The writer Ms Sakina Dossaji (right), with the late Jane Goodall at an event at the Cultural Heritage Centre in Arusha in 2020.
BY SAKINA DOSSAJI
Most people know Jane Goodall through forests, chimpanzees and conservation. I remember something quieter, her humility.
When I had the privilege of reciting my poem about her life’s journey before her, the moment felt deeply personal. I was standing before a woman whose name had travelled across continents, yet there was nothing distant about her presence. She listened with complete attention. There was no impatience, no sense that she had heard too many speeches or met too many admirers. For those few moments, she made me feel that my words mattered.
When I finished, she looked at me with moist eyes. She smiled, reached out, shook my hand warmly and simply said, “Thank you.” There was no grand response and perhaps that is why I remember it so clearly. Her simplicity carried more meaning than elaborate praise ever could.
My son, too, had the privilege of meeting her. Watching him stand before someone whose life had been devoted to protecting other living beings gave the encounter another layer of meaning for me. It became more than a meeting with a famous person. It became a memory shared across generations.
What stayed with me afterwards was not only Jane Goodall the scientist or conservationist, but Jane Goodall the human being. Fame had not hardened her. Achievement had not made her inaccessible.
I also saw the discipline behind her extraordinary life. Even in old age, she continued travelling, speaking, working and advocating.
Retirement seemed absent from her vocabulary because her work was not just a profession, it was a lifelong calling.
Jane chose a life very different from the glittering one the modern world glorifies. While others chase glass towers, parties and comfort, she had once chosen forests, animals, solitude and sacrifice.
Through initiatives such as Roots & Shoots, that devotion grew into something larger than herself.
Perhaps that was her rarest lesson. A meaningful life does not need constant applause.
Jane Goodall showed me that when work becomes purpose, age cannot retire it and when compassion becomes a way of life, even the wilderness can become a sanctuary.
