The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

(The Young Readers Edition)

OF HOMERS AND HEROES

(Originally published in Common Place Quarterley's 'Character(s) To Live By' column)

As a child, I would eagerly look forward to sitting in the branches of our mango tree and reading. Those memories are all mixed up with the floral-sweetness of stringy mangoes, unfit for mere mortals, their juicy essence rolling down my arm. With overcast Christmas skies concealing me from the prying gaze of jealous gods, I hid in the leaves of my book and the tree. My grown-up mind is appalled at the thought of how I could have held a book and eaten mangoes at the same time! But only a little girl knows that sinful secret.

William Kamkwamba, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, also shares memories of mango trees and books. He writes about his cure for homesickness while away at boarding school: "I would hide away in the school library, where the books filled rows and rows of shelves. I'd find a chair and study my lesson books in geography, social studies, biology, and math. I'd lose myself in American and African history, and within the colourful maps of the world. No matter how foreign and lonely the world was outside, the books always reminded me of home, sitting under the mango tree."

William originally discovered a love for reading in his village's tiny library. There were books from all over the world, "I spent hours that morning sitting on the floor, flipping through pages and marvelling at the pictures. For the first time in my life, I experienced what it felt like to escape without going anywhere." When he returned home to his family's hut, he fashioned a simple hammock from flour sacks strung between two trees and spent many hours reading in the shade.

It was in that tiny village library that William got an idea that would seize and possess him, taking him on a breathtaking adventure.

In Philosophy of Education, Charlotte Mason writes that no phrase is more promising than, “I have an idea.” William's story is a marvellous example of her principle that, "Education is a life. That life is sustained on ideas. Ideas are of spiritual origin, and God has made us so that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another, whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical symphony; but we must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food." (Charlotte Mason, V.6, p. 109)

After William and his family and neighbours endured a life-threatening season of drought, the idea of a windmill became a "seed-thought [that] perfected itself in his life", (Charlotte Mason, V.4, II, p. 162) bearing fruit and becoming a source of life and plenty for many. He wrote that "The pictures in the book had provided the idea, hunger and darkness gave me inspiration…"

William's story brought tears of laughter and sadness to my eyes. His resilience through deprivation and hard times and his courageous pursuit of his dreams are an example to us all. He chose (willed) to be “available for service [to those around him] by means of knowledge, love, and endeavour" (Charlotte Mason, V.4, II, p.151). With his enlightened imagination, he was able to push past some of the seemingly impossible barriers of living in a remote African village.

This young man harnessed a vision that defied the gods of ignorance and poverty, a dream that brought soothing winds of change to his family and those around him. "Think of your dreams and ideas as tiny miracle machines inside you that no one can touch. The more faith you put into them, the bigger they get, until one day they'll rise up and take you with them."