William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger, and a place where hope and opportunity were hard to find. But William had read about windmills in a book called Using Energy, and he dreamed of building one that would bring electricity and water to his village and change his life and the lives of those around him. His neighbors may have mocked him and called him misala--crazy--but William was determined to show them what a little grit and ingenuity could do.
Enchanted by the workings of electricity as a boy, William had a goal to study science in Malawi's top boarding schools. But in 2002, his country was stricken with a famine that left his family's farm devastated and his parents destitute. Unable to pay the eighty-dollar-a-year tuition for his education, William was forced to drop out and help his family forage for food as thousands across the country starved and died.
Yet William refused to let go of his dreams. With nothing more than a fistful of cornmeal in his stomach, a small pile of once-forgotten science textbooks, and an armory of curiosity and determination, he embarked on a daring plan to bring his family a set of luxuries that only two percent of Malawians could afford and what the West considers a necessity--electricity and running water. Using scrap metal, tractor parts, and bicycle halves, William forged a crude yet operable windmill, an unlikely contraption and small miracle that eventually powered four lights, complete with homemade switches and a circuit breaker made from nails and wire. A second machine turned a water pump that could battle the drought and famine that loomed with every season.
Soon, news of William's magetsi a mphepo--his "electric wind"--spread beyond the borders of his home, and the boy who was once called crazy became an inspiration to those around the world.
Here is the remarkable story about human inventiveness and its power to overcome crippling adversity. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind will inspire anyone who doubts the power of one individual's ability to change his community and better the lives of those around him.
It seems that there is an age at which everything seems possible. You, personally are going to stop global warming. You are going to organize enough people to swing the vote, and then eventually, you will become president of the United States.
For most people, this occurs after that period of time during which you know everything. You have already come to grips with ignorance, and have compensated by turning all of your energy towards saving the world. You plan on compensating for your lack of infinite knowledge through your application of infinite sweat, toil, and energy.
For most people, this ends when you are faced with the reality of finding work, needing to pay rent, purchase health insurance, make a down payment on a house, and start feeding some babies. Now it seems foolish to think that we ever even thought that we could change the world.
Well, I think it was foolish to stop believing you could do it all. I firmly believe that you can. And I have just the book to prove it to you. William Kamkwamba's book "The boy who harnessed the wind." Will remind you of your passion. This book will rekindle your fire, provide you with inspiration, and a reminder that anything really is possible.
While many other reviews of this book have focussed on his amazing feat of building a windmill in the drought and famine-struck Malawi, I want to focus on his ability to move hearts, not just dynamos. More than half of his book tells of his childhood growing up in a rural village where magic is a power to be reckoned with (not played with) and lions and leopards prowl the forests.
His story wonderfully portrays a childhood that resonates deeply with our own memories of childhood while providing a beautiful glimpse into an alien world. It puts human faces on the frequently abstract continent of Africa. This in itself is praiseworthy. Kamkwamba doesn't just tell a cross-cultural tale. His coming of age story emerges slowly at first: as his neighbors start to skip meals, you realize that this is not your childhood story. By the time he and his family are fighting over four bites of wheat mush, it is too late: tears are filing your eyes, as you keep turning page after page, the only solace knowing that this story must have a happier ending.
The description of extreme hardship is not overly painful to read; it is quite matter of fact. For William and his family, crying and feeling sorry for yourself, or focusing on the hunger only made it worse. It was merely a fact of life that everyone's cheeks were sunken and that hunger and distended bellies could take anyone's life.
This is not a TV commercial asking you for money. That would be easy to write off. Instead, this account draws you in as a complicit observer: where were you when this was happening? Surely, you weren't fighting with other skeletons in line to buy the very last reserve of wheat. You have become part of William's family, full and contented while the rest of them are lying down to combat their hunger pains. If this does not rekindle your desire to seek justice in the world, to fight to end poverty and government corruption, then you must have been skipping chapters looking for the windmill.
Once your desire to help all Mulawians in some way is emblazoned, William gives you hope. With empty belly, he begins to educate himself. By taking apart radios and reading books, he climbs heights.
The rest of the story has been covered already. For me the magic of William is his ability to bring the reader into a foreign world without feeling like an outsider, showing their destitution while at the same time showing their strengths, determination, and intelligence. He made me more compassionate. I think this book belongs in school curriculum around the world.
Like many, my introduction to William Kamkwamba came in the form of a slightly awkward but similarly fascinating speech that he gave as a young man to the TED Conference in Africa. Speaking before a collection of billionaires and entrepreneurs, William spilled out what little he could of his story in short fragmented answers to the interviewers questions. One such fragment, simple in its constructions, resonating throughout the hall and amongst the net when he spoke about building his first windmill: "And I try and I made it".
That he made it is not simply a battle against the wind, but a battle just to survive long enough to get to that point. Much of the book, most of the book takes place before William has ever even heard of TED and the story since then. The prejudices of his community, the superstitions that held back so many, and most notably, the terrible famine that struck his village. You may have seen photos of a starving kid in Africa but you've probably never heard their stories in such a conversational style. William relays the details of the famine as a blogger would telling the story of his day. It's simply a gripping read, a story not heard often in the West, and makes his eventual triumph all the more amazing.
The overall book itself is a quick read. I plowed through it in a few days with a smile often on my face, an occasional chuckle and a few moments in which I said to myself "they'll put this part in the movie for sure". It's a good story from a land where happy endings are far too few and far between. I would recommend it for those who are seeking an inspirational tale or who have an interest in science and the learning process.
I would also recommend a quick review of the TED video and a few others that exist on the net to get some visuals in your head of what William looks and sounds like so you can put a face to the name and a sound to the voice.
This is the most inspirational book I've read in a long time. It's the first person account of a boy in sub-Saharan Africa who discovers a few old textbooks in his local library and uses them to bring electricity to his village. His story by itself is incredible, and Bryan Mealer (the freelance reporter who helped him write it) is a great writer. The pivotal scenes in the book have all the tension and joy of the best fiction - except it isn't fiction.
This book is highly recommended to anybody who can read. My only quibble is you should probably skip the first couple of chapters - I think they are meant to give a theme of the boy's transition from the magic of his tradition to science, but they came up very muddled for me. Starting from Chapter 3 on, I could not put the book down, however.
