The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (21 page)

“What is this thing?” he asked.

Since there’s no word in Chichewa for windmill, I used the phrase
magetsi a mphepo.

“Electric wind,” I answered.

“What does it do?”

“Generates electricity from the wind. I’ll show you.”

“That’s impossible,” Kalino said, smiling. Then he turned to get a reaction from the crowd. “It looks like a transmitter, and what kind of toy is that?”

“Stand back and watch.”

I jumped down from the tower and ran to my room to get the final piece. That morning I’d found a thick reed and cut a section about ten inches long—the perfect size to hold the dynamo’s small lightbulb. I
then wrapped a long copper wire around the base of the bulb and strung it through the reed so that one end dangled out the side. This was my socket.

With the reed and bulb in my hand, I climbed the tower again and twisted its wires against the ones from the dynamo. As I did this, more and more people arrived. I watched the chorus below from the corner of my eye.

“What do you suppose he’s doing now?” asked a farmer named Banda.

“This is the
misala
from the scrapyard my children spoke about,” a fat man answered. “His poor mother!”

Looking out, I saw my parents and sisters hanging at the back of the crowd, eyes wide and waiting. Their jaws hung slightly open, as if there were seconds left on the clock and I had the ball. By now, my movements were automatic. I’d practiced this moment for months.

Aside from my family, about thirty adults had now gathered, and just as many children. They pointed at me.

“Let’s see how crazy this boy really is.”

“Quiet down! This is going to be a good show.”

A steady wind whipped through the rungs of the tower, mixing the smells of chain grease and melted plastic. The bent bicycle spoke remained jammed into the wheel to hold it in place, but now the machine groaned against the breeze, as if begging me to release it.

Here it goes,
I thought.

I grabbed the bicycle spoke and jerked it loose. When I did, the blades began to turn. The chain snapped tight against the sprocket, and the tire spun slowly, creaking and groaning at first. Everything was happening in slow motion. I needed it to go faster, immediately.

“Come on,” I begged. “Don’t embarrass me now.”

Slowly, the blades picked up speed.

Come on,
I thought,
come on.

Just then a gust of wind slammed against my body, and the blades kicked up like mad. The tower rocked once, knocking me off balance. I
wrapped my elbow around the wooden rung as the blades spun like furious propellers behind my head. I held the bulb before me, waiting for my miracle. It flickered once. Just a flash at first, then a surge of bright, magnificent light. My heart nearly burst.

“Look,” someone said. “He’s made light!”

“It’s true what he said!”

A gang of school kids pushed through the crowd so they could see better.

“Look how it spins!” they said.

It was glorious light, and it was absolutely mine! I threw my hands in the air and screamed with joy. I began to laugh so hard I became dizzy. Dangling now by one arm with the bulb burning bright in my hand, I looked down at the eyes below—now wide in disbelief.

“Electric wind!” I shouted. “I told you I wasn’t mad!”

One by one, the crowd began to cheer. They raised their hands in the air, clapping and shouting,
“Wachitabwina!
Well done!”

“You did it, William!”

“We doubted you, but look at you now!”

My first big windmill, measuring five meters (more than sixteen feet) and powered by the twelve-volt bicycle dynamo. My proudest creation.

“I did it,” I said. “And I’m going bigger now. Just wait and see!”

The adults began shouting questions up to me, but the noise of the blades ripping the wind behind me drowned out their voices. They crowded around Gilbert and Geoffrey instead, grilling them on the details. These guys couldn’t stop smiling.

I stood up there for
about thirty minutes, taking in everything around me. It was a good place to stand and soak it all in. I only climbed down after the bulb became too hot with current and I had to let it go.

L
ATE IN THE AFTERNOON,
I wired the bulb to the top rung of the windmill and left it. I was still high from the experience and needed to burn off some energy, so I went to the trading center to bask in the glory. From the market stalls, I could see the light at the bottom of the valley, flickering through the heat waves. I stood there for quite a while just watching it.

“What’s that thing down there?” said a man nearby, clutching a sack of tomatoes. “It’s catching the wind just like a helicopter.”

The tomato seller was named Maggie, a friend of my mother’s. “Well, the owner is this boy here,” she said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“Is this true? How is that possible?”

I explained it to everyone the same way.

“I still don’t understand,” he said. “I need to come see myself.”

For the next month, about thirty people showed up each day to stare at the light.

“How did you manage such a thing?” they asked.

“Hard work and lots of research,” I’d say, trying not to sound too smug.

Many of these onlookers were businessmen from other districts who’d come to trade in the market. To the traveling traders, the windmill became a kind of roadside attraction, a must-stop while passing through Wimbe. Others came on bicycles from outer villages, with chickens and sacks of maize strapped to their bike racks with tire rubber. Women carrying flour on their heads stopped and spoke to my mother.

“God has blessed you,” one said. “You have a child who can perform wonders. You’ll never complain about kerosene.”

The men who passed through approached my father.

“Your son made this?”

“Yes.”

“What an intelligent boy. Where did he get such ideas?”

“He’s been reading lots of books. Maybe from there?”

“They teach this in school?”

“He was forced to drop. He did this on his own.”

That month I was busy clearing the fields and preparing them for the next growing season, working each day with joy in my heart. If I was in the field nearest the house, I’d pause in between swings of my hoe and just watch the blades spin.

When I came home after work each night, my mother told me, “Many more people came by today. They asked a lot of questions, but I can’t explain. I told them to come back.”

One night while playing
bawo
near the barbershop with Gilbert and Geoffrey, the trading center went black from another power cut. I quickly snuck home under the mask of darkness and connected the bulb, then ran back.

“Oh, I hate these power cuts!” a man said, leaving the barbershop and covering his head with a cap.

“Power cuts?” I asked with a smile. “What power cuts? Have you gents seen my house?”

Mister Iponga leaned out his shop, still clutching his dead clippers. “I think you take pride in our power cuts just so you can boast about your electric wind.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

A
FTER A MONTH,
I started working on running the lighting into my room. I needed a lot of electrical wire to do this, and as usual, I had no money to buy it. A couple of days later, Gilbert and I were hanging out at Charity’s house near the trading center when I noticed meters and meters of insulated copper wire—just the kind I needed—being used as clothing line. In the corner of the room sat a large spool.

“Eh,
man,” I said to Charity. “How can you play around with wires like this when I need them so much?”

Charity said he’d been given the wire as payment for some work he’d done with his uncle, who was a trucker. He’d give me a discount because I
was a relative. I told him I’d have to earn some money first, maybe find a job in the market or something.

“I’ll go looking now,” I said, but before I could get very far, Gilbert pulled out one hundred kwacha and gave it to Charity. Just like that, I had thirty meters of wire.

“This is just what I needed, Gilbert,” I said. “Now I’ll have lights in my room. Promise I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t bother,” he said. “Just put lights in your room.”

Once again, when all my hope was looking lost, Gilbert offered to help.

I
RAN HOME FROM
Charity’s clutching the spool of wire. I flew down the trail, into the valley, then stopped near a clearing of trees just before my house. I could see the windmill, its blades spinning furiously. My stomach did a flip every time I saw it. I then took a deep breath and continued home.

I unspooled the wire from its wooden base and measured the distance between the dynamo and my room. Pulling out a few extra meters to be safe, I clipped it with my knife. With the wire in one hand, I climbed the tower. I unhooked the reed and bulb from the top rung, then pulled at the dynamo wires attached. I didn’t want a shock, so I avoided touching both wires together. The wind was kicking up, spinning the blades so fast and close I was nervous they were about to give me a haircut. Finally, after some serious twisting and pulling, the wires snapped apart. I put the bulb and reed into my pocket, then twisted the new copper wiring to the dynamo wires, wrapping a black
jumbo
at the point of connection. I then climbed down.

The roof of my bedroom was constructed from several blue gum poles supporting a sheet of black plastic and layers of grass thatching. Leaning a ladder against the outside wall of my room, I located the middle beam and wrapped it several times with wire, leaving about two meters to spare. I then hooked the end of the wire to a long bamboo pole and pushed it along the roof beam, under the plastic and thatch, and into my room.

Once inside, I grabbed hold of the wire and, while standing on the
bed, wrapped it around the beam above. When I reattached the reed and bulb, the light powered on. I ran to the door and slammed it closed, then marveled at the new electricity. My window was only a sliver in the wall, giving no real light. With the door closed, the light illuminated everything. I saw the piles of metal scraps in the corners, the random nuts and bolts and wire clippings strung along the mud floor. For once, I had my own private, lighted space.

Me connecting the light bulb in my room. As you can see, it’s just a small car bulb that dangled from my ceiling.
Photographs courtesy of Tom Rielly

My sisters had seen me run inside, and now they were knocking and asking what was happening.

“Can we see it?” asked Doris.

“Come on in,” I said.

That evening, I lay in bed and stared up at the bulb. It flickered yellow with the creaking sound of the blades outside, bright enough to see my hands and feet and the library books at my side. My parents and sisters all stopped by to see for themselves, squeezing into my tiny room to marvel at this new addition to our home.

“Look at William, staying up past the dark!” my father said.

“Congratulations, son,” said my mother. “You know, we’d also like our rooms to have these lights. Think you could manage?”

“Oh,” I joked, “are you sure you want to use electricity generated by a madman?”

“Eh,
you proved everyone wrong,” she said, smiling. “But I admit, I did worry about you.”

“What if the wind stops blowing?” asked Rose.

“Well,” I said, “the light goes off, and I’m stranded. But I’m already thinking of a plan for having a battery.”

Once I had more wire and a car battery, I explained, I could store electricity for the times when the wind stops blowing. It could also provide light for the entire house. It would have to be done little by little, but once complete, it would save my parents the money they normally spent on kerosene, and that was just the beginning. The next machine would pump water for our fields. One day, windmills would be our shield against hunger.

That night, I was too excited to sleep. After everyone went to bed, I stayed awake and flipped through
Explaining Physics,
preparing for the next step. Every now and then, I stopped what I was doing and looked up at the light and the way it blinked and flickered. The warm glow painted the walls and the pages of the book and shined against the red clouds of dust pushed in from outside.