Monday, January 15, 2018

Text for Wangari's Trees of Peace by Jeanette Winter


Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa by Jeanette Winter

“The earth was naked.
For me the mission was to try
To cover it with green.”
  ~ Wangari Maathai

Wangari lives under an umbrella of green trees in the shadow of Mount Kenya in Africa.

She watches the birds in the forest where she and her mother go to gather firewood for cooking.

And she helps harvest the sweet potatoes, sugarcane, and maize from the rich soil.

Wangari shines in school,
and when she grows tall, like the trees in the forest,
she wins a scholarship to study in America.

Six years later, her studies over, Wangari returns to her Kenya home and sees a change.
What has happened? She wonders.
Where are the trees?

Wangari sees women bent from hauling firewood miles and miles from home.
She sees barren land where no crops grow.
And where are the birds?

Thousands of trees have been cut down to make room for buildings, but no one planted new trees to take their place.
Will all of Kenya become a desert? She wonders as her tears fall.

Wangari things about the barren land.
I can begin to replace some of the lost trees
Here in my own backyard – one tree at a time.
She starts by planting nine seedlings.

Watching the seedlings take root gives Wangari the idea to plant more –
to start a farm for baby trees, a nursery.
In open space, she plants row after row
of the tiny trees.

Next, Wangari convinces the village women
That planting trees is a good thing.
She gives each one a seedling.
“Our lives will be better when we have trees again.  You’ll see.  We are planting the seeds of hope.”

The women spread out over their village, planting tiny trees in long rows,

like a green belt stretching over the land.

The government men laugh.
“Women can’t do this,” they say.
“It takes trained foresters to plant trees.”
The women ignore the laughter and keep planting.

Wangari pays them a small amount
for each seedling still living after three months –
their first earnings ever.

Word travels,like wind rustling through leaves,
about the green returning to Wangari’s village.

Soon other women in other villages and towns and cities in Kenya are planting long rows of seedlings, too.

But the cutting continues.

Wangari stands tall as an oak to protect
the old trees still remaining.
“We need a park more than we need an office tower.”

The government men disagree.
Wangari blocks their way, so they hit her with clubs.
They call her a troublemaker and put her in jail.

And still she stands tall.
Right is right, even if you’re along.

But Wangari is not alone.
Talk of the trees spreads over all of Africa,
like ripples in Lake Victoria.

More women hear the talk
and plant even more seedlings
in longer and longer rows.
The seedlings take root and grow tall –
until there are over 30 million trees
where there where none.

The umbrella of green in Kenya returns.

Women walk tall, their backs straight,
for now they can gather firewood closer to home.

The land is not longer barren.
Sweet potatoes, sugarcane, and maize
Grow again tn the rich, red earth.

The whold world hears of Wangari’s trees
and of her army of women who planted them.

And if you were to climb to the very top
of Mount Kenya today, you would see
the millions of trees growing below you,

and the green Wangari brought back to Africa.




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