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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
Nov 05, 2017Liber_vermis rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
This autobiography (with assistance of a 'ghost' writer) is mainly about the series of droughts in the late 90s and early 00s that plunged the author's subsistence farming family into debt and forced the author to quit school. The memoir also touches on the scourge of HIV/AIDS on the population of Malawi and its impact on children. Almost 50 years after 'independence', this sad tale of misgovernment, personal aggrandizement by politicians, and misallocation of resources have crushed much of the population of Malawi with poverty, disease, illiteracy, and hopelessness. The crude machines built by the author simply illustrate how little technology would be needed to turnaround the lives of rural Malawians to sustainable development. This book should have had a glossary of Malawian words to aid readers. A mix of metric and imperial units may create misunderstanding for some readers.