After Africa

Now that I have returned, I am at a complete loss. This should be the time when I feel the most inspired - a brain full if images, sounds and smells. I feel like I can do none of it justice. Do I want to continue to connect to the child soldiers? I'm also torn over the actual imagery - do I want to detach myself from the social concerns? If I combine all the images I've collected... the results of my year of research and my trip to The Gambia - the child soldiers, the environment and the people I met; all in one picture plane. Then I could show the process - the process of realization, of clarification, of learning and understanding. But how am I treating these figures by distancing them even further from their own spaces and cramming them together? Perhaps the displacement of the images could act as a metaphor for the helplessness felt in war time situations.
Personal attachment to both the pictures and the people - which is more valid as an experience? Is the connection to the images of child soldiers more valid because it commands a strong emotional response or because the photos cannot physically react to me? Or is the experience of meeting people in their space more important because it does allow for exterior influence? I tend to believe that both experiences are equally valid because my mind and body are the connecting elements - the elements that bind me aesthetically to the imagery and to the action.