Connecting to Text in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind Answers

Read the excerpt from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba.News of the machine had spread to the villages, and people were starting to arrive. The traders spotted it from their stalls and packed up their things. The truckers left their vehicles along the roads. Everyone walked into the valley, and now gathered in its shadow. I recognized these faces. Some of these people had mocked me for months, and still they whispered, even laughed. More of them were coming. It was time.

Read the excerpt from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba.The wind would spin the blades of the windmill, rotate the magnets in a dynamo, and create electricity. Attach a wire to the dynamo and you could power anything, especially a bulb. All I needed was a windmill, and then I could have lights. No more kerosene lamps that burned our eyes and sent us gasping for breath. With a windmill, I could stay awake at night reading instead of going to bed at seven with the rest of Malawi.

Read the excerpt from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba.News of the machine had spread to the villages, and people were starting to arrive. The traders spotted it from their stalls and packed up their things. The truckers left their vehicles along the roads. Everyone walked into the valley, and now gathered in its shadow. I recognized these faces.

Read the excerpt from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba.A sudden gust muffled the voices below, then picked up into a steady wind. It took hold of my T-shirt and whistled through the tower rungs. Reaching over, I removed a bent piece of wire that locked the machine's spinning wheel in place. Once released, the wheel and arms began to turn. They spun slowly at first, then faster and faster, until the force of their motion rocked the tower. My knees buckled, but I held on.

Read the excerpt from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba.I didn't have a drill, so I had to make my own. First I heated a long nail in the fire, then drove it through a half a maize cob, creating a handle. I placed the nail back on the coals until it became red hot, then used it to bore holes into both sets of plastic blades. I then wired them together. I didn't have any pliers, so I used two bicycle spokes to bend and tighten the wires on the blades.

Read the excerpt from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba.I could get money by working ganyu. At the time, guys were making one hundred kwacha unloading trucks at CHiPiKU store, so I headed there. If I worked a whole week, I could have enough. I waited outside the store all morning and into the afternoon. The sun was dreadful, and I had no water. Finally the owner walked outside and saw me."Why are you standing here?" he said."Waiting for trucks.""Trucks come every day," he said. "Except Monday."It was Monday.That night at home, I hit upon another idea. The bicycle dynamo was the ideal generator for the bigger windmill I wanted to create, and at some point I'd have to work for the money to buy it. But for this experimental model, I could get by with using a much smaller generator, and I knew just where to find that.

Read the sentence from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba.Some of these people had mocked me for months, and still they whispered, even laughed.

Read the excerpt from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba.The wind would spin the blades of the windmill, rotate the magnets in a dynamo, and create electricity. Attach a wire to the dynamo and you could power anything, especially a bulb. All I needed was a windmill, and then I could have lights. No more kerosene lamps that burned our eyes and sent us gasping for breath. With a windmill, I could stay awake at night reading instead of going to bed at seven with the rest of Malawi.

Identify the reason that best explains why the director of Moving Windmills might have wanted to share William Kamkwamba’s story through film rather than through writing.

Based on Kamkwamba’s memoir, what is one trait that best makes him a hero?