Women From Kenya

"Looking back I see that my ministry has been shaped by the dynamics of HIV, especially in the African context, As an African it has a personal angle to it. I stopped counting the number of people in the extended family we have lost."

"Many of the issues we are addressing today, the key drivers of HIV such as violence, the cultural aspects, the misinterpretation of scriptures have all been part of the discussions of African women theologians."

"Be truthful to yourself is the greatest gift you can give to yourself."

"Our goal is to have HIV-competent churches and theological institutions."

"It is understandable that life can turn to worst, but it is important to be honest with yourself and seek help"

"It was very obvious that the most affected on the continent were women, both as care providers and because we are on the receiving end, The majority of those who are HIV-positive are women. So we couldn’t ignore asking why there is a gender imbalance."

"“We have chosen to touch the cloak of Jesus and to hear his voice calling us to arise! We have chosen to participate fully in God’s mission and to name the missing links in African theology, mission, and life”."

"Always go with the choice that always scares you because that is the choice that requires most from you"

"One step at a time, I believe we can make progress. It starts with a conversation."

"Let us have a real conversation now. Each day, we can focus on winning one mother, one sister, one father, one brother. Together, we will save not just one girl, but whole generations to come."

"And when the small tin lamp that went off most of the times when i was almost finishing my homework, i started dreaming of my own light. I dreamt of having electricity in future and i forgot all the reasons why something should not work and found on reason why it should."

"Why I ran at all or with what purpose in mind is beyond my answering, but when I had no specific destination I always ran as fast as I could in the hope of finding one--and I always found one."

"Moreover, it seemed that the printers of the African maps had a slightly malicious habit of including, in large letters, the names of town, junctions, and villages which, while most of them did exist in fact, as a group of thatched huts may exist or a water hole, they were usually so inconsequential as completely to escape discovery from the cockpit."

"The girl Markham was left to run wild with Kipsigis boys, wearing a cowrie shell on a leather thong around her wrist to ward off evil spirits. She ate with her hands, her first language was Swahili, and she could hurl a spear […] Markham practically grew up in the saddle; she told a friend that she felt better on a horse than on her feet."

"Always the weed returns; the cultured plant retreats before it. Racial purity, true aristocracy, devolve not from edict, nor from rote, but from the preservation of kinship with the elemental forces and purposes of life whose understanding is not further beyond the mind of a Native shepherd than beyond the cultured fumblings of a mortar-board intelligence."

"So far as I know I was the only professional woman pilot in Africa at that time period I had no freelance competition in Kenya, man or woman."

"He’d better be careful; I hear there is a disease called AIDS waiting to pounce on any careless person these days"

"I have heard rumours also; but most say it is just Western propaganda. Anyway you doctors can do miracles these days. A mere VD cannot elude a cure for too long."

"You must realize that little irritations become more glaring, when there is that basic difference…I can’t imagine anything more annoying than their talking to their son, and your children, in a language you cannot understand. It makes you even more of an outsider than you are already."

"The women’s halls of residence, ‘the Box’ as it was known, was the hunting ground for all and sundry, and big cars were very evident especially on Saturdays when well dressed, well-to-do men descended upon the place. It was the thing to have a girl friend on campus…there were two categories of girls—the fast-moving "Mercedes" types and the "clipboards."

"Bitterness is poison to the spirit for it breeds nothing but vipers some of which might consume your very self. Pain and sorrow all humans feel; but bitterness drops on the spirit like aloes—causing it to wither."

"All the fears of her childhood were coming back. There was a vice-like band around her head and she thought she would faint. In her head one thought went round and round, beating its wings like a trapped bird. “My child - not you, not you!"

"Though she was very wise, one could hardly say that she had been born in the wrong era; that had she lived in a different era, she would have been a great intellectual, a pioneer and a leader of humanity. In truth, such clarity of vision and strength of person are a discomfiture to all men of all ages and she would therefore never have really fitted in that, this or any other century; for human beings prefer to be left alone to muddle along in confusion—it is more comfortable than to suffer the pain of self knowledge."

"A home without daughters is like a spring without a source"

"Her therapy was simple for there is no greater psychologist than the one who graduates from the hard school of life."

"How can you know where you are going if you do not know where you are coming from?"

"You may be twice my size, but I have three times your courage"

"I am pretty hands on when it comes to parenting. The sense of responsibility and deep love it awakens and gives me is not something that can be compared to any other relationship"

"I did not spend a night away from home until Kaya was five years old, not because she asked, but because I just could not bring myself to it, I suppose. I am much better about it now but I do not necessarily think about maintaining a balance as such. I ensure that when I am home with her, I am not only physically but also mentally present with her so that we can engage from that base. Besides, I generally work from home so that helps a lot"

"As Kenya moves towards universal health coverage, private hospitals play a crucial role in expanding access to quality care."

"My daughter Kaya, is an Aries who puts a fire up my Capricorn earth sign. She gets me cracking and keeps me on my toes. She is expressive in a way that I have had to learn over time. She is girly, again in a way that I never was. I used to equate girly with being prissy but that has changed somewhat given the circumstances"

"Just be the best you that you can be, and like Mandela, leave a legacy that posterity will be proud to associate with."

"Everyone will not be a freedom fighter or a world leader like Madiba; everyone will not be a bestselling author like Chinua Achebe; you may not even found a faith-based Media Company like Paul Crouch or be a terrific actor like America’s Paul Walker, and you should not try to be anybody else or fit into shoes that were not built for you to wear."

"My job is to just bring sanity to the protection of our natural heritage."

"When you are the ‘middle-child’ you are in the shadow of the older siblings and yet you cannot be molly-coddled either. You can ‘disappear’, when the older ones are in trouble for some misdemeanour. If you are smart, you learn from that, which I did. Another benefit is being able to quietly carve your own path, explore your own likes and dislikes out of the glare of others"

"I am proud of my country. I have always wanted to represent my country since I was a junior athlete and if offered the opportunity to run at the Olympic Games, I will do my level best to make the country proud."

"We kind of expect that from America and we accept it from America."

"But it's not necessarily the way we live our lives. For me it'd be very much, go out there, do it, look at this story, it's very inspirational, there's something to be learnt, if you want to help, yes you can, but it's about to that level. We haven't got to a place of being comfortable in that zone after twenty-five years, no."

"My purpose is not just to be a scientist, my purpose is really to do conservation through education, through innovation, through storytelling. As a conservation scientist, you’re only producing scientific articles that are only read by other scientists. But when you are on National Geographic or Disney, that inspires people and educates them to care about nature."

"What we know about elephants today is incredible,They are like people."

"Kahumbu does not suffer fools gladly. She is a formidable and fearless advocate, known for speaking truth to power, whether confronting poaching syndicates or challenging government policies that fail wildlife."

"If David Attenborough is the global voice of wildlife, then Paula Kahumbu is his fiercely passionate, Kenyan counterpart—a force of nature who has dedicated her life to saving her country's iconic animals."

"Paula has achieved something many thought impossible: she has made conservation a mainstream, national conversation in Kenya. She has given it a Kenyan face and a Kenyan voice, inspiring a whole new generation."

"If we’re going to do conservation in Africa, we have to be audacious. We’ve got to be courageous, and we’ve got to think big."

"We are losing our national heritage not to poverty, but to ignorance and greed. Our elephants, our rhinos, they don't belong to the government or to NGOs—they belong to the people of Kenya. We must become their guardians."

"For too long, conservation has been seen as a mzungu (white person's) thing. It's not. This is our land, our wildlife, and our story to tell. We must be at the forefront of protecting it."

"We are in a crisis. We are losing species not in the future, but right now. We are the last generation that can save these animals. There is no plan B because there is no planet B."

"We have to tell stories that make people fall in love with wildlife. You don't protect what you don't love, and you can't love what you don't know. That's why we make 'Wildlife Warriors'—to show the beauty and the drama of our natural world."

"I leave with mixed feelings on one hand with a sense of pride and satisfaction from the work we have been able to do together but again with an overwhelming sense of loss because through this council we have developed and cultivated deep personal connections with many of you."

"“Every student needs quality education”"