The Green Belt Movement
Empowering the People
What solution would you propose to solve Kenya's problems of famine, deforestation, pollution, etc.? Wangari Maathai suggested planting trees founding the Green Belt Movement (GBM) in 1977. Since then the movement has expanded to include 6,000 women's groups and has planted over 30 million trees. But trees are just the entry-point, a way to empower the community to change the problems that affect them. I realized this when I went on a GBM Safari. The Safaris are a way for the movement to make money for Green Belt projects, teach people about the movement, and encourage the GBM communities to continue their work. During a four-day home stay in a GBM community in Nyeri, I experienced the movement in action, seeing the positive results of the communities work.Within the community I visited there were many active members. These members had been participating in GBM for many years. One of the first things the members did was make a tree nursery. They now spend at least two days a week planting trees. To plant a tree they must first plant the seed at the nursery. Once the tree is large enough it is replanted onto farms or public lands. The members must then take care of it, and ensure that it survives the first drought season. GBM staff count the trees that survive. For each tree that survives, the members are given a small amount of money.
In addition to starting the nursery, the community GBM members had participated in a seminar, necessary in order to become a part of GBM. It is at the seminar that the community identified problems it faced such as famine and/or HIV/Aids and came up with solutions. At the seminar and through their work with GBM, the community was also taught the importance of trees. Showing off new knowledge the community GBM leader explained to me that indigenous trees give nutrients back to the earth, prevent soil erosion, provide them with firewood, food, medicine, shade, cleaner air, rain, and a more beautiful environment.
In addition to educating the community and empowering the people to plant trees, the Green Belt Movement has helped the community through a loan. GBM helps dedicated communities with loans to start income generating activities. The community can use the loan to buy bee-keeping equipment, for example, and thus make and sell honey; a new income. The loan is paid back in trees, not money. That means that if the loan is KSH 20,000 the community plants 20,000 trees. The community I visited was united through GBM work, through planting trees, improving itself in more ways than I ever imagined possible.
It's incredible, to me, that the simple act of planting a tree has empowered communities to make a difference in their own lives. They now have hope for the future for themselves, their children, and generations to come!
The Green Belt Safari Experience
Life-altering. The Green Belt Safari simply put. You can be told about the African village until there are no more words left to use but you have to experience it to really understand what it is like. What makes the Green Belt Safari possible is the hospitality of the Kikuyu people. No matter where I am or where life takes me, I'll always remember these villagers. They became like family to me. They have changed me forever; given me insight into things I never dreamed possible. The unity of the community, their heart-warming hospitality, and the glimpse the women gave me into their lives changed me forever. I want to share my experiences with others so that they can appreciate these villagers, the Kikuyu, and Kenyans in general. Now I invite you to come on a journey with me and see the Kikuyu family through my eyes - the eyes of an amazed foreigner.
The most amazing aspect of this community was its unity and the warmth it generated. The dances, songs, and speeches given to welcome us brought me close to tears never have I been so warmly received. Everything seemed to be a community event: our welcome, dinners, picking coffee, etc. The unity of the community gave me so much hope hope that they could really implement the Green Belt idea and truly make a huge impact. The Green Belt movement, I realized, was no longer the movement of one individual, but had become a movement of the people.
Even though the community was so welcoming I was nervous on the first day - would these people accept me into their community even though my culture is so different? By the second day, however, I was already at ease. The women, by then, had even given me a new name, Nyawera (Hard Worker). The women took me in as one of them, teaching me as they would their daughters. I spent my evenings sitting with them in the kitchen, a small outside wood room usually with three fires going, two small windows, and a storage place for firewood. Often, when I first sat down, I attempted to say something in Kiswahili. Everyone would break out into laughter. The strangeness of my culture and the excitement of having me there made me a source of a lot of amusement! It was during one of the evenings, while I was sitting with the women, that they showed me how to make chapati. As I rolled out the dough, we talked. They told me of their fears about HIV/Aids. They wanted their children to be safe from the devastating virus. Teach them how it spreads and how to care for someone who is HIV positive, they said. The women also talked of how their busy 5am-12pm days exhausted them. Despite their exhaustion and their worries about HIV/Aids, these women were happy. Why? They were empowered and energized they knew that they could do something about their problems and that the Green Belt Movement would help them. They knew they could impact their own lives and, as a result, the lives of their children and their children's children. By the end of my trip the women did not want me to go and I could not imagine a world without them. I felt as though I belonged with them.
The community took me into their homes and hearts without hesitation. What they didn't realise was they changed my life forever. They showed me that people with so many problems still have so much hope. They showed me action, not just ideas, and with that action came pride and success. I have come to believe in them and they helped me believe in me.
The Kikuyu People
A Historical Overview
The Kikuyu come from Bantu-speaking people who migrated from Lake Chad (Nigeria, Cameroon area) to Southern Africa before migrating upward to North and East Africa. They entered the Nyeri area where the Kikuyu villages are around 1000 A.D. Because of previously acquired iron working skills they tamed the area quickly, settling along the ridges. Each ridge formed a community or sub-clan. There were ten clans that had all, at one point, been named after women an indication that the Kikuyu culture has not always been patriarchal. The ridge pattern of settlement played a large role in the formation of their culture, specifically their religion.
Because the land was so fertile the people prospered greatly. The result: believing God was smiling at them from the largest mountain in Kenya, MT. Kenya. The mountain, visible from the ridges, has a white patch which the Kikuyu people once believed to be a sign God was watching them. The mountain and country got its name because, when speaking to colonists, the Kikuyu pronounced Kiri Nyaga (white patch in Kikuyu) as Kiinyaa (the people did not pronounce r's clearly). The result: the colonists thought it was Kenya. Thanks to the fertile soil of the ridges, the Kikuyu people had very good fortune. They thus came to believe God favored them, developing their culture around their religion. The Moral Economy Concept also quickly formed a belief that those who are poor are poor because they are lazy- because the Kikuyu were generally successful. Because they believed one could not talk directly to God, a religious hierarchy fell into place. When communicating with God one spoke through those higher up in the hierarchy. The following, from most to least in importance, was the hierarchy: God, spirits, elders, parents, individuals. Religion influenced all other aspects of Kikuyu culture.
The Kikuyu governmental system also developed as a result of the ridge settlement pattern. Prior to colonization the Kikuyu were very democratic. If you experienced problems, they were solved within your own place in the hierarchy. If that did not work you would go to those one-step higher, and so on. The hierarchy, from most to least in importance, was as follows: community, ridge, inter-family, family. The family unit was the most basic political unit. To become a member of the community you had to be initiated. Initiation included a period away from home with formal schooling and, finally, circumcision. The warriors, elders, or statesmen would lead the different political units respectively. The hierarchy of warriors is as follows: Junior Warrior, Senior Warrior, Junior Elder (marry to go higher up), Senior Elder, Elder, and Statesman. The elders were in charge of justice, religion, and administration. Every group had a spokesperson chosen on merit or performance. In such a system of government no system of prisons or policemen was necessary because, when men were initiated, they were taught to control one another and solve problems at their own level.
Although religion and government developed into a relatively formal structure, education remained informal. Education was based on hands on experience. Fathers would teach sons and mothers would teach daughters. Children would learn how to do the necessary house chores and how to behave themselves. The only formal schooling that occurred was during Initiation, away from the homes, where the children were taught what was expected of them as adults.
In 1895 when Britain took over, everything changed. Determined to prevent other European countries from getting the area, the British wanted to get to the source of the Nile. To do this they walked through Kenya to Uganda. In trying to keep the region, they built a railway line where they had walked from Mombassa, Kenya to Uganda (1897-1902). This was no easy task. The natives refused to help build it because they didn't measure wealth in work with iron but in the number of animals and children a person had. The British solved this problem by bringing thousands of Indians and other Asians (then known as Coolies) to work. Because of their light skin, a color the animals had not seen before, many of the animals thought they were good meat, eating them in large numbers. Once finished with the railroad, many Asians remained, setting up small businesses. The railroad became known as the Lunatic Express because it was a railroad that carried nothing and went nowhere. The British soon got tired of paying for it, introducing European settlers as quickly as possible to speed up the development/Westernization of Kenya.
The Europeans transformed Kenyan society through Western technology, Western ideas, and the creation of a new economy. The first thing the new settlers did was establish a new administration structure. The hierarchy of government became, from most important to least, as follows: Queen, Colonial Secretary, Governor, Provincial Commissioner, District, District Officer, Chief. This un-democratic new government was a problem to the Kikuyu people because they had no chiefs. The British solved this by choosing the chiefs for the Kikuyu people completely destroying the Kikuyu government structure and, as a result, destabilizing the entire culture. Soon realizing the Kenyan land had to be worked, a job they wouldn't do themselves, the British demanded labor of the natives. They did this through forced labor, sharecroppers, and creating a poorly paid workforce. Kenyans refused to work for money, something that was not valued in their culture, until the government created taxes. Taxes forced the people to end their barter economy and find work with the British. In a continued effort to Westernize Kenyans, Christianity was introduced through formal Western education (the structure of slave schools in the deep South in America was studied and copied). As soon as the Kikuyu people learned to read and write, they realized much of what the missionaries were saying was not mirrored in the book they preached, the Bible. The result: not believing in Christian teachings. There soon came a serious clash between tribal beliefs/customs and Christianity so the Kikuyu established their own churches and schools (education soon led to the end of the Kikuyu practice of female circumcision). From the 1920s onward the Kikuyu people were at the forefront of the anti-colonial struggle. It was from among them that the Mau warriors came (the warriors that led the struggle for independence from Britain). In 1962 the struggle of independence succeeded and Kenya returned to the hands of the natives.
Despite general rebellion against colonial ways, colonization left a large impression on Kenya. The cultures of the natives were shattered through the forced introduction of new people and new ways of life. One example of the impact of colonization on Kikuyu society is theorized to be the current imbalance of division of labor between the sexes. Before the colonization, Kikuyu men and women had a relatively equal set of jobs around the home. The men worked in the fields with certain types of crops, for example, while the women would cook. When money was introduced into the economy the men had to leave home and find a job to pay taxes. While the men were away the women had to do the men's jobs in addition to their own. With so many men going to the city there were not enough jobs. Currently, unemployment is still very high, and men find themselves without jobs very often. The men never picked up doing the chores they had left to the women when they went away. The result: the women often work much harder than the men. The inequality in regards to the workload of women versus men is not, therefore, an innate aspect of the Kikuyu culture but, at least partially, a result of colonization.
Today the Kikuyu culture is a combination of colonization, new customs, and newly revived pre-colonial culture.
Our Welcome
The following story is a recreation of an experience Nicole le Roux had on the Green Belt Safari; being welcomed into the Community. The dancers were entertainers from a nearby Kikuyu ridge community, attempting to revive old cultural traditions.
Let go of your reality for a minute and come on a journey with me. You're in a van bumping up and down on a dirt road. If you look out the window you'll see us passing a little wooden hut that is fenced in. Around the hut is a field with different crops coffee, maize, banana trees, arrowroots. You pass many of these houses on numerous dirt roads that all look the same. You're among the ridges now where the Kikuyu people built their homes a long time ago. Everything is lush and green, even in the depth of a Kenyan winter. Now look in front of you, right there in the road, about thirty Kikuyu people are dancing! There are little kids watching too they have the biggest beautiful eyes! The van is stopping it seems they want you to get out and dance with them. You are climbing out of the van to be taken into these people's arms, hearts, and homes. Some of them are wearing leaves around their heads and waists while others are wearing fake zebra skin. They cluck their tongues, chanting and singing as they dance. A middle aged man with a huge grin and big goofy looking glasses hands you a stick adorned with animal hair, showing you how to wave it in the air. You are dancing to the beat they are so magically creating. Slowly you are moving up the road. As villagers standing on the side of the road are passed they join in the dancing the group gets bigger and bigger. You are swept up in the music and the atmosphere and don't even realize more than half an hour has gone by when you arrive at the end of the road and are lifted up onto the backs of some village women. They dance you to chairs then put you down, motioning for you to sit. You take a minute to look around there is another one of the wooden huts and next to it, outside, are two smaller wooden shacks (the kitchen and the storage room) and in the distance are fenced in cows, goats, and sheep. Your attention turns back to the dancers as a group of them begin to perform for you. After a while a new group of dancers come out from behind the tarp you are sitting under the warriors. Each of the fifteen or so dancers has a fake zebra skin cloth around his waist. Their sandals are also fake zebra skin. Around their ankles are tin shakers that make music, keeping the beat of the song they are singing. Around their muscular shoulders each carries a horn. Upon their heads is skin from the Columbus monkey, beautiful black and white with a long tail. The leader's monkey skin is held upright with wood, signaling importance. Later you will learn that boys kill the Columbus monkey during initiation into adulthood. The warriors pull you up to dance along move your right foot out, then your left, then move your hips back and forth as you go to the ground - fun but tiring huh? It seems all the dancing is done now. You can sit back and listen to that man speak. He is welcoming you in Kikuyu and explaining that the community is very happy to have you.
Discussion Questions
* Have you ever experienced a similar welcome? Is this Kikuyu welcome different from a typical American welcome?
* How does this story change/influence your American cultural ideals?
* Music and Dance play a very large role in African culture. Why do you think it is so important to the Kikuyu? (Incorporate knowledge you gained from the historical information and the story)
Community Profiles
ZACHARY
Zachary, a tall man in his mid-thirties with gentle eyes and an unforgettable smile, was the father in the family at my home-stay. The leader of the Green Belt Movement in the community, he was also very much in charge of his house. Within the first ten minutes of our introduction I realized that, despite his quiet manner, there was no uncertainty that this family was patriarchal. Zachary, for example, spoke for his wife when I asked her a question. Only when alone with the women would they talk to me directly. When it was dinner time the men and guests sat inside the living room and the women sometimes ate in the outside smoky kitchen. This, I later found out, was much more extreme than most of the houses in this particular community where the women would always eat with the men. In spite of the general patriarchal structure or of the absence of strong attachments between fathers and children, Zachary had developed an incredibly close relationship with his little boy. About three years old, his son worshiped him. Whether he was showing a new game to his father or simply looking up and watching him with admiration, the little boy was always clinging to his father. Zachary would stop mid-sentence, dropping anything and everything, to kneel down and talk to the little boy, smiling at him with the smile reserved for the boy alone. When his father had to leave, the boy would cry for hours. The unique relationship Zachary developed with his son is a beautiful insight into his personality - showing that, despite the patriarchal household the community was making gains in terms of transforming the role of men and women.
Discussion Questions
* What strikes you most about Zachary's personality? Why?
* How does this story change/influence your American cultural ideals?
* Discuss the patriarchal nature of the Kikuyu culture (incorporating the historical information/theory given). Is it good, bad, neither? Can it change without the loss of the Kikuyu culture? Should it change?
SYLVIA
Sylvia, 18 years old, was still attending Secondary School (the equivalent of High School in the USA). She was a tall pretty girl with short hair and big eyes. When Sylvia laughed she leaned over and clapped her hands together. Absolutely delighted to be able to talk to me, a strange white foreigner, Sylvia pulled me by the hand explaining in her overly proper English that she wanted to show me her house. Her house, near the house I was staying in, was very small. She led me into the "kitchen" (a small wood shack, not connected to the main "house", with multiple fireplaces and a couple of logs or chairs to sit on). Sylvia excitedly showed me how to make beans with rice and then introduced me to her many brothers and sisters. All eight or nine of them shook my hand.. One of them, Sylvia's little sister, threw herself upon me begging me, in Kikuyu, to sleep in her house. The other girl came shyly and gently held my hand. Sylvia's three-year-old brother took one look at me, however, and started to cry; he was afraid of me, having never seen a white person before. After the introduction, Sylvia excitedly told me that she wanted to be a doctor or lawyer some day. Sylvia mirrored the general positive vibe that I found throughout the community befriending me immediately and celebrating our differences.
Discussion Questions
* Does Sylvia sound similar to the typical American teen? Why or Why not?
* How are her brothers and sisters different or similar to American children you know?
WOMEN
The Kikuyu women seemed very shy at first they did not speak much around the men, perhaps the result of a patriarchal society. After the first day, once I spent time alone with them, I realized they are the most hospitable of all. Because I am female they took me in, showing me how to cook as they would their daughter. It was on one of these evenings that I found myself sitting in the busy kitchen. The women helped each other out, working together to get done whatever needed to be done, to make the work less difficult and lonesome. As we sat around the fire making supper, I asked them some questions about their daily activities.
These women are tired getting up at 5:00 am and going to sleep 12:00 pm an endless cycle of work. In the morning they get up and start the fires before going to fetch water and heat it for people's baths (a bath consists of a basin with hot water that you pour over yourself in the outside small wood shack "bathroom"). After preparing the water they cut grass for the cows and then milk them. The grass is used to keep the cows happy during the milking. They then begin to cook breakfast - chi tea (tea made mostly from milk), porridge, sweet potato, boiled eggs, and sometimes breakfast Chapatti. The women sit down to eat for ten minutes at most before getting up to start doing the dishes. Often they eat while working in order to save time. Washing dishes is backbreaking work - leaning over a bucket with water and soap for one to two hours. After the dishes the women tend to the crops - picking coffee, corn, and so forth. As soon as they get back from the fields it is time to make lunch. Lunch can consist of any of the following: meatless stew of carrots and peas, mashed sweet potatoes with corn, white meat, cabbage, fruits, and/or rice. After lunch is eaten the women, again, do the dishes. Directly after the dishes they go and cut grass for the cows, goats and other animals before bringing them in from the fields. They then milk the cows before starting supper. Supper consists of either what was for lunch possibly in addition to chapatti or mandazi. After supper the women do the dishes before finally going to bed. The cycle repeats itself the next day.
After hearing the women describe their endless workday, I was able to at least somewhat participate in it. They showed me how to pick coffee, cook, wash the dishes their way, do other chores. Now, every morning when I wake up, no matter where I am, I remember these women who have already been busy for hours and who will do it all over again tomorrow. I will remember these women forever.
EXCITED CHILDREN
As we got out of the matatu (van) and gathered in a group, we noticed a group of girls and boys in front of us, ready to perform. Poking their heads out of the glassless windows of the long row of school classrooms were hundreds of faces of eager Secondary School (Middle to High School) age students. They whispered to one another pointing at us before breaking into little bursts of giggles. We sat down on a grass patch in front of a big field. Behind the field was a beautiful, picturesque, tree and bright blue sky. On the field was a group of about twenty girls and twenty boys. The boys, lined up in four rows facing us, were watching the girls who were putting on an amazing performance. Each girl had, wrapped around her yellow and green school uniform, a bright flowered piece of cloth. They danced to the beat a little girl playing the drums was creating. After about five minutes a small group of kids began to make a semi circle behind us. Before we could blink, the entire school of 200 or more children was lined up behind us whispering excitedly once more. The group inched closer and closer to us until we had barely an inch between us and them. Soon little kids were touching my hair, fascinated by it's different color and texture. This situation was not to last long as the group of performing girls came towards us. Each girl pulled one of us by the hand smilingly showing us how to do their dances with them. After about ten minutes of exhausting dancing we were allowed to sit, catching our breath as we wondered how these kids could do this for what must now have been an hour. The boys put on a marching number but were quickly shooed off by their teacher, not nearly as good as the girls. When the performance was finally through we were followed by the children as we went to plant trees along a path next to their field. Each of us planted our own, encircled by our own group of children who clapped for us when we were done. Thereafter the principal welcomed us and we sang songs and clapped with the kids while the last tree was planted. The children, sad to see us go, wanted to touch our hands just once more before we set off in the vans to return another day.
Kikuyu Cultural Insides
LANGUAGE
The Kikuyu people are at the very least bilingual - speaking their tribal language of Kikuyu as well as the Kenyan tongue of Kiswahili. For them maintaining Kikuyu has been a way to demonstrate and maintain cultural pride. On top of Kikuyu and Kiswahili, many of the Kikuyu, especially the younger generations, speak English. English is now being taught in many of the schools as it is also an official language in Kenya.
GREETINGS
As is true within many African cultures, you can never spend too much time on greeting a Kikuyu! Every time you see a person again, whether you last saw them five minutes ago or five years ago, you greet them. To greet you shake hands firmly and say your greeting, using the title of the person you are speaking to. When greeting a grandmother, for example, you call her "SuSu" (Kikuyu word meaning grandmother, pronounced Sho-Sho).Personal names are used only with children, as they are not yet regarded with respect. When greeting your elder and/or a greatly respected person you take their arm at the elbow in the handshake, not the hand. This symbolizes that you are cutting your arm in half out of respect for them.
THEIR FEARS
No fear, not even fear of famine, can compare to the women's fear of HIV/Aids. The women want their children to learn more about it but have very few ways of teaching them as they, themselves, have little knowledge and control over the situation. Very aware that their husbands often cheat while working away from home, the women are afraid they will bring the disease home. They are even more afraid of unknowingly passing it on to their children through breast feeding. They all know entire families that have been wiped out by the virus. Kenya has been hit with 15% infection, a very high rate even among African countries. HIV/Aids is by far the greatest fear of Kikuyu women.
PRIDE
The community I stayed with had developed an inspiring sense of pride in the GBM work. When I asked a woman to tell me one thing they want people to know about Africa she replied "How beautiful it is because of the trees we are planting". Zachary, the leader of GBM in the community, spoke about the two days a week spent on GBM work and their successes. He was beaming as he explained the benefits of planting trees. The community was clearly united and energized because their own work, and not the blind charity of another person, was bearing fruits beyond their imagination.