When William’s uncle, John, falls ill with tuberculosis, the family is concerned. He’s been feeling increasingly sick but has refused to see a doctor. The family is shocked when he perishes from the disease, and William describes the funeral as “the loneliest feeling I’d ever felt” (52). Trywell finishes the growing and harvest seasons on John’s farm, and then hands it over to John’s eldest son, Jeremiah, who wastes the profits from the farm so that when it’s time to hire workers and plant crops, there’s not enough money to go around.

A year later, William’s other uncle, Socrates, brings his family, which includes seven daughters, to live on the Kamkwamba farm. He also brings his dog, Khamba, who, much to William’s disgust, begins to follow him everywhere. William grows to like Khamba’s company, and he brings the dog to hunt birds with Geoffrey and his other cousin, Charity. Charity is blinded by sap from an nkhaze tree, which can only be cleaned from his eyes with breastmilk. William’s mother had just given birth, so she agrees to help if Charity will pay her with all the birds he catches in the next hour—she is rewarded with four birds.