By

Ernest Dempsey

Tue January 24, 2023

Loving Healing Press author Nancy Wesson has won the 2022 Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award Winner for her book I Miss the Rain in Africa.

Initiated in 1992, the Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award has been presented annually to a Peace Corps Volunteer or staff member, past or present, for the best depiction of life in the Peace Corps – be it daily life, project assignment, travel, host country nationals, other Volunteers, or readjustment. Nancy Wesson became the latest winner of the prize for her memoir I Miss the Rain in Africa published in May 2021.

Instead of retiring at the age of 64, Nancy Wesson became a Peace Corps Volunteer in post-war Northern Uganda from 2011 to 2013. When she returned home, she embarked on a new phase of revelations about family wounds, mystical experiences, and personal foibles. I Miss the Rain in Africa commemorates that transformational phase in life from volunteering to serve in Uganda to discovering and absorbing the changes waiting for her back home.

Looking back at the writing process involved, Wesson calls this book special for reliving her adventure that brought everything back in hyperfocus, and begged examination of what she’d learned. Although the experience itself was unique, the transformation it set in motion is available to any reader ready for their own exploration of self. At the same time, it was a challenging experience in more than one way.

“I ended up trimming the manuscript by half and it made it a better book,” Wesson remembers revising her work. “But the greatest challenge began when I reached what I thought would be the end and the muse took over, insisting we do a deep dive into the changes that resulted from returning to a life that no longer fit.”

Nancy Wesson’s experience in Africa still contributes to her life as she relishes spending a lot of time with her grandson.

“But I continue to seek ways to share the PC experience and the gratitude it instilled with a larger audience,” she tells as she looks ahead in the future of her creative journey. She is currently writing her next book using her long metaphysical journey to offer others practical ways to use their own intuition.

Visit 222.NancyWessonAuthor.com to learn more about Nancy’s books.

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I Miss the Rain in Africa won the 2022 Silver Nautilus Award in the category of World-Cultures’ Transformational Growth & Development. The category, which falls in the general readership division, includes books that offer insightful perspectives on possible futures and how Humanity embraces its next steps.

Published in May 2021, Wesson’s book gives an autobiographical account of the author’s service and life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in post-war Northern Uganda. Her journey spans living in a radically different culture and environment and then returning home to reconcile a life that no longer “fits.” While the book took about a year to complete and was written in full by the fall of 2020, the pandemic delayed the release a bit.

The standard serving time as Peace Corps Volunteer is 27 months, but Nancy Wesson stayed longer to help a child she was sponsoring in school to get through his end-of-year exams. She lived in Uganda for a little over two years.

“My enduring takeaway remains living with gratitude and being fully present for life,” Nancy comments on her life in the African land.

I Miss the Rain in Africa summons the power of stepping into the void to reconfigure life and enter the wilderness of the uncharted territory of our own memories and psyche. The journey through the social life of personal foibles and family wounds synchronizes with the inner journey of mystical experiences. But what is special about the rain in Africa to make it into the book’s title?

“It is the most thunderous, monsoon-type of rain, eclipsing all else – bringing life to a halt,” says Nancy Wesson. She describes how rain in Africa is usually accompanied by the loss of electric power, and being cocooned in a dark house lit only by candle light, enveloped by the sound of the rain and thunder, creates a mystical, introspective experience.

Nancy Wesson’s books and articles are all online at her website https://nancywesson.com/.

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I have renewed sympathy for Humpty Dumpty, and huge appreciation for the fact that there was an ankle specialist in the practice that gave me a new hip two years ago.

It started out innocently enough…

I’d thought with the end of the proceeding event of a lumpectomy and five weeks of very targeted radiation therapy for a fairly benign form of breast cancer, I was over the hump. So off on a lovely family trip to the coast, as we say here. If I’d gone to the coast in Texas, Louisiana, Florida – or any number of other places I’ve lived, we’d say we went to the beach. I think on the Atlantic side, it’s called going to the shore. Here it’s going to the coast.

Within half an hour of arrival, we set off on a trail that took us over the dunes and that’s where the mischief started – mischief that ended up putting me totally out of commission for two months. No walking. No driving. No nuthin’. I’m just beginning to walk again, and feel like a clumsy, oversized toddler. This, too, is humbling.

But… I’m getting ahead of myself…

As luck would have it, after a nauseating couple of hours round-trip in the back seat of the car, and a few hours in the ER, I returned with what Colton, my grandson, called a huge bandaid. Splinted and wrapped in enough layers to keep it safe in an atomic blast, it remained thus until surgery a week later. The next morning, a balloon-tire wheelchair was commandeered from the Visitors’ Bureau and these two hunky sons, got me on the beach.

Killin’ Time

During the endless down-time, someone suggested I fill my time with poetry. So – with Dr. Suess as my muse – I did. Here’s a sample. Please don’t throw tomatoes at me. Turns out I wrote it without realizing the form actually has a name: Narrative Poetry! Who knew. Well – now you do, too.

Have a chuckle – and know that this is just what transpired!

Once Upon a Sand Dune

Once upon a sand-dune slope
The kids below were waiting.
The sea ahead, its spume afloat
The dune, its secret waiting.
One way down was straight and steep,
The other mildly sloping.
She stood upon the mighty heap,
And did her best at coping.
Don't be a weenie, said she to self,
Never one for slopes.
Just slide on down that sandy shelf!
She screwed up all her hopes.
She scanned the dune for flatter ground,
But none was there in view.
How hard could it be - she looked around
Then planted her stance askew.
And then it happened, left foot down,
The slide, it did unfold...
The uphill foot did twist around,
And thus began the roll!
Legs and arms akimbo,
with Colton down below...
The two began to roll as one
Wound up like a bow.
Laughter all around was heard.
As a pratfall it was perfect!
But then there was a cracking sound,
Kim's the one that heard it!
Her ankle was a lovely hue
And move it she could not.
Purple, red, and slightly blue -
Move it she WOULD not!
How to get her off the beach!
Discussions did ensue.
Airlift, coach, or ambulance?
Were options to review.

The cavalry came on wheels of four -
Two firemen, they were conjured.
How best to get her through the door
Of the chariot, just yonder?
They settled upon the life-and-hop
and jostled her to the jeep.
Th ride to town was bumpety-bump,
The language was bleepety-bleep.
Off the beach the bumbled,
Bouncing all the way.
And to the house they rumbled,
Where a chairlift saved the day.
Three big cracks and dislocation -
The ankle was a mess!
Colton noticed the big band-aid-tion
And said it was the best!
But wait! The drama is not finished!
Once at home, she kept it up.
Her balance much diminished...
she fell and landed on her butt-
Then broke her hand to finish.
The surgeons, they did fix their dates.
Urgent, it was hailed.
Then COVID reared its ugly face.
What fuckery doth prevail!
Still, we had the best of times,
Played games and ate a pile.
Found a balloon-tire wheelchair
And rolled to the beach in style
The laughs we had were just sublime!
I wouldn't change a thing.
And though I have run out of rhyme,
I can't wait to go again.

Almost without exception, my mystical friends have asked, “Why do you think this happened?” And while I can give a million different possible symbolic reasons – or admit that stuff just happens – I can say that being totally dependent on others for the most basic needs, is humbling. It’s also an opportunity to ask for help (not an easy task for a stubbornly independent woman), receive help with grace, gratitude, and humor and enjoy (yes, enjoy) the down time to visit, form deeper friendships, explore new aspects of self, and just develop a greater appreciation for basic freedoms like driving, walking to the bathroom, making your own coffee, and getting outside.

So once again, here’s to celebrating good health, mobility, freedom in all its forms, and doing so in deep gratitude.

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By Nancy Wesson Nov. 3, 2021

When I talk about my Peace Corps experience, people are often surprised to learn I entered at the age of 64. When most of my friends were planning for retirement, I was packing water purifiers, solar chargers, and a French press to sustain my coffee habit in Uganda. I’d shuttered a successful consultancy, leased my house that wouldn’t sell, and taken a leap of faith. I trusted my instincts and the toolbox of skills I’d developed over a lifetime, and hoped they’d serve me well in the Peace Corps.

Entering Peace Corps later in life after multiple careers, kids, and husbands was a life-changing experience. It stripped away at the veneer of ego and a lifetime of boundaries accumulated to navigate loss, business life, divorces, single parenting, and other transitions. The resulting vulnerability allowed both fears and strengths to surface and the gift of a rediscovered self to blossom.

I was asked if being divorced influenced my entry into Peace Corps, and the answer required a dual response. No, because by the time I joined Peace Corps, I’d been married a total of 24 years, but divorced for 15. But also, yes, because marriage to each of these brilliant, technically-minded-but-emotionally-stunted men forced me to take responsibility for my life and fulfillment in ways I likely would not have discovered otherwise. I emerged from the post-divorce dark-night-of-the-soul period as a strong, autonomous woman, willing to embrace change. Those traits certainly contributed to my desire to contribute in a more global context.

In my youth — and youth in general — we all collect data and pieces of ourselves that, ultimately, form a cohesive identity-puzzle. By my fantasized retirement age of 64, you might say I’d become a jumbo-puzzle, having amassed quite a few pieces.

The salient border pieces of my identity — the ones that were easily seen and gave me structure, included being a daughter, sister, student, wife, audiologist, administrator, mother, sailor, intuitive, and energy healer—one who works with the bio-field of a person’s body to heal them, weaver, landlord, UFO-experiencer, divorcee, and single parent. (I told you it was a big puzzle.)

Other pieces of me, the interior ones, were shaped by travel to the Middle and Far East, and experiences like the year I spent cruising the Bahamas with my second husband, living aboard a 29-foot sloop. That year, every storm seemed to know our names. Holding all these puzzle pieces together was a large body of professional work that ranged from diagnostic audiologist and mediator to Feng Shui expert, author, and consultant, with much in between.

My metaphorical puzzle was essentially formed by the time I joined the Peace Corps, and the time away from my familiar life felt like a cat batting the pieces off the table. Ego and any pretense of control were the first pieces to take a hit. Thankfully, the next piece to be jettisoned was the need to constantly reinvent myself in a slightly left-of-field business. Much of my consultancy had to do with bringing spiritual practice into the real world — before it was mainstream and marketable. Selling my skills meant selling me. The Peace Corps offered a boots-on-the-ground opportunity to simply live the work instead of trying to sell it.

After my Peace Corps service, when I returned home, I discovered many of those scattered pieces no longer fit anyway. When I tried to put them back, I found that some of the edges had changed shape, while other pieces were lost forever. Voids had appeared, creating the need for new pieces. Things that had been important to me prior to living in Uganda had lost their relevancy, while those I’d taken for granted had become sacred. I was left wondering how to recreate meaningful work without allowing the gravitational pull of the familiar to trap me. Ultimately, I came to know that fulfillment—my desire to be-of-service, offer compassion and joy as a way of living, and to share what I know— is less about what I do professionally, than the intention and energy I bring to everything I do.

In reconfiguring the puzzle of myself, it was initially hard to pin down what had occurred to create such a massive shift. However, I know much had to do with the deep immersion into a culture where my Western concept of time collided head-on with rain, mud, malaria, lack of utilities, and shifting priorities.

Collisions between time and weather showed up every moment of the rainy season in the form of buses and trucks being incapacitated in the middle of an impassable mud trough that was once a road. There were no tow trucks in the bush. My nongovernmental organization (NGO) was fortunate to have a four-wheel-drive truck named The Daughter of Japan, but even she was no match for rising water or potholes the size of Vermont. Villagers understood these factors, and all life stopped when the rain started. The fact that lightning strikes killed hundreds every year, added another layer of precaution. Only Westerners — myself included — were foolish enough to use an umbrella (aka lightning rod) just to get somewhere on time. Locals understood that being on time was not worth risking their lives.

I learned that time had no relevance in a world where life was about relationships. Family needs came first — and family extended to almost anyone, blood-related or not. As a Westerner, it would have been easy to fall into the trap of thinking lateness signaled a lack of interest or respect, but it was almost never the case. Time and its cousin, waiting, precipitated a lot of internal dialog regarding why we — individually and collectively — interpreted lateness as such an offense.

Around the midpoint of my service, I needed to get a document copied, signed, scanned, and emailed so that I could sell a house in the States. The process got caught in the perfect storm of resources, time, and technology. What might have taken five minutes in the States took a full week in Gulu spent mostly waiting until that moment when electricity, computer, printer, ink, and internet all aligned. The ability to be present helped me appreciate these experiences for the gifts they offered: patience, gratitude, and the opportunity to learn a different way of being in the world.

Cultures like ours in America generally do not excel at “being present,” and we spend a lot of time looking outward for the causes of our discontent. Learning to “be,” as opposed to “doing” is a lifelong endeavor for most. In Uganda, it was a coping mechanism for me that had the silver lining of bringing about a greater sense of involvement and awareness.

Living in Uganda also forced a lot of unconventional solutions — fixing a broken toilet valve with dental floss, using the filthiest laundry rinse water to flush that same toilet or to mop the floor. After all, in Uganda — where a quarter of the population lacks access to even a basic water supply — water was a treasure not to be wasted. It could “be finished” the next moment and not return for weeks. Every drop was sacred.

Another factor that contributed to the psychological shift had to do with the relationships I formed, but not in the casual way one might expect. For example, Geoffrey, my counterpart, and I had built a strong relationship founded on deep trust and mutual respect. The relationship was forged by the intense work we did together during our first year. The strength of our friendship’s foundation saved me when I accidentally sent a work-related email attachment that could have easily destroyed our relationship and gotten one or both of us fired, or worse.

When I realized my mistake, I told Geoffrey, though tears, what had happened. I apologized and offered to call the director to explain the circumstances. I even offered to resign. Geoffrey listened quietly and calmly. He had read the attachment and, as far as he was concerned, my document and the manner in which I’d described the events was simply evidence of my fairness and total commitment to improving the program.

I was aghast — had not expected this generosity, this gentleness, and was so filled with gratitude and respect for this man that I could hardly speak. This humble man, so generous in his praise, had recognized it for what it was — a terrible mistake. In that moment, I learned more about forgiveness and gratitude than I had learned during decades of spiritual practice.

At the opposite end of the continuum is “The Story of the Broken Digit” and the theater-of-the-absurd that erupted when the only way to remove a constricting ring from my broken middle-finger turned out to be an overzealous metal worker wielding a 12-inch rotary saw. (The only ring cutter in Uganda was in Kampala, a three day trip away.) My sons and a girlfriend had come to visit and, on our first day of safari, the girlfriend accidentally slammed the car door on my hand. Ironically, it was the middle finger that was broken and placed in a splint, causing me to unintentionally give an obscene gesture to everyone we passed.

Peace Corps’ medical officials said getting the metal worker to remove my ring under medical supervision should be safe. The reality was a jolly, rotund, Italian man with a 5 o’clock shadow. His button down shirt was stretched to its limit across his belly and held in place by a single button. There was an air about him that indicated a questionable relationship with personal hygiene, but his eyes twinkled and his grin was mischievous. “The Blade Master” — my new name for him — explained that he’d removed rings from “other body parts” with the same rusty, chipped blade. I’m sure I heard several men faint behind me.

He swaggered toward me holding the enormous saw high overhead like the torch on the Statue of Liberty. Cords with bare wires dangled ominously as he approached. In the exam room, a surreal atmosphere unfolded as he grabbed my hand and turned on the saw. He chuckled as he said, “If anything goes wrong, we are in the right place — the hospital.”

As panic escalated, my sons intervened, commanding him to “step away from the saw.” After much cajoling, The Blade Master — crestfallen — agreed to find some diagonal pliers and removed the ring with one strong squeeze. When it was time to attempt to reset the bones, a carnival mood developed as excellent doctors asked, as they injected pain killers, to be friended on Facebook. There were hugs and handshakes, and pictures posted between shots and X-rays. It was “Saturday Night Live” in real time. In the Peace Corps, one finds comic relief and strength in the most bizarre circumstances.

Although my bones could not be rearranged, those experiences did rearrange the puzzle-pieces of my life. They also offered a new context in which to use my skills in ways that I couldn’t have in the U.S. I’d wanted to offer my skills more organically and, as it happened, I used every skill in my toolbox: organizational development, firefighting, grief counseling, writing, marketing — everything.

Who would ever have imagined I would use my brief training as a firefighter to teach my Ugandan compound-mates to use dirt to smother a brush fire in our shared yard. It happened in the middle of the night when I woke up, choking on smoke, to find the backyard ablaze and my Ugandan neighbors standing in their boxer shorts, hemming and hawing. They announced, “water is finished,”— the Ugandan expression for “no water”—as flames tickled the lower tree limbs. After some fairly hysterical language-misunderstandings when I asked if I could borrow their hoe, I finally conveyed that I needed a garden hoe, and used the tool to dig up dirt and smother the flames. We all survived to tell the tale.

Sadly, my experience in grief counseling was needed when one of our group was killed and two others injured by a hit-and-run drunk driver. These stories and others are just part of the larger gestalt that changed the lens through which I view life. That, in turn, resulted in a radically altered view of both my past and my emerging future.

I knew reentry to life in the U.S. would be a challenge, but I did not expect to fall headfirst into the wilderness of my psyche as well, to do battle with the monsters lurking there. Thankfully, the rawness of Peace Corps service prepared me to feel emotions I’d avoided all my life, and I was ready. As it turned out, most of the “monsters” (a fear of impending doom, not being enough, catastrophizing minor events) were imposters. I wouldn’t have known that had I not faced down threats — real and perceived — and learned to thrive in a culture that had encountered real monsters: Ebola; the brutal warlord Joseph Kony, his Lord’s Resistance Army and unfathomable abuses they perpetrated like requiring kidnapped children to identify their parents’ dismembered bodies before they were then forced to become child soldiers or “wives” for Kony’s men. The courage with which these children walked through life continues to astound me and give perspective to my own “monsters.”

Regardless of their stage in life, every returned Peace Corps Volunteer I know has expressed the feeling that they received more from the experience than they gave. Living in a new culture distills life into its most sacred parts and emboldens life upon return. And, while Peace Corps service has a discreet starting point, the experience itself never truly ends. It continues to inform life far into the future — if you let it.

Nancy Wesson is a human potential consultant and an award-winning author of two totally unrelated books. Her first, “Moving Your Aging Parents,” was written after moving her own mother and many others. Realizing she was quickly becoming an aging parent herself, she packed up her house and headed for Peace Corps Uganda, where she served from 2011-2013. Her experience there gave rise to her most recent book, “I Miss the Rain in Africa.” She lives in a small town in Oregon and is enjoying a fourth act as a grandmother, while also restarting her consulting business and continuing to write.

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Suffice it to say, that over the past twenty five years or so, working with energy (i.e personal energy fields, not your electric bill), both professionally and through personal practice, I found myself operating in that sweet spot where science and spirituality connect on the continuum of energy.

What I found in that area where science meets spiritual practice can be summarized:      

1.    Everything exists as packets of energy, each vibrating at its signature frequency, which can be demonstrated as a sine wave. Humans are a collection of energy-packets in a skin-suit, operating within a field of energy called a bio-field (scientific term) or aura (metaphysical term).  It’s both measurable and changeable.    

2.    Because we vibrate, we are  transmitters—sending out our unique vibrational signal, a signal that impacts everyone around us. Remember how things vibrate when the bass on your stereo is too loud?  Same concept, but more subtle,    

3.    Like any other transmitter, the signal we broadcast determines the signal with which we will resonate, i.e. a radio-signal tuned to Heavy Metal, will not receive Beethoven, just as a signal tuned to hate and fear will not resonate with love and gratitude.    

4.  Like a radio operator, we get to manage our operational frequency and tune it to what we want to receive (experience) and what we generate (manifest). We do this via intention, thoughts, and emotions. Now, take a leap with me while we connect ends of the continuum and talk about emotions as frequencies: high-frequencies = love, gratitude, compassion; low-frequencies = fear, judgement, anger.

Learning how to manage our energy/frequency/emotions is the single most powerful tool we possess.  The power to do this is within every one of us. We are deciders,  more than doers.

What does this have to do with COVID 19?  

It turns out, it has much to do with boosting immunity, both individual and collective.   Amid the chaos surrounding the virus, and the compassionate and necessary actions of physical-distancing, self-isolation, and hand washing as ways to safeguard ourselves, families and communities, it’s vitally important to ALSO know that:    

We EACH carry an effective arsenal of immunity building capabilities within ourselves.   That capability rests in knowing HOW we control our frequencies—our emotions—which directly influence immunity. What follows is a partial list of practices anyone can do, to build immunity and support each other, now and always.

In 2009, Professor Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize for her 1984 discoveries regarding telomeres, found at the ends of chromosomes (drawing at right) and their relationship to immunity. Longer telomeres translate to stronger  immunity, and medical research shows that those telomeres can be lengthened through various practices, and it can be done in a matter of weeks.

In 2008, the Dalai Lama and a group of biomedical scientists came together for a conference on Longevity and Tibetan Medicine.     Among other things, was the discovery that the practice of gratitude lengthens telomeres, and therefore supports immunity.   So gratitude is the first on my list of daily practices.      

1.   Gratitude: in addition to lengthening telomeres, reduces stress and cortisol levels, increases IgA (immunoglobulin antibodies) stimulates “feel-good” neurotransmitters and a sense of well being.              

a. Keep a gratitude journal.        

b. Sit with gratitude for ten-minutes a few times per day. Or for a visual/auditory presentation go here.      

2.   If experiencing fear, shift to gratitude, love, compassion for ANY event in your life. Trying to talk yourself out of fear is like putting-lipstick-on-a-pig, so shift to a memory, event or relationship that stimulates gratitude.       

3.    If you can, meditate. Any method that works for you is effective and as little as fifteen minutes a day can stimulate creativity,  calm the amygdala, and reduce reactivity in emotional responses.   For information on how meditation changes the brain, check this out.      

4.   Strengthen and take responsibility for your personal biof-ield by creating your own high-frequency bubble of good-in, good-out. For Star-Trek fans, think of this as your own personal deflector shield. (*A short exercise is provided at the end of this blog.) And NO, I’m NOT suggesting that this replace physical-distancing. 

5.   Be responsible for the energy/attitude/intention you bring to interactions. Experiments show that when two people are placed in a room, even in the absence of behavioral interaction, their brain waves will synchronize and the person with the most coherent brain wave pattern has the greatest influence. Coherency is supported by meditation and emotion.  In other words, you change another person/situation merely by your presence.

    6.  Increase the synergy between head and heart through visualization, breath, intention, or meditation. Heart-brain coherency changes blood chemistry, cognition, emotional response and many other biological functions. To learn more, check out HeartMath.  (Heart Math Institute image left) For those of you who like gadgets to help guide you, they are available.  Several of my clients have found them useful.

7.  Pause and consider the larger metaphysical implications of the current crisis on society, environment, and systems that may no longer serve us.  Further, what are the implications at a personal level, and what are you meant to learn as an individual consciousness at this point in your own evolution?  One of many avenues to explore if you’re so inclined is Matt Kahn’s post.

8.   Put yourself on an energy-diet. Literally, choose your energetic intake: monitor and manage your exposure to toxic “news,” fear-mongering, and any media (including t.v, movies and articles) that focus on victimization, whatever the method. Prolonged fear and anger reduce immunity.  This is not to say you can’t be informed, but choose discernment rather than reactivity and judgement.      

9.    Finally, use the opportunity of staying-at-home in ways that support you, not to just pass-the-time.  What are the things you’ve been saying you “don’t have time for?”  Evaluate the things that have fallen away; what served you and what didn’t?  How can you use this time to build relationships (with yourself or others)” “Go deep,” as one of my sons would say, and discover the wilderness within. You might be surprised by what you find, and what you’ll heal. 

In short, in the context of so much external uncertainty and change, we can be our own best allies because of our phenomenal innate resources for managing our thoughts, energy, emotions, immunity, and brain chemistry.

Sometimes helping in a crisis boils down to being the person in your circle who can stay grounded and centered and hold space for others going through rough times.    Your own energy is a powerful source for others and can offer solace simply through your presence.   

Be the light that guides the way.

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