The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (7 page)

In the corner, someone had built a bed from blue gum poles and maize sacks stuffed with grass. Dirty clothes were strewn everywhere, along with mango peels and groundnut shells and other strange pieces of rubbish. One wall featured a poster of the soccer club MTL Wanderers—otherwise known as the Nomads—which were my favorite team in the Malawi Super League, and possibly the whole world. A poster of their chief rivals, Big Bullets, adorned the opposite wall, and I can’t tell you how much I hated Big Bullets. A fireplace sat in the corner—just a large shallow pot with
holes poked in the sides for ventilation and filled with charred maize piths and wood. A small window above ventilated the smoke, but not very well. It also let in the room’s only light, a thin beam of sunshine that was polluted with hanging dust. The air stank like dirty feet. To me, it was the greatest place in the world.

Because I was young and annoying, I was mostly forbidden from entering the clubhouse, unless, of course, I earned my entry. A few times I was allowed in after helping steal mangoes. Charity would make me wear a
mpango
sack around my neck and sneak into the neighbor’s compound. With my knife in my teeth, I’d climb the trees and quietly snip the mangoes and drop them into the sack. I’d take them back to
mphala
and they’d let me inside. It was like paying dues.

Once inside, the conversation was lurid and often confusing for my eleven-year-old mind. Much of the talk was about girls, and I was lucky if they forgot I was there. One time, Mizeck stopped midway through a story about a certain girl he’d seen in town and said to Charity, “We should take care, we have a child among us. This boy can’t handle such stories.”

I started pleading. “I’m not a child. Come on guys, carry on. I’m a big man. I know some things about girls.”

“Oh yeah, and what do you know?”

“I know…I know what you know.”

A
S
K
HAMBA AND
I walked home from the hunt, I knew I’d earned enough loot to gain myself an entry. As I got close, I heard Charity and Mizeck inside. I knocked and Charity swung open the door.

“What?”

“Guys, I got four birds just now! They’re here in my pockets. Can I come in?”

Mizeck appeared at the door. “What do you have for us?”

“Four birds.”

He smiled. “This is the type of man we need here at
mphala.
Good job.”

“We’ll make a fire,” said Charity.

I walked inside beaming. Khamba followed.

“Get that stupid dog out of here,” shouted Mizeck. “He’s going to think he lives here or something. Dogs don’t belong inside, don’t you know this? I bet you even talk to that thing.”

“Khamba,” I screamed, “get outside!”

I reared back my leg, and he scurried out the door, then looked at me confused.

“Just wait,” I whispered.

I began cleaning my birds, plucking off the feathers and shaking them from my fingers into a pail. I popped the heads off and scooped out the entrails. When I opened the door, Khamba was waiting. This was his hunting treat, a reward more treasured than life itself. I tossed each head into the air, and Khamba leaped up and grabbed them. One crunch and they were gone. The entrails were slurped in a gulp.

Back inside, Charity and Mizeck already had the birds laid over the coals. The sizzling meat smelled delicious.

“Guys,” I said, “I’m really starting to salivate!”

“Be quiet.”

Once they finished cooking my birds, they even allowed me to eat one. But as soon as I was no longer useful to them, the inevitable happened.

“Hey boy,” said Mizeck, “don’t I hear your mother calling?”

“What? I don’t hear anything.”

“He’s right,” said Charity. “That’s definitely your mother.”

My marching orders had been given. Without protest, I holstered my knife back into my waistband, called my dog, and together we returned home to a houseful of girls.

T
HE YEAR
I
TURNED
thirteen marked the beginning of a new century, and gradually, I noticed a change happening in myself. I started growing up.

I stopped hunting as much and started hanging out more in the trading center, socializing and meeting new people. Gilbert was usually with me, along with Geoffrey and a few others. We’d go there and play endless rounds of
bawo,
a game that’s very popular in Malawi and East Africa.
Bawo
is a mancala game played with marbles or seeds on a long wooden board lined with holes. Each player had two rows of eight holes each. The object is to capture your opponent’s front row of marbles and prohibit him from moving.

Bawo
requires a lot of strategy and quick thinking. I’ll admit, I was pretty good at this game and would often beat the other boys at the trading center, a small revenge since most of them had benched me in soccer when we were younger. If I never got
mangolomera,
at least I had
bawo.

Each time I left for the trading center to see my friends, Khamba would perk up and try to follow me. He missed our trips together, but I forbade him to tag along. People would think I was backwards for walking with a dog. One time Khamba followed me to the trading center without my realizing he was there. When I got to the fig tree near the barbershop where we played
bawo,
someone pointed and laughed.

“Why do you need this dog behind you?” they said. “I don’t see any rabbits or birds around. Are you going hunting in the market?”

The other boys started laughing too. It was embarrassing. After that, whenever Khamba tried to follow, I had to get mean.

I cursed and shouted, but of course, he never listened. After a few meters, I had to pick up a small stone and hurl it toward his head.

“Now leave me alone!”

After a few times, he got the message. He’d still come to the trading center on his own, usually during July mating season, when the female dogs were in heat and roaming the villages. He’d see me and gallop over, wagging his long tail. I’d always stop him short.

“Get!” I’d shout, kicking the dust to scare him before anyone saw me.

Also, as I got older, the day-to-day fate of the MTL Nomads no longer determined my moods and emotions. Throughout my life, the Nomads had been more than men. I listened to every game on Radio One and imagined them as giants. When the Nomads lost—especially to Big Bullets—I became so upset I couldn’t even eat supper, not even if my mother served chicken, and I loved chicken. This following had become an obsession. During a game that year with Big Bullets, my heart started beating so quickly I was convinced I was dying (I think they’re called anxiety attacks). I thought,
What am I doing to myself? Soccer is too stressful for my health.
After that, I sort of stopped following the game altogether.

A
ROUND THIS SAME TIME,
Geoffrey and I started taking apart some old broken radios to see what was inside, and we began figuring out how they worked so we could fix them.

In Malawi and most parts of Africa that don’t have electricity for television, the radio is our only connection to the world outside the village. In most places you go, whether it’s the deepest bush, or the busy streets of the city, you’ll see people listening to small, handheld radios. You’ll hear Malawian reggae or American rhythm and blues from Radio Two in Blantyre, or Chichewa gospel choirs and church sermons from Lilongwe.

Ever since the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation began, around the time of independence, Malawians have thought of their radios like members of their families. My father talked about the early days of MBC and hearing Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers from America and the wonderful sounds of Robert Fumulani. Back then, agriculture programs were very popular, and my father remembers President Banda—Farmer Number One—reminding everyone to clear fields, dig ridges, and plant before the rains, saying that doing so would make Malawians happy and successful. He also reminded people to apply manure! And for me growing up, I’ll always remember listening to the Sunday sermons of Shadreck Wame from the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian in Lilongwe, followed by the Sunday Top Twenty.

Unfortunately, until a few years ago, there were only two radio stations—Radio One and Radio Two—that were both operated by the government. This greatly reduced our window into the outside world.

From the first time I heard the sounds coming from the radio, I wanted to know what was going on inside. I’d stare at the exposed circuit boards and wonder what all those wires did, why they were different colors, and where they all went. How did these wires and bits of plastic make it possible for a DJ in Blantyre to be speaking here in my home? How could music be playing on one end of the dial while the preacher spoke on the other? Who’d arranged them this way, and how did this person learn such wonderful knowledge?

Through nothing more than trial and error, we discovered that the white noise was caused by the integrated circuit board, the biggest piece, which contains all the wires and bits of plastic. Connected to the integrated circuit are little things that look like beans. These are transistors, and they control the power that moves through the radio into the speakers. Geoffrey and I learned this by disconnecting one transistor and hearing the volume greatly reduce. We didn’t own a proper soldering iron, so to perform repairs on the circuit boards, we heated a thick wire over the kitchen fire until it became red hot, then used it to fuse the metal joints together.

We also learned how the radio picks up each band, such as FM, AM,
and shortwave. To receive AM, the radio has an internal antenna because its waves are long, but in order to receive FM, the antenna must be outside and reach into the air to catch the smaller, more narrow waves. Just like light, if FM waves hit something like a tall tree or building, they’re blocked.

Since we learned everything through experimenting, a great many radios were sacrificed for our knowledge. I think we had one radio from each aunt and uncle and neighbor, all in a giant tangle of wires we kept in a box in Geoffrey’s room. But after we learned from our mistakes, people began bringing us their broken radios and asking us to fix them. Soon we had our own little business.

We operated out of Geoffrey’s small bedroom, located just behind his mother’s house. There we waited for customers, the floor below us strewn with heaps of wires, circuit boards, motors, shattered radio casings, and unidentifiable bits of metal and plastic that appeared along the way. Our usual exchange with clientele went something like this:

“Odi, odi,”
someone said, standing at the door. It was an old man from the next village, hiding his radio in his armpit like a chicken.

“Come in,” I said.

“I heard someone here fixes radios?”

“Yes, that would be me and my colleague, Mister Geoffrey. What’s the problem?”

“But you’re so young. How could this be?”

“You mustn’t doubt us. Tell me the problem.”

“I can’t find the station. It won’t listen.”

“Let me see…hmmm…yes, I think we can manage. You’ll have it before supper.”

“Make it before six! It’s Saturday, and I have my theater dramas.”

“Sure, sure.”

I
F WE WERE GOING
to determine what was broken in the radios, we needed a power source. With no electricity, this meant batteries. But bat
teries were expensive, and Geoffrey and I didn’t earn enough from our repairs to keep buying them. Instead, we’d walk to the trading center and look for used cells that had been tossed in the waste bins. We’d collect maybe five or six, along with an empty carton of Shake Shake booze. Even after all these years, I was still finding uses for these stinking cartons.

First we’d test the battery to see if any juice was left in it. We’d attach two wires to the positive and negative ends and connect them to a torch bulb. The brighter the bulb, the stronger the battery. Next we’d flatten the Shake Shake carton and roll it into a tube, then stack the batteries inside, making sure the positives and negatives faced in the same direction. Then we’d run wires from each end of the stack to the positive and negative heads inside the radio, where the batteries normally go. Together, this stack of dead batteries usually contained enough juice to power a radio.

Of course, success also depended on the brand of batteries and what they’d been used for. Handheld radios use very little power so they often drain a battery of its last drop, while cassette players require such high voltage that a battery can’t maintain it and fails, even though it leaves a bit of juice. The worst batteries (but unfortunately the most common) were the Chinese-made Tiger Heads that died after several hours in any player. That’s why we got so excited when we came across a beloved Malawian Sun battery, which were by far the strongest and powered our radios like none other.

“Mister Geoffrey, how lucky we are to have found a good Malawian Sun.”

“You’re right, mister man, we’ll get plenty of time out of this one.”

Often while we fixed our radios, people would approach us and say, “Look at the little scientists! Keep it up, boys, and one day you’ll have a good job.”

I’d become very interested in how things worked, yet never thought of this as science. In addition to radios, I’d also become fascinated by how cars worked, especially how petrol operated an engine.
How does this happen?
I thought.
Well, that’s easy to find out—just ask someone with a car.
I stopped the truckers in the trading center and asked them, “What makes
this truck move? How does your engine work?” But no one could tell me. They’d just smile and shake their heads. Really, how can you drive a truck and not know how it works?

Even my father, who I assumed knew everything, said: “The fuel burns and releases fire and…well, I’m not really sure. ”

Compact disc players were just getting popular in the trading center, and these fascinated me even more. I’d watch people insert this shiny plate into their radios and hear music.

“How did they put the sound on that?” I’d ask.

“Who cares?” most people would answer.

Although the people in the trading center were content to simply enjoy these things without explanation, these questions constantly filled my mind. If solving such mysteries was the job of a scientist, then a scientist is exactly what I wanted to become.

At the time, I attended Wimbe Primary School, located a kilometer down the wooded path past Gilbert’s house. The following year I’d sit for my Leaving Certificate Examination. If I passed, I’d advance to secondary school, where I heard students had more extended lessons in science and were even assigned experiments to conduct.

T
O ME, BEING A
scientist was worlds better than farming, which by then had started taking up a large part of my time. My father was still growing a bit of tobacco to sell at auction, but our main crop was always maize—or
chimanga
—which fed our family year-round. Most Malawians were sustenance farmers who depended on their maize plots to survive. If you weren’t able to get food from anywhere else, at least you had grain in storage and your family could eat. Even people who lived in the city relied on their brother or nephew in the village to tend a plot of maize for them. Everyone needed this during the growing season when grain prices were high in the markets.

In Malawi, we eat maize with every meal, and most families serve this in the form of a doughlike porridge called
nsima
(pronounced like
“seema”).
Nsima
is made by adding maize flour to hot (but not boiling) water until it becomes too thick to stir, then scooping it into cakes about the size of American hamburger patties. Tearing off a piece, you roll the
nsima
into a ball in your palm, then use it to scoop up your relish—usually beans or leafy greens, such as mustards, rape, or pumpkin leaves, whatever happens to be in season. If your family is fortunate, maybe you also have some goat or chicken. My favorite is dried fish with tomatoes!

Everyone from the fat politicians to the dogs and cats depends on
nsima
to live. Each night after our supper, Khamba would be waiting by his food bowl to get his delicious helping. Most of the time he didn’t even chew his portion, just inhaled it whole.

“How can you even enjoy it?” I’d ask.

Nsima
isn’t just an important part of our diet—our bodies depend on it the same way fish need water. If a foreigner invites a Malawian to supper and serves him plates of steak and pasta and chocolate cake for dessert, but no
nsima,
he’ll go home and tell his brothers and sisters, “There was no food there, only steak and pasta. I hope tonight I can sleep.”

Farming
chimanga
is a family activity that requires the help of every man, woman, and child who is old enough to work. Young girls usually help a bit with planting, weeding, and harvesting, but mostly they assist their mothers with the many chores around the home, such as fetching water, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of little ones. In Malawi, a woman’s contribution is often overlooked. By the time I was twelve years old, I had five sisters and no brothers, which meant I was the one who helped my father in the fields.

Work begins in July to clear the land from the previous harvest in May. We had to collect the dried maize stalks, stack them into heaps, called
chikuse,
and line them up in rows. Once all the
chikuse
were properly arranged I’d set them on fire and wait. Grasshoppers make their homes in these stacks, and once the stalks start burning, the grasshoppers fly out by the hundreds and are easy to catch. I’d throw them in sugar bags, then take them home to roast over the fire with salt. I’m telling you, I can eat huge
amounts of
nsima
with crunchy grasshoppers. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to be hunting grasshoppers while working, but we have a saying: “When you go to see the lake, you also see the hippos.”