by Tara Harte, with excerpts from
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by
William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, Africa, on August 5, 1987. His dad was a farmer and his mom looked after William, his sisters, and their home.

William’s family lived in the “breadbasket” of Malawi. This meant that the area produced the most maize (corn) in the country. Farmers, like William’s dad, also grew tobacco. They sold it to buy more seeds and fertilizer for the next year’s crop. Maize, however, was a family’s main source of food all year round: it was served at every meal. Farmers also sold maize at the local market. As long as it rained, farmers could grow maize. They believed they would never go hungry.

But one day, too much rain came, followed by months of no rain at all. William tells us what happened in December 2000.

William’s family harvested only five sacks of grain, when most years they harvested enough grain to fill a large storage room. The five sacks had to last until the next harvest, one whole year away. In emergencies like this, farmers could sometimes go to the government to get grain. However, the Malawian government had sold all the grain to pay off its debts to other countries. There was nothing left to give to farmers. William’s parents decided they would try to make their five sacks of grain stretch by eating one small meal per day. William describes a typical meal.

As the months passed, William and his family began to starve, and
they weren’t the only ones. More than seven million people, about
three-quarters of Malawi’s population, were going hungry.