Confession of an Idiot

That would be me, the idiot.  A few days ago I made a quick trip a couple blocks away to the little market. 
The little market isn’t very big, as its name implies, and so there isn’t as much to be found there as in the big market, but if I only need a few basic things it’s great because I can walk there and do my shopping quickly.  This day I was looking to buy some peanut butter (just ground peanuts really, sold in any desired quantity out of a big tub), some dried fish (I boil this and feed it to my dog and cat), and some hot peppers (no meal here is complete without throwing one of them into the sauce). 
Malians are super friendly, so it’s normal that I would be greeted over and over as I made my way between the seller’s tables.  I came to a halt as two people in front of me were blocking my path and smiling widely at me.  They started greeting me and I suddenly realized that this wasn’t just a random greeting, but they seemed to know who I was and though I thought they looked sort of familiar, I really didn’t know who I was looking at.  But that happens fairly often.  It’s easier to remember who the one white lady is in the sea of black faces.  So of course I smiled back and did my appropriate greetings.  They were a mother and daughter by my guess.  Before we each continued on our ways the daughter asked me “Aunty, can I come to visit you soon?”  and I said “Of course, no problem.”  I went on and kind of forgot all about this episode until yesterday when I was home alone and there was a knock on our gate.  I went to the gate and asked who was there.  “It’s Suzanne.  Remember I said I was coming to visit?”  I opened the gate and saw that it was the girl from the market. 
Shoot, why hadn’t I asked Jean-Patrick who she could have been?  But then, the chances aren’t very good that I would have been able to describe the mom and daughter well enough for him to figure out who they were.  “Well, they were African, wearing African clothes, sort of looked like everyone else in the market…”
So I welcomed Suzanne into the house (knowing her name didn’t help at all) and gave her a cup of water to drink as we sat down on the couch to visit.  Ok, so I need to chat and try to figure out how I know this girl (or how she knows me as it would seem) without her realizing that I have no idea who she is.  So asking her last name is out.  Probably I shouldn’t ask her if she goes to church or where she goes to school, because maybe she goes to my church or is a student at our school.  On top of feeling limited as to the questions I could ask, this girl was not very talkative.  It turned into a lot of sitting in silence and looking around the room.  It’s so much easier when I have groups of girls come to visit; if I am one of 5 people in the room I only have 20% of the responsibility to make conversation.
I came up with a brilliant idea.  “Can I take your picture?”  Sometimes people love to have their picture taken.  I asked to take a picture of Fanta my clothes-washing-lady once, and now whenever she has new clothes made she comes over in them and asks me to take her picture.  I figured that if I had a picture of Suzanne I could show it to Jean-Patrick and he could tell me who I had been entertaining. 
So we went outside and I took her picture.  Then I asked her if she wanted to come back in for a while or if she was ready to head home.  Thankfully she said she was ready to go.  I offered to walk with her part of the way.  So we walked a bit, and she volunteered that her family was staying at the base.  Ok, so she has some connection to our base.  Good, this is one piece of the puzzle.  Then she mentioned something about Douentza, which is a town in the north that is not safe to be in because of the problems in the North of Mali.  Oh!  I think this all makes sense now!  She is the daughter in a family that normally lives up north!  Wow, I solved it just before parting ways with her.  So I guess I have met her before, but should I really feel bad that I didn’t know who she was?  We have meetings only once or twice a year where all of our group’s families come together, and then there are 80 people there, so it’s hard to remember every person that I briefly meet.  And as I said before, it’s a lot easier to remember the one white lady, the one who sticks out in the crowd.  But I definitely felt like a big idiot even if I think I did do a good job of not letting on that I had no clue who she was.  Would it have been better to just say right from the start “I’m sorry, how do I know you?”  What would you have done?