The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (18 page)

I’m not sure where I got my confidence, but I knew this was a great plan. However, I had none of the materials I needed or the money to buy them. So to pull this off I had to do what I did with my radio experiment—I had to go and find them on my own.

F
OR THE NEXT MONTH,
I woke up early and went in search of windmill pieces like exploring for treasure. The materials had to be strong and metal, and the best place to look was the tobacco plantation at Estate 24, just across from the Kachokolo school. The estate had an abandoned garage and scrapyard that was littered with machine parts and stripped bodies of cars and tractors, all forgotten and left to rust. I’d gone there a few times with Gilbert before the start of secondary school, after hearing the bullies at Kachokolo were even meaner than those at Wimbe Primary.
We’d looked for something to use for a weight bench in order to become muscular, like our great hero at the time—the Chinese martial artist Bolo Yeung from
Bloodsport,
a film the video show couldn’t play enough for our satisfaction.

“Can you lift this metal like Bolo?” I’d say, straining against a rusty engine block.

“For sure,” said Gilbert. “Stand aside.”

We spent a few days trying to lift the heaviest pieces in the yard, but needless to say, the famine arrived and we never built the bench.

But now, I was returning to the yard to build my new machine. I took the long walk to Kachokolo, over the hills and streams. The land hadn’t changed much since the start of the famine. The grasses were still high and starting to fade to brown, but the maize in the fields was now tall and green. Soon we’d be harvesting and our problems would be over, at least for this year.

I turned into the estate entrance once I reached the school. Within a few meters, I entered the scrapyard and stopped. Behold! Now that I had an actual purpose and a plan, I realized how much bounty lay before me. There were so many things: old water pumps, tractor rims half the size of my body, filters, hoses, pipes, and plows.

The stripped chassis of several touring cars lay bleached by the sun, in addition to two abandoned tractors. Their blue paint had long ago chipped and faded. The tractors had no tires or engines, just a rusted gearbox in their bellies. The steering wheels were still intact, as well as the gear shift and brake pedals. The clutch was a small button on the wheel next to a lever that worked as the gas pedal. The glass was busted off the instrument panels. The tall grass swallowed everything.

I’ve struck gold,
I thought. Even better, the scrapyard was incredibly quiet and I was beautifully alone.

The first afternoon, I discovered a large tractor fan lying in the grass outside the garage. It was the ideal design for my rotor and would allow me to bolt the plastic windmill blades directly to the metal blades of the fan. That same day, I found a giant shock absorber, also from a tractor. I
banged it against an engine block to knock off the casing. It fell away, revealing a piston I could easily weld to the fan to create the perfect shaft.

I needed some kind of ball bearing to connect the shock absorber and gav to reduce the friction. In order to find the right size bearing, I took a piece of rope and measured the end of the shock absorber, then went around to all the junk in the scrapyard and compared it to the various shafts with bearings attached. After three days I found the right match on an old groundnut-grinding machine.

I found a rusted coil spring and used it to bang the bearing loose. This took me all day because I had to take my time and be careful not to break it. After a couple of hours, the constant banging against metal caused me to get blisters on my hands that soon burst and bled. To endure the pain and keep banging, I imagined I was Bolo, burying his hands in hot sand to make them hard as steel. These mind games seemed to do the trick, and I was finally able to knock the bearing loose. My careful work paid off. It was in pristine condition.

As I mentioned, the scrapyard sat directly across from Kachokolo Secondary School, where I’d left a bit of my heart those many weeks ago. The school was empty now because the students were preparing for the second term, which started in only a few short weeks. I could see through the windows and imagined myself sitting in one of the empty desks.

Back at home, my father’s tobacco was still drying under the shelters. Having made it through the famine, I hoped that once the crop was ready, it would fetch a good price at auction. We could finally settle our debts and pay my fees, and all my sorrow of being a dropout would melt away. I would return to school, and this time, I would be ready.

“Look out,” I said. “Your man Kamkwamba will be back soon.”

A
S THE SCHOOL TERM
approached, my father said nothing about me staying home due to lack of fees. In fact, one afternoon, he even handed me a couple kwacha to buy a brand-new Lion Brand Exercise Book and two pencils. My mother had also purchased a big bar of Maluwa soap, so a few days before school, I rolled out the half-tractor tire and scrubbed my uniform until the yellow stains faded in the suds. I took all this as a sign that things were normal once again. As you can imagine, with me dreaming about school every ten minutes, three weeks dragged past very slowly.

The night before classes started, I was so nervous I stayed awake for hours listening to the termites in the roof. It felt good to be waking up early for reasons other than farming. I’d desperately missed having the routine of dressing for school and waiting to meet my friends. But along with all these good feelings, I also had my worries: What if my independent studies hadn’t been sufficient and my friends were too far ahead? Would they allow me to copy notes? Now that the famine was over, would the older boys be back and waiting for us? Who even survived the hunger, anyway?

When Gilbert appeared from the trees the next morning, I was incredibly happy to see him.

“Gilbert, bo?”

“Bo!”

“Sharp?”

“Sharp!”

“Fit?”

“Fit! Welcome back, friend, it’s good to walk with you again.”

“Oh thank you, Gilbert, it’s good to be here!”

I
T WAS GREAT TO
be back with my pals at school, all the jokesters and usual entertainers. I saw many of the same familiar faces. We were all still thin from the hunger, and that wouldn’t change until the harvest, but at least our health was improving.

A few faces were missing, however.

“Where is Joseph, from Form Two?” I asked some people at recess. “Light complexion, short hair? I admired that guy.”

“Oh, didn’t you hear? He died.”

A few others had died in the famine, but they were in other classes and I didn’t know them.

As I had feared, I was far behind in everything: geography, agriculture, social studies, all the things I’d studied in the library. My classmates were studying graphs and variables and scientific names of animals. I didn’t know any of that stuff. I struggled terribly for the first two weeks, copying all the notes I could, while also trying to get the hang of classes once again. It had been awhile, and so much had happened.

After about ten days, the grace period for fees was nearing an end and I started getting nervous. Something didn’t seem right. My father knew my fees were due, but he hadn’t mentioned anything. And fearing the worst, I was too afraid to bring it up. The closest we got was a brief conversation one afternoon in the fields:

“So how is school life?”

“It’s going okay, but I’m so behind. I think with time I’ll catch up.”

“Well, just work hard.”

That conversation had seemed normal, but I still couldn’t help the
sick feeling in my stomach each day I went to school. At the end of two weeks, we gathered in an empty classroom for morning assembly, and Mister W. M. Phiri addressed us, wearing his usual sweater and tie.

“Fees for this term are due Monday,” he said, “and those students who didn’t pay last term’s fees must also pay those without delay.”

It was like that. Even though I’d dropped last term, I still had to pay those fees if I wanted to continue. Together, the two terms equaled around two thousand kwacha. I actually hadn’t realized this, and I was certain my father hadn’t either. Given what we’d just been through, two thousand kwacha was an impossible amount. I knew my fate was sealed.

But instead of going home to ask my father for the money, for the next two weeks I tried to go to school for free.

I had to calculate my movements carefully. On Mondays and Fridays, W. M. Phiri held assembly inside the same classroom. There he read aloud all the names of students who’d already paid their fees, telling them, “Go to class straightaway.” The students who remained in the assembly weren’t allowed to enter the classrooms unless they produced a receipt. It was so embarrassing.

Geoffrey had been humiliated like this two years before, so I was ready. On the first day of roll call, I arrived at school with Gilbert as usual, but once the other students began filing into assembly, I ducked into the latrines at the edge of the school grounds. I stayed low and peeked out the tiny window. When everyone was released to join their classes, I slipped into the crowd like a cat in the henhouse.

Once in class, I sat in the back corner of the room with my head down. I was so scared of getting caught, I never asked questions for fear of looking suspicious.
As long as I’m silent,
I thought,
I can listen and still learn.
I was certain Mister Tembo was wise to my tricks, remembering that I was booted the previous term for lack of fees.

Several students got nabbed without receipts and were publicly expelled, making me incredibly nervous about this game I was playing. In the mornings I got awful stomachaches; it was so bad one day that I almost
confessed to my father and ended it all. Gilbert would meet me on the road and we’d joke about my cunning tricks.

“Good morning, friend. I’m happy to see you’re trying your luck again.”

“Yah, let’s hope today is not the end.”

“Just stay quiet and keep your head down.”

“I guess.”

Finally, after two weeks, the teachers caught on to me. That morning, Mister Tembo read aloud the names of debtors in class, and that’s when I was caught. The second my name was called, I stood up and walked to the door.

“Guys, I paid…just forgot my receipt,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it and come right back…”

Once outside, I nearly started crying. I went home and told my father the news.

“I’ve been expecting this,” he said. “I just didn’t know when.”

Instead of breaking my heart, my father went to see Mister Tembo and pleaded on my behalf. The tobacco would finally be dried and ready in a few weeks’ time, and after paying his creditors who’d given us maize against our crop, my father was hoping against hope there’d be enough to sell at auction and pay for my school.

“I’ll have the money soon,” he pleaded. “Just please let him stay.”

Mister Tembo spoke to a few other teachers. They agreed to let me to stay in school for three more weeks, long enough for my father to sell the tobacco.

These three weeks were fantastic, like winning the jackpot! No more sneaking around, no more butterflies in my stomach. Now I could relax and learn and participate in class. Now when the teacher cracked a joke, I laughed at the top of my voice.

“Oh, that’s so funny!”

“Good point!” I’d say, whenever he made one. “I didn’t know
that!
”

The other students gave me strange looks, but I didn’t care.

“These past weeks he’s playing the cool, quiet guy,” they said. “But look at him now. What’s happened?”

At the end of three weeks, the tobacco was finally dried and ready, turning a light chocolate brown in the sun. And once this happened, the cock came home to roost: the creditors began turning up at our house, looking to be paid.

“I’ve come for my fifty kilos,” one said.

“Given our earlier agreement, do you have my twenty kilos?” asked another.

By the time the last trader left pushing a bicycle laden with our tobacco, only one sixty-five-kilogram bale was left hanging under the shelter. My father loaded it into a pickup and took it to Auction Holdings Limited in Lilongwe, where he received around eighty U.S. cents a kilo. But out of that sixty-five kilos of tobacco, only about fifty were a worthy grade for the floor. After transport costs and government taxes (about 7 percent), my father came home with around two thousand kwacha. It was just enough to cover my school fees, but then there’d be nothing left for the necessities of home, such as cooking oil, salt, soap, or medicine if someone got sick. Once again, we were broke.

My father tried negotiating again with Mister Tembo, but W. M. Phiri had already forbidden me to return. The Minister of Education was visiting various schools to ensure that all the students had paid their fees.

“If we’re caught,” said Mister Tembo, “some people could lose their jobs.”

I was sitting on a chair in the yard when my father returned with this bad news. His eyes were pale and troubled, as if he’d wrestled with a ghost. I recognized the look on his face. It was one I knew well.

“I’ve done my best,” my father said, “but the famine took everything.”

He kneeled down to face me. “Please understand me, son.
Pepani, kwambiri.
Your father tried.”

It was too difficult to look at him.
“Chabwino,”
I said. “I understand.”

At least with daughters, like my sister Annie, a father can hope they’ll marry a husband who can provide a home and food, even help them con
tinue their schooling. But with a boy it’s different. My education meant everything to my father. That night he told my mother he’d failed his only son. “Today,” he said. “I’m a failure to my whole family.”

I couldn’t blame my father for the famine or our troubles. But for the next week I couldn’t look him in the eyes. Whenever I did, I saw the rest of my life.

My greatest fear was coming true: I would end up just like him, another poor Malawian farmer laboring in the soil. Thin and dirty, with hands as rough as animal hides and feet that knew no shoes. I loved my father and respected him deeply, but I did not want to end up like him. If I did, my life would never be determined by me, but by rain and the price of fertilizer and seeds. I would do what every Malawian was supposed to do, what was written by God and the constitution: I would grow maize, and if I was lucky, maybe a little tobacco. And years when the crops were good and there was a little extra to sell, perhaps I could buy some medicine and a new pair of shoes. But most of the time, I knew, there would be hardly enough to simply survive. My future had been chosen, and thinking about it now scared me so much I wanted to be sick. But what could I do? Nothing, only accept.

I
HAD NO TIME
to wallow and grieve. The maize was ready, and my father needed all hands in the fields. I went into the harvest with a mixed heart. I was so convinced I’d never go to school again that entering the maize rows seemed like surrender, like walking into prison and locking my own door. But at the same time, my God, we were finally harvesting our food.

Harvests were always wonderful occasions, a time to think about all the mornings you awoke at 4:00
A.M.
with the spiders in the toilet and hyenas in the fields—all the hard work of digging ridges, planting, and weeding and long days in the sun. We harvested all day with a satisfied mind, and at night we slept like a lion with a belly full of food. Harvests are a time to remember your sacrifice.

This time around, after two years of turmoil, of walking the desert in search of Canaan, it was as if God had led us out of bondage and revealed our great reward: we had a beautiful crop of maize, the best we’d seen in years.

For two weeks the work never stopped. First we walked down the rows with our pangas, chopping the tall stalks to the ground. Another person came behind, gathering together five to ten stalks and laying them across the rows. When this was finished, we collected the small heaps and piled them together into larger heaps called
mkukwes,
which stood upright and leaned together. This was to prevent the termites and mice from eating the cobs.

At the end of that month, we had four giant
mkukwes—
the most we’d had in many seasons. My father and I stood together and admired this beautiful bounty.

“It’s unbelievable,” I said.

“I know,” said my father. “Even after eating and losing all that
dowe,
we’re still blessed. Look at all this maize.”

“What a harvest!”

We ripped the maize cobs off the stalks and stacked them into a pile, then hauled them to our house by oxcart. The man who owned the ox was paid in maize, as was the shopkeeper who then sold us the insecticide to keep off the weevils. For the next several weeks, we spent entire days sitting in the courtyard with a pile of cobs plucking off the grains and putting them into bags. We listened to the radio. We talked about weather. It was life brought back to normal.

In storage, our grain sacks were full once again, leaning fat and heavy against the wall, so many that they reached the ceiling and spilled out the doorway. Some soybeans from our garden had also matured, which meant we could now eat regular meals. Slowly, all the weight we’d lost during the famine started coming back.

“Ay, Papa,” my mother said to my father, “you were looking
so skinny.”

“And you, Mama,” my father joked, “I see you’re finally coming back
to us. But William,
eh,
I was worried a strong wind was going to carry that boy from the fields.”

We all laughed about it now, because it was only during better times that we truly acknowledged the bad ones.

W
ITH THE HARVEST FINALLY
over, I was able to return to the scrapyard and continue searching for windmill pieces. I’d find one thing in the grass, pick it up, and think,
Now what is this?
only to spot something else that interested me even more. One day I was looking in some weeds and found the differential of a four-wheel drive. Using my screwdriver, I pried it open and discovered loads of fresh black engine grease. I scraped it into a plastic bag for future use. I also found cotter pins and tangled bits of wire, in addition to things I’d probably never use—brake pedals, gear levers, and the crankshaft of a small car engine. I took them all home anyway.

I was lucky because one of the biggest pieces I needed was right under my own roof from the start. My father had a broken bicycle and kept it against the wall in our living room, going no place. It had no handlebars, only one wheel, and a frame that was as rusted as anything in the scrapyard. I’d offered to repair that bike many times, but my father always said the same thing: “There’s just no money.”