Responsibility

One evening last June just before I left Burkina a friend turned to me, as we sat with some of the children, and said “Make sure you look up Brooke Fraser’s Albertine when you get home.” And I did.
It played on repeat on my ipod for weeks (and has had hundreds of plays since then). She seemed able to express something I couldn’t at first. Even now, as I struggle to define my role in these two worlds I call home I appreciate the way in which she claims responsibility because of her experience.

Fraser and I may have been in two countries with vastly different histories but the fact remains that we have both seen and experienced something that has left us changed and are left with a responsibility to act.

I’ve let the responsibility I feel become so many things in this past year. Sometimes I let it turn to guilt for ways I feel I’ve failed or to passion towards learning about what I can do. Sometimes I pour the responsibility into focusing on the time that I will spend in Burkina this summer and other times I've allowed it to turn into frustration with my society for the ways in which we allow injustices to continue. This is evidence of the fact that even after all these months I’m still learning a lot about this responsibility.

That’s a little of what I’ve been pondering recently and here’s the song so you can take a listen yourself.