The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
- Mike Ng
- May 20
- 2 min read
Updated: May 28
Born in Kasungu, Malawi, William Kamkwamba is a young schoolboy who comes from a family of farmers who live in the nearby village of Wimbe. William has a talent for fixing radios for his friends and neighbours and spends his free time looking through the local junkyard for salvageable electronic components. Although he is soon banned from attending school due to his parents' inability to pay his tuition fees, William blackmails his science teacher, Mr. Kachigunda (who is in a secret relationship with William's sister) into letting him continue attending his class and have access to the school's library where he learns about electrical engineering and energy production.
By the mid-2000s, the family's crops fail due to drought and the resulting famine devastates Wimbe, leading to riots over government rationing. The economic effects of the September 11 attacks further devastate the country. William's family is also robbed of their already meager grain stores. People soon begin abandoning the village, and William's sister elopes with Mr. Kachigunda in order to leave her family "one less mouth to feed", but not before leaving a component of Kachigunda's bicycle that William requested of her.
Seeking to save his village from the drought, William devises a plan to build a windmill to power the town's broken water pump. His small prototype works successfully, but to build a larger windmill, William requires his father, Trywell, to give permission to dismantle the family bicycle for parts, which is the only bicycle in the village and the family's last major asset. His father believes the exercise futile and destroys the prototype and forces William to toil in the fields. After William's dog, Khamba, dies of starvation, William's mother, Agnes, intervenes and urges his father to reconsider. William and his father reconcile after William buries Khamba. With the help of his friends, the few remaining members of the village and the component taken from Kachigunda's bicycle, they build a full-size windmill which leads to a successful crop being sown.
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