It’s a proud day for Kenya, with Wangari Maathai winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

If you’ve never heard of her, you can find out quite a bit about her on About.com, as well as lots of other places.

Important facts, other than the very cool one that she was the first East African woman to hold a PhD, include her work in the field of sustainable ecologies in Africa, including the Green Belt movement in Kenya, which taught people to farm without destroying the land.

One hopes, as one always hopes when folks like this are briefly in the limelight, that this will draw attention to the plight of Africa, and encourage funding of efforts like Ms. Maathai’s.

Just for a teensy bit of perspective, consider this. For the price of a single US military missile, an average-sized school in africa could provide a hot meal for all of its students, once a day, for 5 years.