Weeping for Kenya

Today, I weep not only for Kenya, but all of humanity.  A senseless attack has left 147 – maybe more – young adults dead, and the innocence of countless others shattered.  I interact with college age students every day, and sometimes even wonder if a school shooting could happen on our campus.  But who could envision the magnitude of the barbaric act carried out today at Garissa University.  As I watched my students in lab this afternoon, I wanted to weep for them.  They innocently carried out the experiment, oblivious to the fact that some of their peers half-way around the world are no longer able to fret about tests or grades.  Sadly, my students will soon leave campus to enter a world where hatred and intolerance lead people to slaughter bright young people, students who might just have been the ones to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.  But my students will get to graduate and celebrate with their families.  In Kenya, families will be burying their children.

My fascination with the continent of Africa began at an early age.  This made no sense for a relatively sheltered blonde Finnish kid from a region where the population was 99+% white and few people left their home county, much less dreamed of going to another continent.  But when I was in second grade, I declared to my mother that I was going to join the Peace Corps, go to Africa, and find a cure for cancer.  I didn’t join the Peace Corps; I did cancer research for awhile, but didn’t find a cure.  But I have had the good fortunate to travel to Africa three times.  My brother is really the lucky one. He lived in Ghana for a full year, toured much of Western Africa, and even got married in Timbuktu. 

I don’t know what triggered my early interest in Africa, but I think it might have been cheetahs. And I can still hum the music of Born Free. But the allure for me has become the stories of the continent and the people.  Oh to have the experiences of Elspeth Huxley as told in The Flame Trees of Thika, which is quite a different portrayal of life on the continent than that of Karen von Blixen-Finecke in Out of Africa. Many girls my age daydreamed about following in the footsteps of Dian Fossey or Jane Goodall.  But I am equally captivated by the tragic stories.  Oh how I cried watching Hotel Rwanda, Out of Africa, and Blood Diamond.  Or while reading Desmond Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness – about the truth and reconciliation trials – and Lisa Shannon’s A Thousand Sisters – about the atrocities women suffer in the Congo.  I have seen the quarry at Robben Island, and stood at the door of cell #4, prison B, peered down the Rift Valley, and explored the Great Pyramids.  Those are experiences that connect you to all of humanity in ways that are difficult to put into words.  Perhaps that is why I feel such loss, even though I did not know today’s victims.

I have friends from Kenya:  Ray Ray who is studying at the School of Forestry at Yale, Samwel, a Maasai I met through the U.N. climate meetings, and dear Christine – one of my students when I was a new faculty member.  I still remember her arriving in northeastern PA with no prior experience with cold and snow.  We have remained close for two decades.  Today, I weep with them, for them, for their homeland.

In one of my classes, I have students read Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence. The author, Christian Parenti, argues that we are witnessing the first of the climate wars.  He overlays the impacts of climate change in regions that have a long history of conflict and the result is banditry, violence, and state failure.  The book begins with the question of “Who killed Ekaru Loruman?”  Ekaru was a pastoralist from northwestern Kenya brutally murdered as he tried to defend his few head of cattle.  Samwel has told me that cattle are not only a measure of wealth, but also of how much of a man one is. 

When you think of all the conflicts we have - whether those conflicts are local, whether they are regional or global - these conflicts are often over the management, the distribution of resources. If these resources are very valuable, if these resources are scarce, if these resources are degraded, there is going to be competition. Wangari Maathai

Does any of this explain the violence of the day?  Can there be any explanation?

I dislike the overuse of the term “hero”, but one woman from Kenya is a hero and inspiration to me – Wangari Maathai.  If you don’t know the story of this Nobel Peace Prize winner, you should.  I had the good fortune to get to know her a little in 2009; but cancer took her too soon after.  So many of her words seem relevant at this moment: 

I don't really know why I care so much. I just have something inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to do something about it. I think that is what I would call the God in me.

All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet.

If that last statement is true, how can we take the lives of others?  How can we harbor so much hatred and violence?  If Wangari was still with us, a woman whose life was transformed by the chance for a college education in the U.S., she too would be crying today.

We all need some spirit nurturing sometimes

I have been feeling a bit glum lately, not inspired in my teaching (largely due to unreceptive audiences), and disappointed in this country's lackluster leadership with respect to many issues, especially the environment. But today, I am catching up on reading some articles and blog posts, including some by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez. 

http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2014/01/31/respecting-our-elders/

http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/we-are-all-noah-now/

I want to thank Jennifer for reminding me that, even when we are in a lull, we must remember Pete Seeger and Wangari Maathai and Nelson Mandela – inspirational elders who have all left us now – left us with unfinished missions that must be continued. I realize that if those of us who teach today’s youth don’t continue to march along in this duty, then things will continue to grow more dire. 

Students in my classes don’t know these important names, much less why these individuals are so revered. It is our job to teach these students, to engage them, to inspire them. Jennifer expresses it well when she notes that “we are all Noah now.” I think this is true whether we are trying to save biodiversity or humanity or important history and culture.

When I responded to one of Jennifer’s blog posts with similar comments to what I wrote above, I said that we must continue to "trudge along in this duty", rather than "march along". I was thinking about trudge -- as in making slow progress despite hard work -- rather than considering the task as drudgery, but she was quick to respond with the following:

Diane, have you read Charles Eisenstein’s latest book, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible? He notes how important it is for those of us who are awake to the ecological crisis to connect with each other–it’s not “preaching to the choir,” it’s nurturing each other’s spirits so that we can continue solidly and strongly in our chosen paths. I am glad my blog posts served that function for you today!

I feel very lucky with the students I’m working with this semester. Remarkably passionate and aware young people. With your “unreceptive audience,” how can you get under their skin and find the sweet spot where you will be able to wake them up from their media-induced sluggishness? Sometimes it happens when you dare to reveal your own vulnerability, your fears and grief and love. I hate to hear of you “trudging.” See what you can do to dance in front of the class, and get them up and dancing with you!

She is correct. Trudging is the wrong way to think about this, although my discouragement was worsened by my experiences this week. I am just back from the National Council on Science and the Environment conference on "Climate Solutions" having taken some students with me. I tried desperately to get the students to network given the many influential people who were in attendance: Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space (who is now at NOAA), James Hansen and Richard Alley (great climate scientists), Gina McCarthy (the current EPA director), and many other researchers and policymakers. How could they not be inspired?

On the way home, as we crossed over the Millard E. Tydings Memorial Bridge in Maryland that spans the Susquehanna River(dedicated, by the way, by John F. Kennedy eight days before he was assassinated), a bald eagle flew over the car hood - so close you could see into its eyes. Yet they couldn't be bothered to look up from their smart phones since they had important messages about the "100-days-to-graduation party" they would head to when we returned to campus. As they party their way towards graduation, I wonder what their longer-term plans are. And I wonder why I care so much about their future. So yes, Jennifer, some spirit nurturing is indeed needed at the moment. 

Thank goodness for some words of encouragement from another foot soldier in this effort! On Monday, I must try to remember to dance again.