Book Review: The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, by William Kamkwamba with Bryan Mealer, published September 29th, 2009, winner of the Alex Award in 2010,* 292 pages (Kindle edition), Lexile 860, recommended for ages from 10 (although the Lexile measure is really for ages 11-14) through old age!
This is a work of non-fiction written as a memoir, which makes it sound quite dry when it is really, truly, bursting with life. William Kamkwamba is someone I wish I could meet; despite all the hardships he and his Malawi (1) village endured during his childhood and teens, and even now--unimaginable to those of us who live comfortably in the U.S.--his is an irrepressibly joyous personality. After the seismic political events of the past week here in the USA, I felt blessed to have stumbled across this book and found myself so far away, in a little sliver of land like a cat's tongue in Southern Africa, where life-threatening, cataclysmic events occur frequently. It provided perspective.
William Kamkwamba was born in 1987. First, a peak at his village then, in his own words: “You might be wondering what an African village looks like. Well, ours consists of about ten houses, each one made of mud bricks and painted white. For most of my life, our roofs were made from long grasses that we picked near the swamps, or dambos in our Chichewa language. The grasses kept us cool in the hot months, but during the cold nights of winter, the frost crept into our bones and we slept under an extra pile of blankets. Every house in Masitala belongs to my large extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins. In our house, there was me, my mother and father, and my six sisters, along with some goats and guinea fowl, and a few chickens.” There are accompanying photos which show a “village” so small you almost can’t make it out but, for the record, it’s on the outskirts of a larger village called Wimbe, referred to throughout the book. His tight-knit family contrasts mightily with the country at large, which is home to more than 21 million people (3) in an area approximately the size of Pennsylvania. (4)
This is a work of non-fiction written as a memoir, which makes it sound quite dry when it is really, truly, bursting with life. William Kamkwamba is someone I wish I could meet; despite all the hardships he and his Malawi (1) village endured during his childhood and teens, and even now--unimaginable to those of us who live comfortably in the U.S.--his is an irrepressibly joyous personality. After the seismic political events of the past week here in the USA, I felt blessed to have stumbled across this book and found myself so far away, in a little sliver of land like a cat's tongue in Southern Africa, where life-threatening, cataclysmic events occur frequently. It provided perspective.
William Kamkwamba was born in 1987. First, a peak at his village then, in his own words: “You might be wondering what an African village looks like. Well, ours consists of about ten houses, each one made of mud bricks and painted white. For most of my life, our roofs were made from long grasses that we picked near the swamps, or dambos in our Chichewa language. The grasses kept us cool in the hot months, but during the cold nights of winter, the frost crept into our bones and we slept under an extra pile of blankets. Every house in Masitala belongs to my large extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins. In our house, there was me, my mother and father, and my six sisters, along with some goats and guinea fowl, and a few chickens.” There are accompanying photos which show a “village” so small you almost can’t make it out but, for the record, it’s on the outskirts of a larger village called Wimbe, referred to throughout the book. His tight-knit family contrasts mightily with the country at large, which is home to more than 21 million people (3) in an area approximately the size of Pennsylvania. (4)
His family is critical to the story. Cousins Geoffrey and Gilbert will be indispensable in helping him build the windmill that first brought electricity to his home, his village, and beyond. Gilbert is the chief’s son and has some money; he buys parts William could not afford. Both help him to erect the 15-foot high tower of his first tall windmill. The boys rely on each other and love each other without stint, each willing to give up a great deal in order for William’s dream to grow. While the Goodreads blurb about the book describes Malawi as “a land withered by drought and hunger, and a place where hope and opportunity were hard to find,” William’s cousins, and the rest of his family, provide both, willingly discounting the superstitions and magic that still prevailed in their ancient land:
“In addition to casting spells for curses, the sing’anga often battled one another. At night, they piled aboard their planes and prowled the skies, looking for children to kidnap as soldiers. The witch planes could be anything: a wooden bowl, a broom, a simple hat. And each was capable of traveling great distances—Malawi to New York, for example—in a single minute. Children were used as guinea pigs and sent to test the powers of rival wizards. Other nights, they’d visit camps of other witch children for games of mystical soccer, where the balls were human heads stolen from people as they slept.” As a child, William, too, was overwhelmed by this sense of frightful magic. But he and Geoffrey also loved music, and so they played around with transistor radios; eventually they became sufficiently proficient that people would sometimes seek them out to fix theirs. Often they would simply bluster their way through to fixing people’s radios. Only one station? Hmmm, we can fix that, come back after supper.
William was fascinated by dynamos, little canisters attached to bicycle rear wheels that made headlamps work; acquiring one, they figured out how to have radio music--so long as one of them kept pedaling. As William and Geoffrey mucked about by trial and error, they soon happened to use a radio that had AC current. The wires they normally used to attach to transistor batteries didn’t work with this radio. What to do, what to do? Geoffrey suggested William try sticking the wires in somewhere else and pointed to a hole labeled “AC”. William poked the wires in the hole, and voila!--Music!
“Without realizing it, Geoffrey and I had just discovered something called alternating and direct current. Of course, we wouldn’t know its true meaning until much later. But while I was cranking the pedals--so hard that my arm became tired--I kept wondering, what can do the pedaling for me so that both of us can dance? Well, the answer was electricity. The dynamo had given me a small taste of this magical thing, and I soon became determined to make some of my own.” There was no state-run electricity available in their village. Even in Malawi’s largest city of almost a million people, what electricity there was profoundly unreliable. William notes that while everybody in Wimbe had to go to sleep at 7 pm, or as soon as the sky darkened, big city people had the same problem, because the lights there went out so regularly!
Malawi’s education system is 8-4-4. The first eight years are called primary school, the next 4 are equivalent to high school, the next 4 similar to college. William had completed primary school but his family couldn’t afford the $80/yr. tuition for secondary school. (5) Furthermore, he had tested too poorly to get into the better schools that had some scientific equipment and training for students. He yearned for science the way the rest of us breathe but, at 14, it appeared that his education had ended. So while Gilbert went to school and Geoffrey stayed home after his father’s death to be the man for his family, William haunted the tiny library of about 300 books donated to his grade school from America and around the world. Three books dealt with applied science, and he studied them assiduously. He was, with his dad, still a farmer, and as such he suffered the tribulations of all farmers. But in Malawi, fluctuations in weather were deadly, whether they came as drought, which in 2002 killed thousands, or floods, which ruined crops just as readily.
The drought of 2002 left shin-high maize crops, the predominant food source of Malawis, (6) withered and sere. By summer people were coming down with cholera, too, as they moved from place to place, homeless, searching for anything to eat. By fall, people were falling down dead everywhere; the government had sold almost all the excess maize stored for exactly this contingency! William’s own family was down to a single meal a day, and that consisted of corn husks having no nutritional value. His 7-year old sister Rose cried all the time. His cousin George developed kwashiorkor, that fluid swelling of the abdomen and limbs indicating death by starvation is very near. Gilbert’s family gave away as much as they could, and so many people crowded around the chief’s home, the land surrounding them was covered in feces. Soon even the chief’s family had little food left. (7)
William became skeletal himself, but worst of all, he couldn’t feed his beloved dog, Khamba. For years they had hunted together, boy and dog, catching birds in a device William had invented, roasting and eating them together “as men.” In Malawi, dogs eat whatever they can, but people rarely feed them at all. Still, William tried, lamenting when he knew he’d be unable to feed Khamba again for two days. His beloved buddy became skeletal too, his ribs showing deeply; he barely had any energy to move. So William told Khamba they were going hunting, and the dog lunged with a few last efforts. In the woods, William tied Khamba to a tree, and Khamba laid down, panting. When he went back the next day he thought Khamba was waiting for him. His eyes were open and he hadn’t moved. Then William saw the bugs on his dog’s tongue and knew he had died. He thought Khamba had given up the will to live as soon as he saw William walk away. When the drought finally ended and they could all eat normally again, William said, My God, eating is good!--his abundant sense of humor, along with grief and endless regret, shine through. He is a testament to human endurance that shames me; I get irksome when I run out of cream for my coffee.
From his once forgotten science texts, William was not only absorbing information but also dreaming of a better future:
“If the wind spins the blades of a windmill,” I said, “and the dynamo works by turning the pedals, these two things could work together.” I remembered what the book had said about the dynamo: The movement energy is provided by the rider. “Gilbert, the rider is the wind!” If I could somehow get the wind to spin the blades on a windmill and rotate the magnets in a dynamo, I could create electricity. And if I attached a wire to the dynamo, I could power anything, especially a lightbulb. All I needed was a windmill and I could have lights…But most important, a windmill could also pump water. With most of Malawi still reeling from famine, a water pump could do wonders. At home we had a small, shallow well that my mother used for cleaning. The only way to get that water was by bucket and rope. But if I attached a windmill and pump to that well, I could pipe water into our fields. My God, I thought. We could harvest two times per year. But even more, a windmill could PUMP WATER. With a windmill, we’d finally release ourselves from the troubles of darkness and hunger. A windmill meant more than just power. It was freedom. “Gilbert, I’m going to build a windmill.”
The three cousins went off into the blue gum wood, found three saplings about 18’ tall, stripped them and fashioned the poles that would soon be the windmill’s tower. William haunted the local scrapyard for parts and most everything he used came from there, except when Gilbert bought lengths of copper wire and nuts and bolts to fit. He made his own washers for them, from bottle caps. When he needed to drill a hole in metal, he smashed a nail into a corn cob and heated the nail till it was glowing red. This procedure took hours, as the nail had to be reheated often; fuel was hard to come by, as the forests had been wasted long ago. Sometimes he had to resort to the only person in town who had better tools, at the village trading center. And he had to plead with his dad for dad’s rusty old bike that had only one wheel. Well, ok, his dad said finally, resigned, only don’t damage it! As the trio worked and the tower rose above the mud huts, people came out to taunt William. Crazy boy. Insane. What a fool. What do you think you’re doing? And William replied with a grin, I’m making “electric wind!”
They quit laughing when the light came on. Then William was a hero. Until the drought of 2005, when they turned against him and his “magic” tower. It’s eating the wind, it’s turning the storms away! Old superstitions die hard. It was all the cousins could do to guard the tower against perdition.
Eventually, though, William’s windmill was news, and the news spread. He was invited to participate in TED. He experienced his first plane ride, and a hotel! He befriended people who continued to help him over time, including Tom Rielly, who was in charge of organizing all the corporate sponsors at TED. Eventually William would choose Dartmouth College for its applied sciences program; he lived with Ted and his family for 7 years. He would fly to southern California to witness the mechanical forest of windmills there, 300' high. In his epilogue, William shares all that came of his windmill:
“I’ve now sent most of my sisters to private school. Doris and Aisha are enrolled in college; Doris is studying to become a nurse and Aisha is working toward a degree in rural development. The younger ones are busy learning English and teaching it to their friends. I also helped Gilbert start a small music and film studio in Kasungu. As for Geoffrey, he’s still in Wimbe. His mother fell ill recently and requires his constant help around the house and farm. But this also means he can assist my father, who’s busier now than ever. Thanks to my book sales, I founded a small business—a maize mill in Chamama that my family now oversees. And since our farm is producing double the harvests these days, I had to buy two pickups to help carry our crops to market. I’m also trying to start a transportation business…By coming back home, I want to inspire the next generation of dreamers. Young people comprise over half the African population, so the future of the continent hinges upon their energy and ideas and the support we give them. But my story isn’t exclusively for them. To the kids elsewhere who are reading this book, whether in Chicago, London, or Beijing, I want you to know that your ambitions are just as important and worth achieving, however big or small. Often people with the best ideas face the greatest challenges—their country at war; a lack of money or education or the support of those around them. But like me, they choose to stay focused because that dream—as far away as it seems—is the truest and most hopeful thing they have.” At the end of the book, William writes a loving farewell to his relatives who died. The last name he mentions is: Khamba’s. (8)
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*The Alex Awards are given each year to 10 books written for adults that especially appeal to readers ages 12-18. They are chosen from the previous year’s publications.
*The Alex Awards are given each year to 10 books written for adults that especially appeal to readers ages 12-18. They are chosen from the previous year’s publications.
(1) Malawi is a small, landlocked country in southeastern Africa, defined by its topography of highlands split by the Great Rift Valley and Lake Malawi, the most biodiverse lake in the world (2). It’s been in the news for a while because the Great Rift is deepening; at some time in the long geographical future, perhaps ten million years or more, the Rift will have created a new sea. “A New Ocean Could Split Africa Into Two Continents… Over the course of a couple days in September 2005—amidst a flurry of volcanic eruptions and hundreds of earthquakes—the ground in northeast Ethiopia split wide open. For millions of years, a bubble of molten rock had been percolating below the Earth in the Afar Depression, an inhospitable spit of desert where summer temperatures can climb as high as 120 degrees. Finally, it arrived at the surface, cleaving the land in two and creating a fissure nearly 40 miles long and up to 25 feet wide.
“We had never seen something like this,” Cynthia Ebinger, a geologist at Tulane University tells Popular Mechanics. “This kind of thing happens regularly on the seafloor, but it was the first known example on land.” https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a44268172/new-ocean-split-africa-rift-valley/
(2) “ Lake Malawi is globally important for biodiversity conservation due to its outstanding diversity of its fresh water fishes. The property is considered to be a separate bio-geographical province with estimates of up to c.1000 species of fish…” https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/289/ - :~:text=Brief synthesis-,Located at the southern end of the great expanse of,deepest lakes in the world.
(3) https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/MWI/malawi/population Additionally, Malawi's median age is 16.8 against a global value of 30.3 years. https://www.worldeconomics.com/Demographics/Median-Age/Malawi.aspx - :~:text=Malawi's median age is 16.8,source%3A United Nations, Washington D.C.
(5) “According to the World Bank and UNESCO Institute of Statistics, the primary school completion rate was at 76 percent in 2019 for boys and 85 percent for girls. The lower secondary completion rate was at 24% for boys and 22% for girls in 2018. Gross enrollment in tertiary education was at 2 percent for men in 2018 versus 1 percent for women.” https://www.iicba.unesco.org/en/node/104 - :~:text=Malawi follows a 8-4,GPE-KIX Discussion Paper%5D.
(6) “Agriculture is central to Malawi’s economy; maize production accounts for 52 percent of total agricultural crop area, 34 percent of GDP, and 85 percent of employment. Notably, maize is highly vulnerable to changes in average annual rainfall patterns.” https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/wb_gfdrr_climate_change_country_profile_for_MWI.pdf
(7) “Between 1990 and 2006, there were 33 weather-related disasters in Malawi, a nearly five-fold increase from the 7 disasters in the 20 years before that. Malawi was then struck by harsh droughts in 2012 and 2016 and severe flooding in 2015. This extreme weather will get even worse as we move towards mid-century. Leading climatologists predict that during the course of the 21st century, Malawi will become much hotter and drier than it is today. This is dire news for the subsistence farmers in our catchment area, 95% of whom did not have food left by the beginning of this year’s harvest. https://villagesinpartnership.org/climate-change-in-malawi/
(8) AN UPDATE, March 18, 2023: “Back-to-back climate disasters leave millions of Malawians in deepening need: ‘Once again, we have nothing.’ First came Cyclone Freddy, the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded. In March 2023, the storm struck Malawi twice and six months’ worth of rain fell in just six days, inducing floods and landslides that killed 1,200 people and displaced almost 700,000. More than two million farmers lost their crops and 1.4 million livestock perished… But then came El Niño, a cyclical climate event that triggers drought in East Africa… Withmore than 16 million people relying on rainfed agriculture, Malawi is dependent on a stable climate. But increasingly erratic rainfall, periods of drought, and five cyclones since 2019, have depleted its fragile food systems. When El Niño arrived in November, more than 4.4 million Malawians were already facing a food crisis… “It is possible that [Malawi] may find itself in a continuous cycle of response and recovery,” Dickxie Kampani, principal secretary at Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture, told The New Humanitarian. “Efforts to address the immediate needs of affected populations and rebuild infrastructure may overlap, creating a situation where response actions often blend into recovery measures.” https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2024/03/18/back-back-climate-disasters-malawi-farmers
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