The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba Read Free Book Online Page A

Chief Wimbe, so he gave my father a one-acre plot about two kilometers from the house. There we could grow our own burley tobacco to sell, along with maize and other vegetables to eat. Maize is just another word for white corn, and by the end of this story, you won’t believe how much you know about corn.
    When we first arrived, Uncle John was busy planting his tobacco, which was the first item that needed my father’s help. My father would wake up early before the first cock and go down to the grassy marshes in the valley, which we called dambo s. Because tobacco seeds require loads of water for them to break ground, many farmers plant nursery beds by the dambo s where they can easily water them daily. Each farmer has his own plot by the marsh—nothing official with papers or signatures, just a piece of ground you always know is yours. Not only is there water, but the soil in the dambo is deep black and full of nutrientsthat a little tobacco seedling requires to grow strong.
    Making nursery beds is done just before the rainy season when the sun is the hottest. The work is hard and dirty, and my father quickly felt exhausted. During those first weeks, he’d dream of his stall at the trading center, how he used to just sit and chat with friends and customers, how he’d knock off at lunch for an hour to see his family, even take a quick nap before returning to work. It would have been easier to just tell his brother he’d made a mistake and return to Dowa, but my father buckled down and pressed on. He’d seen how much money Uncle John was earning, and he wanted the same for himself. Often he’d work so hard and late in the day that his brother would come looking for him, thinking he’d tripped and drowned in the dambo.
    “Take a break, brother,” he’d say. “Leave some for tomorrow. Reserve your strength, you’ll need it.”
    “Just a bit longer,” my father would say, his body covered in mud from head to toe.
     
    W HEN U NCLE J OHN HAD visited Dowa and mentioned having a big place for my father, he wasn’t talking about the living arrangements. With five people, our little house quickly became crowded.
    After ten long hours of working in the sun, my father would come home and then start working on building our new house. Weekends were also spent this way. The bricks were fashioned out of grass and clay, which was pressed into a wooden mold about seventy-five centimeters long.
    To get the clay, my father dug deep pits near the fields that swallowed his entire body. He’d scoop buckets of clay that weighed a hundred pounds, hoist them onto his shoulders, and climb out using steps he’d carved into the wall with a hoe. He’d then cart the pails two kilometers back to the house, dump them, then do it all over again.
    After molding the bricks, my father spent days in the valley hacking the long-stemmed grasses to be used for roofing, then tied them into round bales. Sometimes John sent a few seasonal workers from his fields to help with the build-mostly alone. After two months, we had a two-room house. Later, he’d say it was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

    Me as a young boy in Masitala village, no doubt plotting some mischief to cause my mother grief.
Photographs courtesy of Kamkwamba family
    “Well done, brother,” Uncle John said as he passed, joking with my father, who was about to collapse from exhaustion. “This is a good house. You know, every man needs a good house.”
    We lived in this house for three years until our growing clan became too big. Before long, there were five kids in our family, with me the only boy. By this time my father had earned enough on the farm to hire some men to construct two new buildings. The first one had a family room and master bedroom, plus a grain storage area. The other building, just across a narrow open corridor, had a kitchen, plus a separate bedroom for me and my sisters.
    My bedroom became my fortress against the squabbling girls, a hideaway where I