Hope Saves a Doomed Village

I read the CNN article, Malawian Boy Uses Wind to Power Hope, Electrify Village, written by Faith Karimi. It triggered a very powerful emotion. Hope. As you’ve noticed, if you’ve read my previous blogs, is that I usually do CNN articles about other countries. This is no different. But, I hope you’ve noticed that, though they all are different stories, they have the same concept. Those countries are dangerous, but these articles that I report on all have inspiration in them. All of these amazing people rise above discouragement, and never gave up. This article was about a 14- year- old boy, named William Kamkwamba who lived in an African village filled with poverty. There was a HUGE drought, so his father, who is a farmer, could not make money to support his family. William was soon kicked out of school, because he could not pay the amount to continue schooling. He said he thought to himself one day, “If they can make electricity out of wind, I can try, too.”

Since he wasn’t going to school, he had a lot of free time on his hands. A book about windmills caught his eye. He decided to try to make a windmill. He used parts found at the dump, such as pipes, old bike parts, tractor fans, and car batteries. When people asked him what he was doing, he told them of his plan. They did not accept this idea. So, after time, he just said that he was playing with the car parts. That seemed more reasonable to them. He never gave up, though he had his fair share of doubts. He now has built five windmills! One (the tallest,) standing at 37 feet. No one thinks anything relatively close to him being crazy now. William’s sister says, “All of us, even my mother, thought that he had gone mad.”

I don’t have a story nearly as miraculous as Williams, but hearing his story kind of reminded me of backpacking. I had never done it before, and had NO experience in that area, but my friend and I decided to do it instead of just standard camp. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Especially with not much support coming from either of our families. Pretty much, what they were saying was, “good luck with that!” I think backpacking, along with being VERY tough, was the BEST experience of my life. I now LOVE to backpack, and I do it every year. We should all try new things, even when everyone, even ourselves, are doubtful. It might pay off in the end!