Defying the odds
If and when the rural electrification programme gets to Masitala Village in Kasungu, the implementers of that programme will find the village already electrified, courtesy of one William Kamkwamba.
In 2002 William, a school drop out for lack of fees, defied all the odds to build, from junk, a windmill to power an electric generator and provide power to his parents’ house. He did not wait for the right conditions to exist or for help to come from government or some other benefactor to embark on his project. All he had was his own ambition and determination. Now he is a world celebrity.
About 100 years ago, a student at a Livingstonia Mission run institution was about to take an examination whose questions were written on a chalkboard placed in front of the classroom. On account of his short stature, he could not see the questions properly. He then decided to stand and look over his fellow student’s shoulder. The invigilator thought he was cheating and consequently expelled him. He resolved to seek education outside the country. He left Kasungu, in the company of his uncle, for Southern Rhodesia and eventually South Africa. This student was Kamuzu Mphonongo Banda. In South Africa, he met Americans of goodwill who, impressed with his determination and his ability, sent him to America.
He qualified as a medical doctor in America but could not practice in Nyasaland with an American qualification, so he decided to go to Scotland in order to obtain a British qualification. While in Scotland, he met Cullen Young, the missionary that had expelled him from the examination room back in Nyasaland. The two quickly got together, Kamuzu not letting their past encounter stand in their way. The doctor and the former missionary co-edited a collection of Malawian essays, publishing them in a single book titled Our African Way of Life.
Kamuzu defied many odds in his life, refusing to let them hold him back.
In the 1950s, a boy from Karonga went through primary school, amid many hardships, then got selected for Livingstonia Secondary School. When he finished his secondary education he resolved to further his education in America. He had no money, no passport, no visa but one day left home on foot, having told his mother that he was going to America. Armed with a copy of Pilgrims Progress, a rough map and a Bible, he walked for two years through East African villages, towns and jungle. Four thousand kilometres later he got help, having reached Khartoum, where the Deputy Consul in the American Embassy to Sudan, having been intrigued by his history, decided to solicit some financial assistance for him from America. Using part of the funding obtained, the boy was put on a plane to New York.
This boy was Didimu Kayira, who later renamed himself Legson Kayira. The daunting odds in his way simply could not hold him back.
In 1945, a union between Captain Norval Marley and Cedilla Brooke resulted in the birth of Robert Nesta Marley. He was born at a place called Nine Mile in the impoverished Jamaican Parish of St. Ann. Following the death of Norval Marley in 1957, young Robert and mother moved to Jamaica’s major city, Kingston and lived in Trench Town, a slum where extreme poverty was the order of the day. In Trench Town, Robert Marley met Neville Livingston and Hubert Macintosh. With these two and a few others, they experimented with the music styles of the day, eventually creating a sound called reggae. They had nothing when they set out to do their music.
Despite their extremely humble beginnings, the Wailers, as they came to be known, became international superstars both as a group and later as solo artists. The odds before them were defied. They did not get any help from the government. They could not. Far from giving them assistance, the government was bent on eliminating them. These young people were militant and outspoken. The most militant of them was Peter Tosh, the name that Hubert later adopted. After delivering a scathing diatribe at the One Love Peace Concert in 1978 against what he used to call the shitstem (system), Tosh was, a few months later, severely beaten by the Jamaican Police, breaking his ribs and fracturing his skull.
It is highly unlikely that the perfect conditions will ever exist for anybody to do something remarkable. All that is needed is to be focused and determined, then the odds will be defied and society will be launched to greater heights.
