Reflections... A little off topic

A few days ago, I was speaking to a man with whom I may eventually be working somewhat closely, and he asked me what I thought of our President.

As I answered that I like Barack Obama, I kept in mind the Peace Corps' many insistent warnings that we are not to discuss politics. In this case I didn't think offering support for a currently seated president was taking much of a political stance, and anyway, my Thai isn't good enough to do that, even if I wanted to. I then asked the man what he thinks of our president, and he responded by saying that he doesn't like that Obama acts as though he is the "policeman of the world." I responded by saying that I think a great number of Americans seem to think that way, and I wasn't sure if any other president would be doing any differently. I also tried to move the topic elsewhere by mentioning that Obama had sought to increase the number of Peace Corps volunteers in his initial year in office, and this mention encouraged a few jokes at my expense, and then the dropping of the topic entirely.

Some seven and a half years ago, I was in another developing nation during an election year, and was asked similar questions about Bush. I probably gave different answers, but what I remember were the many conflicting messages I received from Malians about their own impressions of our then seated president. One man told me that he liked Bush because he had stood up for what he believed in and acted on it, like a man should (this was in the beginning stages of the war in Iraq, fall 2004, though it's hard to remember what conclusions were being claimed about WMDs at that point, but I'm sure an enterprising Google-searcher can find out). Another handed me a letter, written in French on an airmail stationary, with a quite opposite message on it. I don't remember what it is exactly, but it was about how America's actions in the world might be expected to encourage some armed resistance. It was said quite a bit more harshly than that. I was instructed to mail it to the White House upon my return home. I never did, in part because I wondered if I should translate it first, and in part because I didn't know if I should accompany it with a letter of explanation, and likely in largest part because I wanted to keep it as a symbol of something. It is currently at the bottom of a box, sealed in a plastic bag, with a lot of other mementos from that 16 weeks I spent in Africa.

Today, during a bit of random poking around trying to find the most worthy 10 articles to use my "10 free articles per month" level of non-subscription to the New York Times, I found myself following the trail of news (which started almost a month ago, I'm ashamed to admit) about the Coup d'etat in that very same African country where I spent a semester. (Here's the NYT Africa page: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/africa/index.html). When I was in Mali, I was in one the more stable countries in West Africa. I was in a country that was hailed for its broad embrace of democracy. Yes, there were rebels north of Timbuktu. Yes, we flew to Timbuktu because in the wasted desert between Timbuktu and Dogon country were bands of rebels and nomads known to attack caravans and vehicles. It was a country with some 90 political parties. It is somewhere that I have since wanted to go back to, and dreamed about many, many times.

It is also a country that I fell completely out of touch with - losing all contacts and addresses and all contact with anyone therein, including my host family and the man I apprenticed with at the art market, long long ago. These connections were lost to the inevitability of coming home and to the events that happened when I did. But today, reading about the marching and looting in Bamako, a sprawling city whose public transportation I currently really, really miss, I wish that I could reach out and see if my family is okay. Or ask them what they think of anything.

At night here, I have been losing myself in Douglas Adams' fantastically absurd series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, lately. Part of the absurdity in the book stems from the fact that everything about the main character Arthur Dent's life is entangled with every other part. So everyone he meets and loses track of, he is destined to meet (and likely lose track of) again. I feel a sense of bitterness, looking back at the missed opportunity to build cross-continental relationships, that life doesn't really entangle itself that way.

And so, although I feel a sense of connection to the tragedy of another stable country being lost to a coup d'etat amidst what appears to be a general and pervasive global turn toward instability, I also feel the loss of that connection in a strange and immediate, and very sad, way.