The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind Book Review (2010)
This book changed my whole viewpoint on science and energy.
I did a book report on this years ago in Jr. High and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since, even past my own collegiate education and in the job world.
It unfolds the life of a poor Malawian farmer, William Kamkwamba. In his youth they used to do everything to survive, farm, pump water, recycle scrap material.
The Early Struggles
In 2001, Malawi suffered a great drought. It was so bad that the farmers couldn’t grow any food and the country descended into famine.
I vividly remember a chapter on one way they procured food when they absolutely needed it. They would take a bicycle inner tube and cut it in a way so it becomes a large rubber band.
Then string this rubber band on two sticks creating essentially a giant slingshot along the ground. They would then place a few crumbs of bait to draw unsuspecting birds into the crosshairs of the weapon, sometimes waiting hours.
Release the trigger, and BOOM the bird was snapped by the force of a giant rubber slingshot, and dinner was served.
This would only be a temporary fix to their food problem as the whole village was starving.
Self Education
In their daily lives, to attend grade school at all they needed to pay a fee but with the famine, no one had the time or the physical energy to go to school. Kamkwamba had to drop out. Yet he was determined to continue to get his education and spent hours at the local library. One fateful day, he stumbled across a book titled Using Energy.
There were wind turbines were on the cover, which at the time he had no idea what they did.
He devoured the book, and even though he couldn’t read English very well, he understood many of the diagrams. With this basic knowledge, he sought out a solution to his village’s water problem. He began to design a windmill that he hoped would one day be able to power a pump that could access the water far below the ground.
With no access to materials, he hit the scrap yard and with old bicycle parts, tractor fans, and plastic he was able to construct a basic windmill that generated electricity!
The whole village was in awe, people who only days and weeks earlier had called him crazy now drew around to watch and charge their phones.
Eventually, Kamkwamba built a second, larger windmill that was able to pump water and bring renewable energy to his village.
Rise to Fame
Soon, word got out, and western reporters and bloggers discovered “the boy who harnessed the wind”.
He stepped foot for the first time in an airplane, saw the internet, and even attended Dartmouth.
Kamkwamba really broke out of the mold and did something extraordinary. In 2013 he was on Time’s 30 people under 30 changing the world.
What made an impact on me is the pure unadulterated free spirit that it took not only to help his village but to do it under their negative words and influence. Sometimes incredible people are just born, people who change the world.
Now, if an impoverished teen with no education can do something so extraordinary, what’s your excuse??
A reminder that sometimes the greatest things in the world are simple.
“Trust yourself and believe, whatever happens don’t give up.”
William Kamkwamba
The boy who harnessed the wind is truly an inspiration, and I hope you enjoy reading it yourself.
Grab a copy here on Amazon.
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