December 23, 2004

On the morning of October 8, 2004, Wangari Maathai was trying to keep to her schedule but having trouble. A radio interview ran long and soon after she picked me up, we hit Nairobi’s notorious morning traffic. She was expected at a meeting in rural Nyeri, where she was born and which she represents in Kenya’s parliament. It’s nearly a three-hour drive so even though it was just after 9, already it was hectic.

Then, as we passed pineapple plantations and small markets on the rutted road from Nairobi, Maathai’s mobile phone began to ring. Her assistant’s phone did, too. Had she heard, a local journalist asked, that she’d been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize? Another said that she was on the shortlist. “No,” she laughed, she hadn’t heard “anything.” To another caller she said it was honor enough to be nominated. Looking both amused and bemused Maathai told me the same thing as we bounced along in the van.

Now I began to wonder. Was this a joke? What was up? I’d seen a preview story on the Nobel the previous night: the frontrunners were people working on nuclear disarmament and Iraq, not Wangari Maathai. It all began to seem like some strange rumor had spread, as rumors do, among the Kenyan press. I tried to put it out of my mind. After all, I had my own agenda with Maathai. I had first met her in 2001 and was interviewing her that morning for a planned book on culture and the environment. I’d come that morning to try and ratchet up some hours of taping. Maathai’s schedule earlier in the week had caused my planned 20 hours of taping to wither to about one. She’d suggested that in the van we could speak without interruption. I began to see the chances of that dwindling, too.

Sigh. I turned off my recorder. Maathai, still hands-on despite her status as Kenya’s assistant environment minister, had to arrange the public address (PA) system for her meeting that day. So she was on the phone when the Norwegian Ambassador called. Her assistant took a message. Could Professor Maathai, as she’s known in Kenya, please call Norway? She couldn’t, since her phone doesn’t dial internationally. The PA system was set. The Ambassador had left his Nairobi number. We looked at each other. She opened her hands in a gesture she uses for “how about that?” or “what’s going on here?” and pulled a face. I suggested, laughing and nervous, that she call him and find out what was up. I could see the number on her assistant’s pad. Just dial.

A few minutes passed and the phone rang. It was the Norwegian Ambassador again. This time she took the call. He had news. “Mr. Ambassador?” Maathai queried, straining to hear on the erratic line, the van jouncing in an irregular patter. I watched, anxious for news. Her eyes narrowed, then got wide. Then she was laughing, putting her hand in the air and saying, one after the other, “oh, wow, great, yay.” Then came her trademark wrap up” “Thank you so much.” She closed the phone’s lip and said, “We won it.” The Nobel Institute, the Ambassador told her, would be calling shortly.

Wangari Muta Maathai—member of parliament, assistant minister for environment and natural resources, founder of the Green Belt Movement, which has planted nearly 30 million trees across Kenya through networks of rural women, democracy campaigner, first woman department chair at the University of Nairobi, first woman in East and Central Africa to receive a Ph.D., and a daughter of rural Kenya—had been awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Wow.

I turned to her and in typical semi-articulate American fashion said, “That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you. Wow.” I was dumbstruck. So was she, but just for a moment. She smiled broadly and then we hugged for what seemed like a long time. Her assistant, Alex, in the seat in front of us, had a broad smile on his face, too. As we moved apart, Maathai said, softly, “I didn’t know anyone was listening.” There were tears in her eyes, the first I’d ever seen. The moment stood and then passed.

I had first met Maathai in the summer of 2001 when Martin and I were in Nairobi. For many years, I had admired Maathai and her work on a range of issues that I, since studying international development at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, found critical: environment, gender, rights, sustainability, and she did her work in partnership with communities. She and the Green Belt Movement were among the most active members of an active Kenyan civil society, essential in then dictatorial and madly corrupt Kenya. As I moved forward in my career, I began to work more and more on the links between gender, environment and population issues in the developing world and found myself more and more interested in the way Maathai had worked effectively across sectors. Much ‘development work’ is still confined to one area, e.g., health or education. I found myself drawn to the cross-sectoral, as a policy analyst, program manager and writer.

So before we arrived in Kenya we had contacted Maathai. Did she, we wondered, have a book about her life or any plans to write one? Martin had recently co-founded a publishing company and I thought the world outside of global environment and women’s rights circles should know about what Maathai had done and how. After several emails and phone calls the message came that yes, she would meet us at the Stanley Hotel for an afternoon cup of tea. She came with her friend, Dr. John Makanga, secretary general of Kenya’s Green Party. Both had been beaten and brutalized by arap Moi’s regime, most recently during Maathai’s successful campaign to save Nairobi’s Karura Forest from being carved up into luxury housing. In person she was down-to-earth, friendly, funny, self-deprecating and luminous.

She was also a grand presence; she has an authority and an ease combined with a sense of personal power that is compelling. Meeting her was a thrill; being in her presence was a delight. She liked the book idea and over the next several months, Martin’s Lantern Books published the book she had written, not (yet) on her life, but on her work, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience. I stayed in touch with her as well and have written several articles about Maathai since she was elected to parliament in 2002. I had seen her several times in Nairobi and also in New York. I was back in Kenya last October for a meeting on gender and environment at the United Nations’ Environment Program, headquartered in Nairobi. I had come early to do some interviewing with her for the book we first proposed in 2001 about her life as well another possible book based on Maathai’s writings on culture and environment.

And so I found myself with her on that extraordinary day last October. Now that the news about the peace prize was out, almost immediately the cell phones began to jangle with more media calls. The van pulled in to the Outspan Hotel in Nyeri where we’d planned to have a cup of tea and a quick bathroom break. The local media, Reuters and a journalist from Norwegian Broadcasting were there. They clapped. I grasped Maathai’s hand and then she walked into the hotel. I gave her a wide berth. It was, after all, 15 minutes to noon, Kenya time, and a whole new world. Maathai got the call from Oslo as she exited the ladies’ room. Now it was official.

The maelstrom was not far away. Media calls began to flood in. The cell phones couldn’t handle them all. Well-wishers at the hotel descended on Maathai, smiling and clapping, thrusting hands forward in congratulations. I went to watch the announcement from Oslo on CNN in the deserted hotel bar. It came in Norwegian first, but I heard the name. Wangari Maathai. It was true. The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner. The newscaster said, “Another surprise from Oslo.” CNN then provided an English translation. “She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women’s rights in particular,” the Nobel Committee Chairperson said (Later I find out his name, Ole Danbolt Mjos, and meet him in Oslo). “She thinks globally and acts locally.” I found myself wiping tears that I hadn’t expected from my eyes and cheeks.

After a minute or so, I realized I had my tape recorder. A few of the hotel’s employees, all men, had joined me in front of the television. They were speechless, too, so I decided to ask them what they thought. “I’m very happy,” one said quietly, gaining volume as he spoke. “I voted for her. She’s my MP.” Yes, he said, the Prize will help Maathai win her latest campaign for Kenya’s forests. “She’ll continue fighting because the forests have been damaged. We appreciate that now [and] we will take care.”

I walked back to the garden. On my way, I stepped into an office where a young woman was working. I tell her the news and ask her reaction. I’m probably not fully coherent. “I am happy for her and for all women, especially in Kenya,” she said, rather shyly, giving her name as Njeri. Why? I ask. “She’s been a role model for most women and encouraging for most of us” came the answer, swift and unprompted.

In the gardens, Maathai was surrounded by journalists and alternately answering their questions and answering those of reporters on the phone, seamlessly shifting from English to Swahili to her mother tongue, Kikuyu. Alex began to get overwhelmed answering two lines with callers from all over the world wanting Maathai—and soon. They had deadlines. They wanted her on the air, live. I began answering. The time between calls dwindled to nothing: the BBC, the New York Times, Dutch Radio, Norway, Sweden and a large number of determined (and very polite) Italian reporters. I try to take sips from a cup of tea that had been brought, but only managed a few.

I walked closer to Maathai, who was talking to reporters, and caught snatches of the interviews. “And like the mountain [Mount Kenya] I am facing I hope you will stand very fast and continue to inspire people,” she said. Then, “I’m so overwhelmed at this moment. I never thought that the world would recognize me this way.” What would she do next? a reporter asked. The Prize, Maathai said, “should only make me work harder for the years that are left, and inspire those who have been following so that they can walk along the same footsteps I have for the environment, and for the good of the people and the world in which we live.”

She quickly universalized the occasion. She has, after all, worked with countless communities and courageous people in Kenya and other countries over the years. I have also come to know her generous spirit, forged in adolescence and strengthened by her adult experiences. “We” is a common word for her; “I” is less favored. I caught this: “I want to say that I am the person the world sees, but behind me are millions of people, millions of hands throughout the world, but mostly here in Kenya who tried to do what we asked them to do: to take care of the Earth.”

The hotel manager brought a tree for her to plant, a Nandi flame, indigenous to this area at the foot of Mount Kenya. A hole had been dug and a shovel brought. But as is her habit, Maathai eschewed formality. She got onto her knees and scooped the rich, red soil in around the small trunk. “We don’t get this treatment in the field,” she reminded the small crowd that had gathered, smiling. Cameras whirred, including my own.

In the months leading up to the Nobel, Maathai had been campaigning in her constituency, in the press, and in Parliament for further protections for Kenya’s fast-dwindling intact forests. Many had been slated to be cleared to make way for tree plantations of fast-growing exotic species and cultivation of cash crops. This so-called “shamba system” was introduced by the British and maintained by Kenya’s post-independence rulers. It has been rife with corruption and in Maathai’s view, has put species, watersheds, soil and even local climates at risk.

As native forests disappear, with them go biodiversity and strong, resilient ecosystems. Farmers and communities throughout Kenya complain about a lack of water and good rains. Maathai had been saying to them, “look at the roots of the problem”—quite literally. She also said she would rather not be re-elected to Parliament than see Kenya’s forests destroyed. “The shamba system in indigenous forests is suicidal” Maathai titled her position paper on the issue.

The tree planted, I wondered what was next. It was only an hour into the reality of the prize. We were all pretty punchy. The assembled media urged Maathai to cancel her meeting. Forget your constituents for this one day, they argued, and return to Nairobi for television interviews. But Maathai is not a woman easily deterred or wont to forget her connection to the grassroots. For nearly 30 years, she has worked with rural communities, mostly women, to improve their environment, provide a small income, expand the number of nutritious foods they grow and eat, and increase the voice they have in communities.

So even on this day, she stated her commitment to them and kept it (those who know her well were not surprised). We got back into the car—speechless for a few minutes—and drove to the meeting site, a field near a school in a small village outside Nyeri. Hundreds of people were waiting, not for the Nobel Peace Prize winner—they didn’t know anything about that—but for their Member of Parliament, their advocate. Maathai didn’t even tell them about the prize until well into her speech. The state of the forests and the lack of water and rain were her priorities. She spoke as reporters from the Associated Press and German TV waited.

An hour passed. The media calls continued. I crouched at the back of the school in the foot high grass (dry—this was before the rains) and tried to prioritize. I had to ask many of the reporters calling to call back. To a few I say, “Look, we’re in a field in Kenya. We’re trying our best.” Inevitably, the cell phone batteries waned and then died. We resuscitated one phone with a borrowed battery.

I approached Maathai to take some of the calls, but at certain points couldn’t even see her. She was surrounded by local women and men, smiling and looking quizzically at those of us holding cameras and notebooks (mine to record the media queries). She did speak to several media on the phone and urged people who heard the news to celebrate the Peace Prize by taking a concrete action. “Plant a tree,” she said. “Plant millions of trees.”

Then another call came on the district commissioner’s cell phone. The President, Mwai Kibaki, wanted Maathai back in Nairobi. She would have to leave; a helicopter was waiting. So she cut the meeting short, the main business having concluded. We arrived in another field, the sun bright on the white metal of the helicopter. Newsweek had called to say their photographer was just a minute away. Could we wait? I said “yes,” but the pilots overruled me and bundled in Maathai, her bodyguard, Alex and me.

It was my first time in a helicopter. The ride was loud, churning and the cushion-less metal seats did not protect us from the multiple vibrations. As we flew over the countryside of her childhood, Maathai brushed dust from her shoes. I looked out the window. The land below looked very green.

At the airport, we were met by a government car. Not a retinue, but a driver and an escort. En route to State House (Kenya’s White House), police motorcycles waved the government vehicle through Nairobi’s late afternoon traffic jams. We stopped once, at a roundabout. Two men in a car in the next lane recognized Maathai and began shouting their congratulations. She smiled back and raised her arms in acknowledgement.

Soon after, in the formal gardens of State House (surely a legacy of the British), beneath a colonnade, President Kibaki, with Maathai at his side, declared that Kenya was “in the mood for celebrating.” He and a broadly grinning Maathai made short statements and took questions from the assembled media, Kenyan and foreign press. The light began to turn to gold as it does most nights around 6 p.m. in Nairobi, the nearby equator enforcing regularity on daylight and night.

Then the celebrating began. Modest celebrating to be sure. Maathai nursed a cup of tea and a piece of pizza that quickly went cold on the terrace of the Fairview Hotel while a small group of international journalists interviewed her. Two sets of journalists from Latin America—insistent that they would not hang up, given the difficulty of getting through—waited on both cell phones for Maathai to be free. And waited. She took one phone with her to her next interview destination, Kenyan TV. But the other? They didn’t get to speak to her that night. I still feel guilty: I hold out hope they tried again the following day.

Into the evening, Maathai did interviews for Kenyan television, BBC World Service, and in quick takes between live appearances, talked to even more media as they rang in, non-stop. A media call ended; a new one was waiting. “The country is on fire,” a tired but jubilant Maathai told the journalist assigned by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to interview her over an intermittent cell phone line. Voice hoarse, she insisted on finishing the night with one final interview in Kikuyu that began after 10 p.m.

I found it hard to sleep, even though I was exhausted. I was also dusty and ill-nourished—my black trousers and sneakers still pale red from the dirt in Nyeri and I had mostly consumed innumerable cups of black tea. I took a shower and watched the news. CNN and the BBC had old video footage of Maathai. She was planting trees.

The next morning, I was up early. On their covers, the Kenyan papers featured a smiling, luminous Maathai from the day before, cell phone in hand. They crowed about what the Nobel Peace Prize meant for Kenya. They also trumpeted the 100 million shillings that come with it and speculated on how Maathai would spend the money now in her “handbag.” I saw Aggrey, the doorman, who I knew was a Maathai fan. “She beat Bush and Pope John,” he said of the Nobel. “It’s wonderful. I was very happy.”

I took the pulse of other Kenyans I encountered. Cyrus, the Fairview Hotel driver I’ve worked with over the past few years declared his satisfaction and pride. “She is a very important person for all of Africa,” he said emphatically. “She is a Kenyan, not a woman, not a man,” he averred, striking a small blow for gender equality (he and I have been discussing it over the years). I asked him about Maathai’s having been ridiculed by many male Kenyan political leaders in the past, including former strong man president Daniel arap Moi, and some of her critics in the fight over the shamba system and Kenya’s forests.

He made a dismissive gesture. “Now we will be listening,” he said. “We must listen.” When the rains came, Cyrus assured me, as did several of his colleagues, “I will be planting trees. Yes, definitely.” Florence, who works in the hotel’s business center, agreed that Maathai deserved the prize. “I like her. She has done good work,” she said. “An iron core lady” is how Edward, another driver, described Maathai. “We love her,” he exulted, tapping the steering wheel as he spoke. “She is the best woman we have in Kenya.”

I made my way to Maathai’s morning press conference at the Green Belt Movement office, where tall, broad trees, along with seedlings, are plentiful in a wide green lawn. The sun was out and it appeared that Maathai’s message from the night before had gotten through. Nairobi’s roadside nurseries looked freshly stocked with all manner of trees.

***

Martin and I are just back from the peace prize award ceremonies in Oslo to which Maathai invited us. The city was cold, the daylight minimal (sunset was at 3:15), but the welcome from the Norwegian Nobel Committee was warm, a gracious mix of nearly equal doses of formality and informality. On Friday, December 10, Maathai, in an orange long-skirted suit, stood in the Oslo City Hall and first received her Nobel medal and framed painting with the prize citation. Kenyan women in the audience let out celebratory ululations and the crowd got to its feet. Neither had happened before at a peace prize ceremony. In her Nobel lecture, which she read quickly but clearly, Maathai described the work of the Green Belt Movement, demonstrating through it the links she had drawn and brought into being between environment, democracy and peace.

From behind a blue podium nearly the same hue as the remnants of daylight visible though the window behind her, Maathai drew attention to the ecological crisis facing the planet and what has to be done to address it. “We are called,” she said, “to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own—indeed, embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder…in the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground…. That time is now.”

Afterward, she ate fruit (her only lunch) in her hotel room, did a live global interview with CNN and then stood on the Nobel Prize suite’s balcony at Oslo’s Grand Hotel and cheered on, and was cheered by, a parade of people holding candles, convened in her honor.

The next night, Oprah Winfrey and Tom Cruise and various musical talents (an eclectic bunch, from Joss Stone to Andrea Bocelli to Tony Bennett to Baaba Maal) feted her at a jubilant concert that capped off the festivities. Maathai took the stage near the end. She exceeded her allotted time, but it was worth it to hear her words of thanks and injunction. Recounting the biblical story of Noah, she called on all those watching to remember how the animals with whom we have shared evolution—even the ones we don’t generally like, like snakes and flies and mosquitoes—went into the ark, “two by two.” We need to recall that spirit and “give the other species a chance, because in doing so, we give ourselves a chance.”

She thanked the committee for giving “African women a chance, and this African woman a chance.” The crowd of what one of our party had called “stiff Norwegians” was on its feet. Oprah said she was “jumping out of my skin . . . this is big.” As we went out into the cool night, the energy was palpable. If only issues of environment and peace could generate heat like this all the time. But with Maathai as the laureate, there’s as good a chance as any in years that they will.

Note: a shorter version of this piece appeared in the Los Angeles Times.