Drops of Jupiter

Ben and I used to eat tubes of chapstick together, one of us keeping an eye out for our dad as if we were top espionage agents. Blueberry was my favorite flavor, and the chalky consistency never seemed to bother us. Mama called us her “twins,” and we almost were, only 13 months apart. We loved watching reruns of “The Incredibles” together and even dressed up as matching Power Rangers for Halloween. We were inseparable as toddlers, yet even as we grew to resent each other as teenagers (as most brothers and sisters do) I was always secretly proud of my older brother. As Ben graduates this year with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, I don’t think I will be able to stop bragging about it. My BROTHER-the one who used to collect beer-caps with me (and each grocery run we would beg our dad to try a new brand so we could have a different logo)-is an electrical ENGINEER?? The chapstick-chewing, rodeo sheep-contest winning, scared-of-swimming older brother? I wish I could jump in a time capsule and tell 5-year-old Ben that he would grow to become a brilliant nerd. Maybe then the Schoolhouse Rock song, “Electricity” would grow to be his all-time favorite! I wouldn’t tell his 4-year-old sister that she would miss his graduation, though; she’d be devastated. Being halfway around the world has its downsides.

Although I am infinitely proud of my brother, I am not going to write this entire blog post about our childhood. Ben is an adamantly humble person who hates being the center of attention (unlike me), so instead I want to dedicate this piece to him by writing about another inspiring person who shares in his love of electricity. Arguably the most difficult of the engineering disciplines, students like my brother have to spend hundreds of hours studying to grasp any component of electrical engineering. At UCSD, my most brilliant peers narrowly pass the “electricity and magnetism” physics course, the most fundamental concepts in this degree. How, then, did a 13-year-old boy from a poor village use electricity to invent the saving grace for his famine-plagued community? You may have seen the film, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”, and if you haven’t I strongly recommend it; it may be the most inspiring true story you will ever see.

When an intense drought struck Malawi, Africa, everyone in the region was plagued with severe famine and thirst. Everyone except little William Kamkwamba, whose hunger ached within his mind. William’s family, like most, was forced to take him out of school due to expenses and a growing demand for crop farming. Ever the avid learner, this did not stop William from frequenting the local library and reading books on mathematics and physics. His favorite subject, electricity, grew to become an obsession. Curiosity and passion fueled the 13-year-old when food and water could not. Circuit connection, rotational energy, and natural power sources became a blueprint for his invention that would save his community: the windmill. To create this, he and his friends gathered scrap metal, bicycle frame parts, broken appliances, and recycled garbage from their community. Resources were limited, but William understood that if he could not execute his design, he and his family would die of starvation. Can you imagine bearing the weight of that as a young teenager?

Thanks to his ingenuity, resourcefulness, and curiosity, William did successfully create a windmill. The fan-like sails of recycled plastic rotated an old bicycle gear, pumping water from deep underground for the thirsty crops. Soon enough, the village and neighboring communities were able to harvest food and drink fresh water, all thanks to a curious boy. William’s family was able to send him back to school, where his continual thirst for knowledge was satiated day after day. William be would later go on to earn the 2010 GO Ingenuity Award, Best Documentary Feature in 2013, and graduate with a B.A in Environmental Studies at Darmouth College. His story of curiosity and grit under life-threatening circumstances continues to inspire people around the world. The power of knowledge, of hope, and of ingenuity ultimately allowed for William to harness the wind. As my brother graduates, carrying with him the same knowledge of electricity (and whatever else they learn as electrical engineers, I truthfully have no idea) I hope he can use his this to impact communities, too.

Watch out, Tesla, Ben is coming for ya!