Unbowed Chapters 1-6

In her the beginning of her memoir, Wangari Maathai, delicately paints a picture of her homeland and cultural background. She explains what it was like to grow up the third child (first girl) of her Kenyan family. I found it interesting that, as the daughter of a polygamist; she interpreted each of her father’s wives as mothers, and her technically half-siblings as siblings all the same. Given the culture of America where having more than one wife is worthy of formal and informal negative sanctions in Kenya this same activity is seen as a social norm.

             Another interesting part that stuck out to me was Maathai’s explanation of the internal transcendence of thought when dealing with a wild animal or predator. As her mother warned, one must exert wa-ngari, or the essence of the leopard. In her memoir Maathai explains her mothers’ lesson, -- “If you are walking on the path and you see the leopard’s tail,” my mother said, “be careful not to step on it. Instead. As you keep on walking, tell the leopard, ‘You and I are both leopards so why would we disagree?’” I believed that the leopard would recognize me as wa-ngari and not hurt me and that I had no reason to fear it” (43). Maathai’s example captures and replicates her personal character, as well as that of her mother’s both based upon the culture in which they developed. Where as someone of Western culture would be startled and frightened by the presence of a leopard this cultural understanding of animal behavior exemplifies a great understanding of the area and native behaviors of animals involved in a particulate culture. When giving the elephant example, the proposed ‘new’ way of thinking (tranquilizers instead of bullets) was not exercised based upon an inability to quickly remove the elephants from the ‘panic-stricken community’. Due to her development both culturally and academically Maaithai goes on to express that she believes, “This sad state of affairs is caused by a lack of understanding of animal behavior, something my mother’s generation seemed to grasp”(44). Getting an outside view of how cultural defines an individual interests me a great deal, and seeing Maathai’s early exposure to discrimination prompts questions about how and why the United States developed such immense racism toward ethnic differences, rather than accept the interior of the persons subjected to discrimination. Maathai’s deep respect and understanding of the natural world also leads me to question what element of our culture has seemed to weaken this cultural understanding in the western world.

-- Alexandria Valente