Chapter 3

William and his friends find many ways to improve their trucks and personalize them or scratch the logos of well-known truck models designs into the wheels. As they get more ambitious, the boys even build wagons like American go-carts that can carry one person while another pulls a rope to make the car race down the street.

The boys of Wimbe often race their go-carts to Iponga’s barber shop, through the frequent power outages make it unlikely that anyone will get a full haircut in one sitting. They also go to Mister Banda’s convenience shop whenever they have a few spare coins to buy fried goat and chips, and they play in the bushes when they don’t have money. In the evenings, the women of the village prepare supper while the boys play soccer in the fields. Sometimes farmers from nearby villages stop by in the evening to barter with William’s father for produce or maize.

When night fully falls, the children gather inside while Trywell lights a kerosene lamp and prepares to tell folktales. One of William’s favorite stories is about the Leopard and the Lion. In the story, two little girls come to the house of an old man and fall asleep. The old man tells Leopard and Lion that he has food for them, and leads the animals back to his house. But the girls have already woken up and eaten the food, and there is only a note of thanks for the old man on the bed. The old man tells Lion and Leopard to wait in the garden, as he knows that they will eat him if he can’t find them another meal. The old man hides in a large gourd, until Lion and Leopard are tired of waiting. The animals go into the house and see that there is no meal. They then see the old man’s shirt sticking out of the gourd and drag the old man out. The old man tries to explain, but Lion and Leopard eat him.

The moral of the Lion and Leopard story is: Always wish others well, as planning misfortune for others will come back to haunt you. Trywell is an excellent story teller, because he draws from experiences of his own life that are magical enough to seem like stories.

Trywell, William’s father, lived in Dowa during the 70s and 80s working as a traveling trader rather than farming like the majority of Malawians. Malawi was under the control of President Hastings Banda at this time, a man who had worked his way up from a childhood in rural Malawian poverty to become a doctor in England and later to free Malawi from British colonial rule. In 1971, Banda forced the Malawian Parliament to make him Life President.

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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind Chapter 2Summary & Analysis

Themes Key











Summary

Analysis

Trywell, William’s father, lived in Dowa during the 70s and 80s working as a traveling trader rather than farming like the majority of Malawians. Malawi was under the control of President Hastings Banda at this time, a man who had worked his way up from a childhood in rural Malawian poverty to become a doctor in England and later to free Malawi from British colonial rule. In 1971, Banda forced the Malawian Parliament to make him Life President.

As much as Kamkwamba disagrees with President Banda’s harsh control over parliament and the country, he seems to admire Banda’s hard work and intelligence that made him a successful, educated man after being born in poverty. William clearly values education as a way to escape the rural farming life.

Themes





President Banda’s administration functioned as a dictatorship, strictly regulating many aspects of Malawian life and punishing any who criticized his policies. Yet Banda’s system was beneficial to traders and farmers in Malawi, and Trywell had many exciting experiences working with Muslim traders called the Yao. The Yao came to Malawi from Mozambique, converted to Islam, and began fighting with and enslaving the Chewa people in Malawi. Without the help of the Scottish missionary David Livingstone, the Yao and the Chewa would still be in conflict. Livingstone helped end slavery and began an infrastructure of schools and missions in Malawi. William says that the Yao are now accepted in Malawi, and that his mother is Yao.

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