Neighbours in Nyeri accept Maathai won’t be going home

On the spot where the late Prof Wangari Muta Maathai would have been buried at her mother’s home in Ihithe, Tetu, trees have been planted, just as she did besides the graves of her mother and two siblings.

A low key function at the home was in contrast to the ceremony in Nairobi, as most people who were expected to attend a prayer meeting at the homestead chose to stay at home and watch the events in Nairobi on TV.

There is a quiet acceptance among family members and neighbours that the late Nobel Laureate would not be coming home one last time following her cremation in Nairobi, with a big prayer meeting planned for next week in her memory instead.

The graves of her sister Monica Muringi, who died in 2001, her mother Lydia Wanjiru, who died in 2000 and her brother Kibichu Muta, who died in 1979, lie in a straight line, with relatives who had gathered at the home pointing to the spot where Prof Maathai’s grave would have been, beside her mother’s.

“She did not plant flowers on graves like other people do. Instead, she would plant an indigenous tree beside each grave,” says Joseph Ngamau Gikandi, a neighbour and Green Belt official.

Three maturing trees, muhuti in Kikuyu, stand beside the graves where she planted them and will continue to be a reminder to her family that despite her ashes being interred in faraway Nairobi, she remains a part of the land of her fathers.

Her namesake and cousin, Ms Zaweria Wangari Muta, said the family has long come to accept that she was no ordinary woman, saying she was not surprised about her wish to be cremated.

Ms Zaweria, who says she was brought up together with the late Prof Maathai and were classmates, said that this was a final show of the independent nature of Prof Maathai.

“Wangari was not a person for whom you could go and decide things. She was independent in her thinking and we choose to follow her wishes as per our customs.”