The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind Read Online Free PDF

shadow of the great mountain where the Chewa defeated the Ngoni, Banda had walked barefoot one thousand miles to work in the gold mines of South Africa. Later, he was given a scholarship to universities in Indiana and Tennessee, where he earned a degree in medicine. He was a doctor in England before he returned to Malawi to deliver us from British rule. He became our first great leader, and in 1971, under his extreme pressure, our Parliament gave him the title Life President.
    Banda was a tough man. He demanded that every trader in Malawi hang his picture in his shop, and no other photo could dare hang higher. If you didn’t have the image of our Dear President on the wall—dressed in his three-piece suit and clutching a flywhisk—you would pay a hefty price. It was a frightening and confusing period in our history. Banda also forbade women to wear pants or dresses above the knee. For men, having long hair would get you tossed in jail. Kissing in public was also forbidden, as were films where kissing was portrayed. The president hated kissing, and even today, people are scared of smooching in the open. On top of that, policemen and the Young Pioneers—Banda’s personal thugs—were always snatching up people who dared criticize his policies. Many Malawians were jailed, tortured, and even tossed into pits of hungry crocodiles.
    Despite all of this, it was an exciting time to be a trader. My father tells stories about hitchhiking in pickups across the countryside to Lake Malawi, where he bought bundles of dried fish, rice, and used clothing, to sell back in the Dowa market. Lake Malawi is one of the biggest in the world and nearly covers the entire eastern half of our country. It’s so vast it has waves like an ocean. I was twenty years old before I ever saw this lake with my own eyes, despite having grown up only two hours from its shores. But once I stood on its banks and looked out across its endless-looking water, my heart was filled with a great love for my country.
    Once at the lake, the traders would travel to the cities of Nkhotakota and Mangochi aboard the steamer ships Ilala and Chauncy Maples, where good food was served, and traders drank and danced on the decks through the voyage. At the lake my father bartered with the Muslim businessmen, known as the Yao, who populate that part of the country.
    The Yao arrived in Malawi more than a hundred years ago from across the lake in Mozambique. The Arabs from Zanzibar convinced them to become Muslim, then recruited them to capture our Chewa people and put us into bondage. They raided our villages, killed our men, then sent our women and children across the lake in boats. Once there, the slaves were shackled by the neck and made to march across Tanzania. This took three months. Once they reached the ocean, most of them were dead. Later on,the Yao captured and traded us to the Portuguese in exchange for guns, gold, and salt.
    If it weren’t for the great Scottish missionary David Livingstone, the Yao and Chewa might still be at odds today. Livingstone helped end slavery, opened Malawi to trade, and built good schools and missions. Young men became educated and earned money, and once these economic opportunities were available to all, our two tribes had little reason to fight. Today we consider the Yao our brothers and sisters. My mother herself is a Yao, and I am half Yao.

    The Pope in his crazy days, sitting at his stall (center with dark shirt) in the Dowa market with his pals.
Photographs courtesy of Kamkwamba family
    My father has told me many stories about the small town of Mangochi, located on the southern tip of the lake, just near the mouth of the Shire River. The way he describes this place makes it sound like the great bazaars of northern Africa I’ve read about in books. The streets were filled with traders from all over Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique, all their different languages and songs mixing with the smell of sweating bodies, spices, fried