remember me

The distance, in space, in time, feels greater than it is. And yet, my watch is still on Ghana time, 4 hours fast, and I no longer have the excuse that keeping it that way will help me remember to take my malaria pills. But why bother changing it anyway? I bought the watch in Ghana; let it remain Ghanaian at least a while longer. That way I can never forget.

Before we left, many people asked me, and all the other departing volunteers, not to forget them. As if that were possible. But I started to think that maybe “forget,” like every other word, means something different to them than it does to us. To me, “forget” means “to not remember, to no longer have memory of.” But for them, I think, “forget” means “to not think on or about.” The “correct” discourse these days on reconciliation is that you cannot forgive and forget, you must forgive but remember, but that’s based on a particular western connotation of “forget.” For Africa, though, maybe it is possible to forgive and forget, to forgive and not dwell on. The past must certainly be remembered: the good things embraced and passed on, the bad things learned from. But little good can be done by dwelling on the particulars of who committed what atrocity against whom. Of course, that is largely what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission aims to do, for heaven forbid the Liberians forgive and forget. Discourse is everything — meaning, nothing. But the TRC has its place and time will tell what good it can do for Liberia – but before it can really do anything it needs to do a better job informing the people of what it is and what it’s doing and why and how that matters. Because there are perpetrators who want to apologize and be forgiven, and there are victims who want to be apologized to so that they can forgive but right now that’s not really happening in any ordered manner.

Enough about what others forget or remember. What do I do, now that I have left? How do I remember? And how can I let the Liberians know that I remember – and not just that I have memories of them stored away inside me, but that I think about them? I have plenty of email addresses (and plenty of them have mine) but there are challenges to keeping in touch. Any maintained relationship, if it’s kept up for more than a couple weeks (which I find doubtful, based partly on my own inability to expediently respond to emails), will undoubtedly become more than I was looking for, with confessions of love and requests for financial support in times of trouble. I can’t continue to deal with the BS that was driving me crazy after 6 weeks. And yet I can’t just leave them there. I can escape, I can forget. I can act like my time in Africa was just a little trip into other people’s lives, and I can just leave with my pictures and memories, as though the people I met and talked to and befriended and cared about were no different from elephants I might have seen had I traveled to northern Ghana. (So much for “Humanizing Refugees.”) I can’t just take what I want from Africa, the lessons, the friends, the experiences, the burdens, without giving back in return. When I was there, I gave, or at least I tried. But even now I’m still benefiting from Africa, yet who knows if Africa is still benefiting from me? (It should be. I told Meredith to finish up my unfinished business. But what about the people, what about the relationships? Those are mine and mine alone, and who am I to desert them?) I’m morally confused right now, because I don’t know that love is any better than hate for this world, but it still seems that to do something is better than to do nothing (though better is a misleading word). It may be for good, it may be for bad, in all likelihood it will be a combination of both – but I cannot disconnect.

Onward and upward, onward and upward
More adventures await, if you (and I) know where to look