A Belated Welcome

By the way: Welcome to my blog! Thanks for stopping by. Allow me to introduce myself, in case you don't know me, which, if you're reading this, you almost certainly do.

My name's John Duffell. I'm 24 years old. And a half. Almost. For the last year (and then some), I've been living in Namitembo, a village in the rural south of Malawi, just over the mountains to the west of Zomba. It's a nice little place, Namitembo, with lots of good country feeling...I've had my fair share of adventures and learning experiences in my time here, experiences which have, perhaps, made me a little wiser, a little more weathered. Maybe. But one thing I have clearly not become is "more mature." I mean, for crying out loud, people. I'm still counting my age in half-years. This is not an encouraging sign.

So, anyway, my dad is a Catholic deacon, out in that crown jewel of the Pacific Northwest, Vancouver Seattle. He's a good deacon. A great deacon, actually. He loves his job and I happen to think he's very good at it. My little secret (not actually a secret at all, really) is that I've never been too much of a churchgoer...but seeing as my dad's a deacon and all, I've always been kept up-to-date on the goings-on in North Seattle's Catholic community.

It was 11 or 12 years ago that my father's parish, St. Bridget, started up a sister-parish relationship with the Catholic mission at Namitembo. I kept hearing stories, time and time again, of the good work that was being done...fixing up the primary and secondary schools, building and repairing teachers' houses to attract "town-y" schoolteachers to this fairly isolated spot, even fixing up a youth centre where the local kids could come together a few times a week and listen to music (and occasionally organize fundraising dances for their football* team).

Eventually, the people of St. Bridget decided that they wanted to do something bigger. After consulting the parish priests at Namitembo, the bishop of Zomba, and discussing it among themselves, the steering committee at St. Bridget decided to shift their focus to the construction of a school. Having already done extensive works at the parish primary and secondary schools (including the ground-up construction of a new secondary school), it was decided that this new learning institution would be a technical college. Until this point - as far as we know - technical education had only been available in Malawi's towns and cities. This new school would be (and still remains) the first trade school in rural Malawi. Obviously, this was a huge commitment on the part of St. Bridget.

This was about six years ago - right around the time I myself was starting college, at the University of Washington. Little by little, the school was built, the classrooms were furnished, and more teachers were hired. The school eventually offered classes in four departments: bricklaying, carpentry and joinery, tailoring, and computer science. Most of the students were coming from the towns and cities in the first few years - few of them were locals. Still, the student body was growing with each new term, and the classes were slowly filling up. This was the scene in the summer of 2006, leading up for my fourth and final year at college. I had just spent a year on exchange at the U of Edinburgh, and was getting ready for the requisite "try frantically to see all of Europe in 21 days" trip. Just a few weeks earlier, Dad told me he was making a visit to Namitembo in July, and offered to pick up the tab if I was interested in joining him. Not having any clue where this was headed, I accepted.

Funnily enough, I barely remember that 3-week visit**. I remember liking Namitembo. I also remember feeling pretty overwhelmed by all the big (and little) differences. I definitely remember Fr. Owen extending an open invitation for me to come and stay. At the time, I was considering joining the Peace Corps, but was a wee bit daunted by all the red tape - Namitembo seemed like a pretty smart choice. I knew that I'd have a community all set to welcome me in, and that I'd find something useful to do before too long. I also knew that my BA in Comparative Religion would not provide me with a plethora of job opportunities upon graduation. At any rate, I still had a year left at the U, so I just filed the invite away in my mind.

My line, upon returning to Seattle, was that I would "definitely" be returning to Malawi to do some work, someday. I repeated this refrain to most of my friends, until finally, one of them asked me what "someday" meant - and why, since I had no plans for my immediate future, I couldn't just leave following graduation. That deflated me a bit. So first time, I actually started thinking seriously about going to Malawi sooner rather than later. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea - so, long story short (too late), I set myself a schedule that had me departing in late 2007 and staying in Malawi for one year, and I bought my airline ticket.

I spent my first night in Namitembo on December 1st of that year. Within a few months, having realized the immense investment of time required to get any real work done out here, I decided that one year wouldn't be enough. Actually, one year seemed laughable. Incredulous. Eventually, I did start to get a few things done - though not nearly as much as I'd hoped - and now that I'm a month into Year Two, I'm confident (five days out of seven) that signing on for a second year was the right thing to do. Though I'm more realistic now about the kind of impact I'll have, it's clear that I'm going to get much, much more done this year than the last.

There you have my grand introduction. I have a few other things I'd like to post about over the next few days as well...big plans. So stay tuned. Wired in. Blogged. Stay Whatever-They-Call-It when you keep checking my blog every 5 minutes. Because I'm worth it, dangit!

*as in soccer.
**It was actually more like two and a half weeks.