our case.

And so because I moved back to Ijite, where my uncle was, I was able to go to school, which again was not the norm. People would sometimes send their boys to school if they could afford it, but not the girls, because what was the point of educating a girl? Her job was supposed to get married and maintain a family. But I...

Adesoji Iginla (11:04.659)
school but not the girls.

Adesoji Iginla (11:10.434)
Someone who was gonna leave.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:19.941)
excelled in school. I ultimately went to a boarding school when I was 11 years old and this was a school run by nuns and I had a very close affinity with these nuns and I eventually also converted. I did not ask my parents or my family for permission, I just made the decision and I chose the name of Mary Josephine.

So both the Virgin Mary and her husband in the Bible, Mary Josephine. And so for many years, I was actually known as Mary Jo. And all the time that when I had an opportunity at age 20 to go to the United States of America to study, which was really unheard of for most students in Kenya.

who were educated after high school, if you were lucky, you went to the University of Makere, which at that point was the only school, university for Black students in the entire East Africa region.

Adesoji Iginla (12:23.981)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (12:28.705)
East Africa.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:34.107)
But there was a program called the Kennedy Airlift, a program that sent promising African students to study in America. And I was chosen to be one of those students. And I traveled to the United States.

I ended up studying at Mount Saint Scholastica College in Kansas, where I earned a degree in biological sciences. And then I also went on to the University of Pittsburgh, where I earned a master's in biology. Of course, by this time, we had gone through the Mao Mao resistance.

Adesoji Iginla (13:07.576)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (13:16.654)
1952 to 1962.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:19.175)
I come from what is known as the Kikuyu. Some people will say tribe, some people will call it the ethnic group. But the Ma'amals were primarily consisted of the Kikuyu's. And I actually remember a time as a young girl where I was making my way back to the settlement where my father lived and worked. And I was picked up and detained.

Adesoji Iginla (13:26.03)
People calling it a nation.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:48.927)
Because at that point, even as a young woman, because I was Kikuyu, there was that concern that I was part of the Maomao resistance. And it took some maneuvering by my father's employer to convince them that indeed I was a student who was just.

returning to where my father was which was far from where my mother was and so the question was why is she if she's from Ijite which is near Inyeri why is she so far from home? But I definitely encourage you to go and read and learn more about the Maomao resistance and how that came about. It was a very difficult time for us and

What we do not talk about much is the number of Kikuyu's and others who were considered part of the Maomao resistance who were killed, many who were maimed, and many who were detained and their labor used.

to actually build Kenya. And so the International Airport at Kenya, actually in Nairobi, the whole tarmac was laid by prisoners from the Maomao resistance. And even that terminology, Maomao, is problematic. Would you like to speak to that at all?

Adesoji Iginla (15:25.196)
Yes, very much so. Very much so. Yes, the Mauma was a way of dehumanizing the resistance of the Kenyans. They would much rather be known as the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army, the KLFA, which was then led by Dedan Kimafi, who

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:49.919)
and I'm Kim Hathi, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (15:51.918)
who as part of Kenyan culture is, if you're buried, you must be buried facing Mount Kenya. And instead, they turned his face into the earth. So knowing fully well what the cultural significance of that is. So, I mean, you've given us an idea of what your basic background was.

And in terms of culture and the role vegetation played in said culture, could you give us an early story with regards to how you came to understand the importance of

Adesoji Iginla (16:41.388)
greenery and trees in fact.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:43.141)
Absolutely. So as a young woman, as a young girl actually, I would often be sent out like many other children and the women did as well to go out and gather firewood because we use the firewood to cook our meals.

And my mother would always admonish me and tell me You can go and pick firewood everywhere else But do not go and pick any wood around the fig tree and she there was this huge fig tree Not too far from where we lived And I would ask her why and she said Because god resides there and

We understood as part of our culture the importance of the fig tree. I did not really understand it as a child, but I respected my mother's wishes. As I got older, I came to understand the importance of the fig tree, its deep roots, and how it could break through the rocks and go down in and draw up water.

And actually that water would end up finding its way up and bubbling out. And we always had beautiful, clean water. You could just drink it directly from the stream. It also provided an amazing canopy. And so underneath its canopy, you would see all manners of flora as well. All of them important to the ecosystem. As a child, know, sometimes when I would play in the stream near the fig tree,

I would see these.

Adesoji Iginla (18:29.838)
that port.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:30.643)
these, well, they were initially eggs of different colors and they look so beautiful and I would try to pick them up because I wanted, they look like beads and I wanted to wear them around my neck. But as I would try to pick it up.

Adesoji Iginla (18:33.141)
Exit.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:45.329)
It would just the jelly that held it together will fall apart and it would just like fall through my hands. And over time I'll come back and the beads will be gone and that it will be a bunch of tadpoles of different colors. And then over time I'll come back and the tadpoles will be gone and it would be frogs. And again, I did not even understand the smetamorphosis until I went to school and learned about the cycle of life. But it was just also

Adesoji Iginla (18:59.054)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:15.233)
mysterious to me and so beautiful. Years later when I would return, the fig tree was no longer there. It had been cut down by the white people who now own that land because they felt that the fig tree was taking up too much space. And interestingly enough, the stream had also dried up.

Adesoji Iginla (19:42.35)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:42.863)
So no longer did we have the fig tree, no longer did we have the fauna that grew under the tree, no longer did we have the clean water, no longer did we have that whole ecosystem, the frogs and everything else that grew there were gone. And in that area where that fig tree used to stand, nothing would grow. They would try to plant other things and actually nothing would grow. And now instead of us,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:14.345)
having the sense of meeting God or God being in these trees, we now went to church, to a concrete building to find God. And this has continued till today. And...

Adesoji Iginla (20:25.751)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:31.857)
And so these were lessons that I learned as a child, seeing how we could grow things. We grew sweet potatoes and we grew all kinds of herbs and vegetables and we ate well. And the other piece that you see now with malnutrition is we went from in Kenya growing food that we could consume to becoming so focused on cash crops.

Adesoji Iginla (20:57.484)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:01.565)
that we were now growing tea and coffee. People who were malnourished would grow tea and coffee and there would be tea and coffee plants even up to their front doors, but not food that they could actually eat. We saw how that even impacted the birds. Because with the fig tree,

Adesoji Iginla (21:13.61)
Mmm. Actually, eat.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:24.049)
when it would put out its berries and its fruit, you would have so many birds that would come and eat and be nourished. And as all those trees were cut down and the white colonizers introduced their own kind of trees because they grew faster, but they did not do the same thing in terms of their root system and how they held the soil together. So now you also have

Adesoji Iginla (21:40.942)
It's really easy.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:52.035)
soil just being washed away into whatever water we still had. And so instead of the clear water we had, you would have this muddy water filled with silt, which was also taking up the top soil every time it rained. And so what you see is the deforestation of Kenya.

Adesoji Iginla (21:56.686)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:14.469)
What you see is this over reliance on cash crops. What you see is the malnutrition in our our community. And of course, this is not just in Kenya. This is something happening across Africa, in many ways across the globe. But we understand that with climate change and with this deforestation, that the people who are going to be hit hardest are going to be the people in Africa, actually.

But in 1971, I became the first woman in, so after my studies in the United States, I returned to Kenya. We were now an independent nation, at least that is what we called ourselves. But we very much had kept almost all of the colonial infrastructure. And I was excited, in fact,

Adesoji Iginla (23:03.768)
colonial infrastructure.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:11.803)
When I came back, my family met me at the airport and on the ride back to where we were staying, it was President Jomo Kenyatta on the radio. Of course, again, go back and read some of this history because he had been in prison, sentenced to jail for seven years as part of the resistance. But at the time that I had come back, he was the president and he was

He had high hopes for Kenya and many of us had those same high hopes. Although now in retrospect, as I recall some of his speeches and his call to us to join the workforce and to plant tea and coffee, I can see how we had not done a sufficient job of decolonizing our minds so that we could create a different society for ourselves.

Adesoji Iginla (23:45.997)
I hope so.

Adesoji Iginla (24:06.752)
Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (24:10.892)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:11.475)
But I ended up getting a job at the university. At that time, I was one of three women who were employed as lecturers or professors. And we found out that we were getting paid much less than the men were for doing the same job. There was this sense that men are...

primary breadwinners for their family. And so even men who were in positions that were lower than ours made more money than we did as women, regardless of our qualifications. And that was a fight that I took on way ahead of my time, it appears. And you could say that maybe that was the beginning of some of my troubles. I did get married.

Adesoji Iginla (24:46.316)
Where?

Adesoji Iginla (25:06.082)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:09.283)
and while to my husband, Muang'i Matai. And we have two weddings. We had a traditional wedding and we had the quote unquote white wedding where I wore a long white dress with a long veil. And we had that wedding in the Catholic church. And that tradition still carries on in Africa today where we seem to think that our own traditions are not sufficient.

Adesoji Iginla (25:20.483)
wedding.

Adesoji Iginla (25:38.67)
You have to.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:39.067)
And so for my husband was also well educated, had been educated in America as well. And so befitting of our status, you we got married in the Western way and that, and with the pictures and all of that. And...

We began our family. My husband and I had three children, but there was trouble in the marriage. And I would say that a lot of the trouble had to do with the societal expectations of me as a woman and of him as a man. In fact, we had many different ways of...

Adesoji Iginla (26:18.304)
and see you.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:26.697)
challenging men and asking them who wears the pants in your family. And the fact that I was so well educated and actually better educated than he was in the formal sense, the westernized sense, yes, was an issue. I tried very much to do everything that was expected of me. I taught at the university. I ran my home.

Adesoji Iginla (26:40.396)
be academic,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:54.119)
I did have someone, a nanny who helped me with the children, but I cooked. When we had guests, I served all the guests myself, not a servant, I did that. I tried to meet all of my husband's needs. When he ran to be a member of parliament, I went out on the campaign trail with him. I was subservient. I truly tried to play my role.

Adesoji Iginla (27:12.558)
Parliament.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (27:21.817)
as a quote unquote good African wife. But to my great dismay, it was not enough. My husband traveled often and I had no problems holding down my job and my household. In fact, I made my own decisions at work and I made most of the decisions also in the home since he was gone so much. But one day I returned from work.

and my house looked a little different. My husband, Muangie, had actually moved out of the house. And I asked the nanny who was with my kids, what is going on? What happened? And she said, Master Muangie Matai had come in and packed up his things, his television, his clothes, some other items, and packed up his car and...

left. We did not have a conversation about it. It was my hope to reconcile. I did not want to be divorced. In my society, anytime a marriage goes, a marriage supposedly fails, it is always the woman's fault. I knew that there was a spotlight on me and I tried for years to reconcile with my husband.

Adesoji Iginla (28:16.652)
Lift, Just lift.

Adesoji Iginla (28:34.958)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:44.947)
but finally he filed for divorce. I had hoped that it would be a quiet divorce. He could have chosen that route, but he didn't. He chose a very public divorce and for months we made the newspaper and it was this lecture of this professor who was rejected by her husband. And at that time there were just a few grounds for divorce.

It was adultery. was cruelty. Incompatibility was not a ground for divorce. And so my husband actually lied to the court and accused me of adultery. He accused me of being so cruel to him that it had raised his blood pressure. I denied all of those charges. But I was basically raped through.

through the mud, if you will, in the papers. And a lot of people who already had issues with women, women like me who were educated, who they assumed were too big for their britches or something, this was the perfect time for them to, yes, to make my life a living hell. And I was very concerned because my children were young and I was concerned about how this would affect them. But I...

Adesoji Iginla (30:00.15)
Opportunity.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:12.467)
hired lawyers even though that is not what I wanted to do with my money. But ultimately I would tell you when I put the noose around my own neck. So I was on the stand and my husband's attorney asked me a question. And you were supposed to be intimidated and very sheepish when you're on the stand.

And I asked the attorney why they had asked me that question. And the attorney turned to the judge and said, imagine this. Did you hear her? She's asking me a question. If she can ask me a question, you can, in courts, you can only imagine that she would have been very problematic to live with in a home that she must have been challenging her husband all the time.

Adesoji Iginla (30:44.824)
Question.

Adesoji Iginla (30:56.566)
and the chords.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:07.921)
And of course, God forbid that I as a woman ever open my mouth to in any way attempt to challenge a man. And so the court ruled against me. The divorce was granted. And so now I was a divorcee, having been shamed in the media.

Adesoji Iginla (31:16.45)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:37.011)
But my challenges were only beginning because I was approached by a magazine editor who wanted to interview me about my divorce ordeal. And during that interview, I had mentioned that the only way the judge could have ruled against me because there was no evidence of me either having been cruel to my husband or having ...

Adesoji Iginla (31:40.398)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (32:06.688)
infidelity.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:06.751)
any infidelity. So I said that the only reason that that divorce could have been granted was either that the judge was incompetent or was corrupt. And once that hit the airwaves, I was hauled back into court for contempt of court. So was the editor.

Adesoji Iginla (32:27.374)
of course yeah

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:33.436)
The editor was given the option of either, well, I was given the option of retracting my statement and I said, I did not accuse anybody. I did not say they were corrupt or incompetent. I just said the only reason that so yeah, judge could have based on the evidence is either they were, but I did not specifically say that they were. Well, since I refused to retract my statement, the court,

Adesoji Iginla (32:45.959)
or who'd have been?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:03.707)
gave the editor an option of paying 40,000 shillings, Kenyan shillings, or six months in jail, and they paid the fine. But in my case, I was not given an option of paying a fine. I was sentenced to six months in jail, and I was immediately carted off to jail. Didn't have any chance to arrange things for my children or anything. And of course, as a mother, I was very concerned about that.

Again, I had spent money on attorneys, on lawyers, trying to fight the contempt charges. And fortunately, there were people who felt like the punishment was too harsh. And so although I was held up to jail and it was a very miserable place to be, and beyond my initial detention when I was suspected of being part of the Mao Mao resistance, this was really my first.

Adesoji Iginla (34:01.624)
Diamond Joe.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:02.473)
time in jail, but as time would go on, I got a lot more acquainted with the jail system. I actually was kind of considered a jailbird because I went back many times. Ultimately, my lawyers were able to work out the statements that I made and that allowed the courts to then release me from jail, but this was my situation. Now, mind you, when all of this was happening,

In 1971, long before my divorce, I became the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a PhD from the University of Nairobi. I earned my PhD in veterinary anatomy. I had actually gone back, gone to Germany to study before I came back and got married. I also taught at the University of Nairobi first as a lecturer.

Adesoji Iginla (34:41.898)
or D.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:00.295)
and then eventually rose to the rank of chairperson of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and also became an associate professor. None of these things insulated me from what I was to experience. In fact, over the course of my life, dealt with not just gender discrimination, dealt with

Adesoji Iginla (35:11.63)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:26.783)
quote unquote tribalism based on which ethnic group I was a part of dealt with issues with classism, know, just the concern of who do you think you are? In fact, during our divorce proceedings, I didn't hear my husband say this, but this is what the press reported. She's too strong, she's too stubborn, she's too educated, you know, to be a good wife, something along those lines. I was.

always told that I was too loud, too bold, too proud. But I had seen the world and I had also grown up with my mother and my grandmother and I knew what women could do if given a chance. I should say this though, you know, in terms of the gender discrimination, although I did not witness it myself, I was aware of the fact.

Adesoji Iginla (36:07.31)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:25.437)
that my father had the right to and did beat his wives. So, you know, women were essentially like children that could be directed and controlled by men. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (36:40.654)
Speaking of that part of culture, you were often quoted as saying culture is coded wisdom that has been accumulated for thousands of years. And this wisdom resides in the values, songs, and stories. So how do you think, given the colonialism that Kenya and largely most Africa went through,

cut them off from the ideal that the trees, the plants, the environment was an essential part of who they were as a piece.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:24.051)
That is such an important question for us to consider at this time because there lessons for us to still learn today. So, you know, when the colonizers came and as they continued to take over our land, they instituted a tax system. Now, prior to that, we battered.

and we bought and sold based on our goods. They're not, you know, a monetary system. But to pay your taxes, you had to pay in money. You could not pay in goats or your vegetables or your potatoes or anything of that nature. And so what it forced, mostly the men, and eventually when they would go and live on these settlements, they would then take their wives and their children and

and all of them became free labor for the white settlers, these men would go and get jobs with the white settlers because that was how you could get money so that you could then pay your taxes. And this is also where you start to see the disintegration of the family because where we all lived together, now sometimes the men would work in places where they could only come home every three months.

And some of them worked in places where they could only come home once every year. So some of them would have a wife maybe where they were and other wives somewhere else and so on and so forth. so you start to see first of all that breakdown because you're going and you're working for someone else and you're working in the manner that they want you to work, which you have to do so you can make money.

so you can pay the income tax, because if you don't pay the income tax, then you can be imprisoned. In fact, they started to put loitering laws in place. So if we were just sitting on the canopy and join ourselves, you could come and get arrested for loitering. Some of you in the, yes, some of you in the United States of America may recognize that. Exactly. And so with the school system,

Adesoji Iginla (39:35.448)
Sounds familiar.

Vigrant laws?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:48.359)
As soon as I went to school, there was a rule that you could not speak your indigenous language, you must speak English. In French speaking countries, it was you must speak French. And so they actually had a system where if they made us like start to tell on each other.

there was a sign that you would be made to wear if you were the one caught speaking any language besides English. And the sign would say, I am stupid. I am dumb. Things of that nature. And because you did not want to be the one wearing that sign, you made sure you didn't speak English. You didn't speak anything but English. And you would actually report anybody else that you heard speaking any language besides English.

Now remember these boarding schools. So we're taken away from our families. We don't go to school and go back home in the evening. So you're cut off from your family. They had specific visitation days and your family could only come and visit you during that small period of time. And again, because of the distance and if your parents had all those children and all of that, you may not see your family at all except for during the holidays when you could go home. So you were effected.

put in this sterile environment, completely cut off from your own culture, every morning starting with prayer and their songs and the school I went to was run by nuns, Catholic nuns, so you're learning the rosary, you go to bed saying the prayers, so you're completely immersed in their own culture and cut off from your own. You are no longer singing your own songs and then mind you,

Adesoji Iginla (41:34.862)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:40.485)
If you pull a child out of their community at age 11 and they stay in school for another six, seven, however many years, at that point, that is their formative years. Those are the times when you should have been learning your own culture, coming into a deeper awareness, understanding how to do things. So it would get to the point where some of us, when we would go back home on the holidays,

Adesoji Iginla (41:51.256)
Yeah, for many years.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (42:08.329)
we would speak to our families in English. We were losing touch with our own tongue. We wanted to show how educated we were. And so you don't want to speak the primitive language because what they made sure that they drummed into us is that our ways were primitive. And the pathway to a better life was through the white man's education. The men could become clerks or teachers or pastors.

and the woman could become teachers and nurses. And that allows you to wear more of the European style dresses and make some money and not live a subsistence kind of life. And so you see that the educated ones, a lot of times, would no longer speak their language. And then as they started to marry and have children, the language, the indigenous language, would not be taught in their homes at all.

Adesoji Iginla (42:41.23)
Mmm. Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (43:07.106)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:07.379)
So their children will only learn English and all your prayers are to this white God, white Jesus, crucifix, all of that. And anything outside of that was considered demonic and primitive. So you can then see how easy it was for them to cut us off from who we were. And then when you position those that you've educated,

as the leaders of the masses, the ones everybody else should look up to. Even though there was a stratification, it was white people, then it was the Indians that they had brought in who ran a lot of the stores, and then it was the educated black people, and then it was all of the primitive Africans. And so to get ahead, you needed to show yourself worthy

Adesoji Iginla (43:50.154)
Indians

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:07.335)
of the white man giving you a position and the way to do that was to emulate all of their ways and to turn away from your own ways. And over time, like I said, we no longer see the spirituality, the divinity of our surroundings. We too are caught up in, let us build like the white man has built. You know, when my mother moved back to Njite,

Adesoji Iginla (44:26.552)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:36.987)
and we needed to construct the home. You know how that was constructed? The woman gathered up the sticks and everything. The men came, like within a day, my uncle brought his age group. They constructed it. The woman came, put the mud on the walls, and then had the tatch that we put on the roofs. Let me tell you, it didn't matter what the weather was. Those mud walls, they kept in the heat.

and they kept out the cold. It was always a temperate, you know, feeling inside of our homes. Now, we did not just sit in the homes though. You only really went back into your home to sleep. What we did was we worked, we got vitamin D from the sun and things of that nature. We were not a lazy people. But then here come these people with concrete and that is what I found out in school when I went to boarding school.

Adesoji Iginla (45:08.376)
Hold.

Adesoji Iginla (45:18.744)
Mmm.

Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:35.591)
Yes, they had running water and some electricity, which we did not have in my village, what would be considered a village. But when it got cold, we were so cold because those concrete walls did not hold in heat. They let in all the cool air. And yet the corrugated roofs, zinc roofs, were conductors that will bring in so much heat.

Adesoji Iginla (45:53.83)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (46:04.119)
it.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (46:04.467)
So when it was hot, it was very, very hot inside. And when it was cold, it was very, very cold. And we could not understand how our system was actually better. And when we talk about sustainable environments, what's actually a sustainable way of living, because those touch roofs could just biodegrade back into the earth. The mud is what you use to build your house.

And instead we went for these westernized systems that continue to cause us a lot of problems even today. So that is how we lost touch of our own culture. They trained us as such.

Adesoji Iginla (46:41.038)
She wasn't.

Adesoji Iginla (46:46.412)
Okay, reading your recount, it shows that you were not a stranger to taking on power. And by that, I'm talking about the second president of the Republic, Daniel Arakmoy, who wanted to, shall I say, use the Uhuru Pack to build a monument of, I mean, you could tell us the story.

Tell us a story.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:17.875)
There are so many stories, we don't even have enough time to go through it all. so Arap Moi, who was a dictator and president for Kenya for far too long, took on a lot of the characteristics of the colonizers in terms of how repressive he was and how he tried to consolidate power and the amount of corruption and...

We were at that point fighting to maintain our forest and our green space. And one of the things the colonizers left was an area called the Hulu Park, which provided anybody of any income level could come and enjoy this park, sit under the canopy of trees and so on and so forth. Well, I became aware through a young attorney that Arap Moi had decided he and his party

Adesoji Iginla (48:13.288)
foreign bucket

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:13.541)
that they were going to build a huge headquarters in Uhuru Park. They were going to build a 60-story building. At that point, it was going to be the tallest building in Africa. And part of that project was also going to include a four-story high monument statue to him, quote unquote, facing Jomo Kenyatta, who had since passed on. And

Adesoji Iginla (48:24.162)
you there.

Adesoji Iginla (48:31.488)
study.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:42.493)
When we heard about it, we decided to resist. We had resisted Arap Moy at other times because similarly to what the colonizers had done, he had been arresting young men who he felt were in opposition to him. And so there was actually a sit-in that I and some other women whose sons had been taken as political prisoners. We had a sit-in at Uhuru Park.

and we wouldn't leave and people started coming and it got started to gather a lot of attention and they actually sent the police and the military to come after us. I was beaten severely. My head cracked, skull cracked and I was arrested. And one of the things that the women did was they actually took off their clothes and just derailed and showed their nakedness.

Adesoji Iginla (49:35.042)
the rubbed.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:38.535)
You may remember that we have talked before and if you haven't, maybe you can bring it up later of this tradition and African way of knowing where an elderly woman does not derobe in front of in public and when she does, it's an act of protest. And that is usually something that will stop anybody in their tracks. And we saw that with Fumila Yokuti that I believe you covered.

Adesoji Iginla (49:51.0)
the role in public.

Adesoji Iginla (50:04.461)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:04.765)
where the woman also took on that action. And so there were some women who derogated in that way. And eventually I was taken to a hospital, treated, and I came back. And because we kept resisting, they did eventually release over 50 political prisoners. But we were putting the fire, if you will, under the administration. But coming back to this statue, this monument to himself,

It made no sense. You know, and so I started to inquire of the government, is it true that this is what you're trying to do? Cut down these trees and, and continue with this deforestation of this park. And that is essential to us. And they initially ignored me. And so I started writing letters to the media. And then I wrote letters to some of the outside international agencies that were actually going to help fund.

Adesoji Iginla (50:48.664)
that we're already complaining about.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (51:04.637)
this park, some private funders as well as governmental agencies. And I said, would you do this in your own countries? Take a park like Hyde Park and all of a sudden just mow it down and cut down trees to put up these structures and all of the negative or central park. And so all of the negative media eventually caused those funders to withdraw their support.

Adesoji Iginla (51:11.798)
and the World Bank.

Adesoji Iginla (51:24.342)
All central back.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (51:33.887)
for the project and that is how that project was courted. But as you can imagine, I was now number one persona non grata with Arap Moi and he had a lot of power. So I did run for parliament. My university, was still with the university and they said if you run, you cannot be a university lecturer. And so.

Adesoji Iginla (51:56.769)
your lecture.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:00.039)
I gave my resignation on a Thursday and then I found out on Friday, said, well, yes. And they gave a reason, false reason as to why I couldn't run. So I went to court to try and fight that the judge ruled against me. So I went back to the university to get my job back. in less than 12 hours from when I submitted my resignation, they said they had filled the position.

Adesoji Iginla (52:05.57)
The party had,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:29.085)
The position was no longer available. So even though I had worked at that school for over 16 years, just like that, I was out of a job. But really what it was is that the president of the country was also the chancellor for the university. And so this was the way of the university distancing themselves from me so that they would not be in the bad graces of the president. So I found myself without a job, divorced. My housing was tied to my job.

Adesoji Iginla (52:48.2)
of the Chancellor.

Adesoji Iginla (52:52.44)
jobless.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:58.813)
And so they evicted me immediately. but fortunately there was a property that I had bought when I was still married to my husband. I married to a home we bought together, but only my husband's name went on it. So he kept that property. Stupid of me, but it was another property that I had bought with my money that had my name on it. A small house in a not so good part of town. And that house saved me. That is the event that is ultimately where I moved to.

Adesoji Iginla (53:00.844)
Immediately.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (53:27.699)
because I now had no job and no money coming in and nowhere to live. But we persisted and that is when I started to do a lot of my work with the Green Belt Movement, which we had already started teaching women how to plant seedlings so that they could.

Adesoji Iginla (53:39.426)
the green belt at movement.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (53:51.881)
take care of the environment and have a resource, not immediately, but eventually for firewood, teaching them how to better take care of themselves. And we also use that process to educate them even on the political system and how they could have a voice. so, without a job now, I threw myself more into that. And then I was approached by an organization from Norway who wanted to partner with us.

and they brought in some resources. I had indicated that all of us were volunteers who worked with the Green Belt Movement and that we needed a coordinator. And they suggested, well, since you don't have a job while you're still looking for a job, why don't you serve as the coordinator? And that began a whole different, well, trajectory for me, if you will. And ultimately, the work that we did with educating women, we...

Adesoji Iginla (54:42.467)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:49.171)
By the time of my death, we had planted over 50 million seedlings. We had found a way to actually pay the women per tree seedling that they planted that survived, which was very helpful to the women. That became my legacy and that became the thing that propelled me to where I ultimately was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

Adesoji Iginla (55:18.958)
So there is one part I want to bring to the attention of people. When you said the green belt movement, it's instructive for us to remember that a similar type movement was started in West Africa by Thomas Sankara in 1983. What ultimately became the green belt movement was a

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:37.033)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (55:44.77)
The best way to describe it is it's basically a belt of trees from West Africa to East Africa and it joined up through the Congo in the early 1990s. So the vision of two people, two Africans on the equal side of the continent coming together, not knowing at the time that they started their movement that those trees will connect.

but they eventually did connect in the 1990s. There is one other thing before we pack up. Thomas Sankara is also on record as saying, women are the mothers of revolution. In

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (56:29.531)
so glad you brought that up. Please continue.

Adesoji Iginla (56:31.646)
Yeah, so the other mothers of revolution. The way you moved and you said, and I quote, the Green Belt movement was not just a nursery for trees, but was a nursery of ideas, women rights, environmental justice, human rights, empowerment. And why?

She said, if you empower women, you've empowered a complete society. So.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (57:10.91)
Yes.

And so just like Tomas Sankara realized that he had to work with the women, he wanted to work with the women, the importance of the women. That was something that I also recognized that the work that we did and also the way that the colonial system had sucked in the men, that it was women that had to do this work. was women who were being most impacted by this deforestation. Women who had to cook, who couldn't find firewood, women who couldn't find the food to feed their children.

Adesoji Iginla (57:35.8)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (57:41.649)
And what we were trying to show is that there is a connection between what is happening with your environment and with poverty. That when you take care of the environment, people can thrive. And when you take care of the environment and people can thrive, it also makes it harder for them to be suppressed and repressed. And so even as we talk about

the changes that need to occur in Africa. One of the reasons I think it's so easy to hold down so many people and we see this rampant poverty in a continent that arguably is the richest landmass on the face of the earth is when people are struggling just to survive, then they don't have the wherewithal to now fight these repressive systems.

Adesoji Iginla (58:37.39)
Mm-hmm

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:38.023)
And then those repressive systems just get to continue to thrive. So first you have to strip people of their humanity, keep them in such a quote unquote struggle mode. And then you don't have that same resistance to whatever it is that you're doing. They're not even gonna have time to pay attention to what you're doing, let alone figure out how to come together. And then it's so much easier also to manipulate them. So what you continue to see in Kenya,

and that I experienced even when I ran for president is these cultish personalities in the quote unquote tribalism. And so people basically looking at, well, I just need to get my own person from my own tribe, if you will, elected because if they're elected, then we can eat, we're gonna thrive. And you're not looking at what is this person's plan for the entire country.

as opposed to your little group. And so you continue to see these cults of personality. And I think that's something that those of you in the United States of America are experiencing right now as well. The environment and the economy are really two sides of the same coin. If we cannot sustain the environment, we cannot sustain ourselves.

Adesoji Iginla (59:49.334)
You also?

Adesoji Iginla (59:58.626)
You also said, I mean, two more quotes before we wrap up. You also said, culture taught you to look at trees and not see them as timber. Elephants, not see them for their ivory. Cheetah, not for their skin, but to let the animals be so you can thrive.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:16.319)
Skin, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:21.087)
Exactly and this idea of materialism and it's always about what I can consume and you know what and I'm guilty of it because I was raised in this you know in the in these by these nuns and and caucated with some of this this ideas as well of you know in the Bible in Genesis one of the things it says is and God created man and he was you know set up to dominate the earth

That's a very different concept of dominators. do whatever I want as opposed to maybe a caretaker or a co-equal living. Yes. And our understanding was to live in harmony before that was changed to everything was materialistic and it was what money can I get from this? yes, instead of seeing a tree, you're seeing timber that you can sell.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:59.831)
or living in harmony.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:11.232)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:01:19.015)
And yet we know that this world, the appetite of the colonizers and their children now is insatiable. And so here we are with so much deforestation, so many of our seas being depleted of our fish, wild animals, you know, just we've completely very negatively impacted our ecosystem. And that is also impacting us.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:44.27)
You also said, and one final one, you also said it's important that people know the value of trees. And for every one person in Kenya, you have to have seven trees. OK, 10 trees. OK, so and you then leave them with the final question, which is, do you know where your 10 trees are?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:01:55.999)
No, actually 10. 10 trees, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:02:06.591)
And that is the question I will leave for all of your listeners today and whenever else they hear this, have you planted your 10 trees? Because think of what these trees do for us. They consume carbon and then they give us oxygen. When you cut all these trees and build all these mansions, what are you going to breathe? When all the animals, you you cut down the tree, do you know how many animals?

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:14.222)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:02:34.643)
are displaced at the same time. Not to mention, like I said, the role the roots of these trees play. so even now, people just, with the technology, cut down a tree in a couple of minutes. But how many years did it take for that tree to grow? And now they're planting these trees that grow fast, but they don't have the same impact on the ecosystem.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:02.764)
and presence.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:03:03.239)
as some of our old trees. And so we need to learn patience. We need to know that we cannot expect if we do something today and we don't see the results immediately that we should stop. We need to know that we have to be in it for the long haul. This requires commitment. It requires persistence. It requires patience. If I may, I do want to share a little poem with you, if you will, a story. There's an old story I love to tell.

A forest was on fire. All the animals ran terrified, helpless. But a tiny hummingbird flew to the stream, picked up a drop of water and flew back to the fire, dropped the drop of water and did it again and again and again. You've ever seen a hummingbird? The little. The other animals laughed. What do you think you're doing? She said, I am doing the best I can.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:50.318)
Bzzz

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:04:00.863)
That's all I ever tried to do. I had no grandiose ideas. But I looked at the problems before me and I said, what can I do? However little. So we started with just seven trees that we planted on June 5th in 1977. Only two of those trees survived. Some of them grew, but then they were cut down. Two survived. But from that came our

A movement that has now exceeded 50 million trees. So where can you start? Where can you start? Do not wait for permission. Find your seed, plant it, nurture it. Whether you are fighting poverty, racism, violence, gender discrimination, homophobia, climate change, corruption, know that resistance does not always roar.

Sometimes it whispers, sometimes it writes, sometimes it digs, sometimes it roots. And from those roots, freedom grows. So what will you plant today?

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:02.542)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:17.772)
Yes, what would you plan today? And for people who want resources with regards to Professor Wangari Maafai, there is a couple of videos on YouTube. One is the book Unbowed. She's got a

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:05:37.577)
She actually, I actually wrote quite a few books. So yeah, so you can hear directly from me, but yes, please carry on.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:43.86)
Okay so yeah about the challenge for Africa and then there's a documentary taking roots the vision of Wangari Maafai. So

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:05:56.381)
I also wrote a book called Replenishing the Earth, Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World. Because the healing really has to start within. We have to reconnect to our divinity, to our own form of spirituality. And that means that you're going to have to reject some things that you've been taught. And then I also wrote a book, The Green Belt Movement, Sharing the Approach and the Experience. So you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Go and learn from our mistakes and then implement it where you are. And then there many books that have also been written about me, Seeds of Change, Planting a Path to Peace by Jen Collerton Johnson. It's actually a children's book. There's another one, Wangari's Trees of Peace, A True Story from Africa by Jeanette Winter. Again, this is a children's book. There's another one, Planting the Trees of Kenya.

the story of Wangari Matai. And then there's another one, Wangari Matai, the woman who planted millions of trees by Frank Pavotte. And then Wangari Matai by Maria Isabel Sanchez-Vegara, which is an early read of biography. I do have to say this. Remember I had mentioned how I got the extra A in my name. So, excuse me. So my last name is spelled M-A-A.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:02.414)
3.0

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:07:23.185)
T-H-A-I. Now, it's not lost on me, M-A-A-T, Ma'at, but that was not what originally caused me to change my name in that way. So my husband's name was M-A-T-H-A-I. And when I married him, I actually did not initially change my name. And my husband was very upset about that because even though in the Kukuyu group,

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:51.822)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:07:51.955)
We typically kept our own names, women after we got married. Under this Western culture, women are supposed to now be called Mrs. So and so. We were not Mrs. before Westernization. And then now you have to take on your husband's name. So when I saw how upset my husband was and I knew I already had the issue of you're too educated and so on and so forth, I did hyphenate my name. So my father's last name hyphen and then.

my husband's name, Matai. But over time, I even dropped that, my initial surname and the hyphen, and it was just Matai. Well, when this man divorced me, you know what he asked for? He asked for his name back. And I said, this is crazy. First, I didn't wanna take the name. Now you want the name back. But I had already established myself under this name. So what I did was I added the extra A.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:35.726)
And then back.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:08:50.723)
So I was still Wangari Matai, but I added the extra A. So women, you can be creative, you know, even when people try to crush you. And this is just a little snippet of my life. There were many, many things that I went through. A lot of pain and loneliness and heartache. You know, when the president of your country and the strongest man in your country makes you an enemy, even your friends don't want to be around you.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:58.254)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:20.888)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:09:21.213)
So there were many lonely days, many lonely nights, many days that I was concerned. At one point, I actually took my three children to go live with their father, and I took a job outside of Kenya because I needed work, and I had to be able to support myself. My children eventually came back and lived with me, but my life has not been easy, but.

I always had this philosophy and I want to share this philosophy with you really quickly here. It's in my book. So I said, I would seek liberty for all, promote mutual respect and tolerance, and would demand that rights go hand in hand with responsibilities. I always felt that no matter what problems beset me,

there was a silver lining somewhere and my focus was always positive. I never saw failure as being the final thing. If I fell, if I was knocked down, all I needed to do was to focus on how to get back up. And so even when I was diagnosed with cancer in 2011, I was still very optimistic.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:25.303)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:10:41.681)
Unfortunately, I did pass away from ovarian cancer at the age of 71. And I was buried in Nairobi's Uhuru Park, the same ground I had once fought to protect. I asked not to be buried in a wooden coffin because I could not in death destroy the very, very trees that I had given my life for. Yes. And so my legacy continues today through the Wangare Matai Foundation.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:50.796)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:01.486)
that you are trying to protect.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:11:09.649)
and I encourage you to learn more about it and to maybe join out.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:14.764)
Yes, and with that, we thank you for sharing your story with us. We've come to the end of another episode. Next week, we are going to be putting all the previously discussed personalities in that chair in conversations with each other. And if you have any question that you've garnered in the course of listening to,

the discussions, you can put them in the chat and we'll try and see if ready answers are provided.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:11:53.983)
So it's gonna be like multiple personalities having a conversation. Let's see what Lauren Hansberry has to say to Nanny. yes, let's see. So we're looking forward to that.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:57.708)
station.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:03.584)
say to exactly and Marie yeah yeah yeah so and again you know it started as an idea and it's been growing it's taking on a life of its own and yeah so next week will be another unique experience so join us again like we say like share subscribe share the stories and until next

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:12:31.485)
and plant some trees.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:33.16)
Yes, plant your 10 trees. 10 trees, to be a fact. You know, so until next week.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:12:42.149)
It is a pleasure, it is an honor, and thank you so much for providing this forum to bring forth these lives and these legacies. Thank you. And thank you all for watching.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:54.61)
It's my pleasure again, yes. Thank you for watching. I'm humbled and being in audience with them. So we'll see you all next week. Good night.