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/.

The post Winner – Nautilus Award appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

The Saturday before leaving my LABE friends gave me a beautiful going away party that was so thoughtfully put together I was deeply honored and moved.   They are dear friends and it’s not real yet that I won’t see them again – unless I somehow made it back to Uganda…  It is completely surreal to think that I’ve created a life here and in two days life will shift dramatically and I’ll have running water and lights on demand, not to mention all the hubbub that goes with re-entry and the excitement of seeing old friends.  I’m excited to be coming home but part of my heart will always be here. And I think that’s as it should be.

The post Almost….. appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

As time  comes to a close here in Gulu it’s a bit surreal.  The house feels like a shell and is essentially empty except for the basic pieces of furniture.  All but a couple of pieces of artwork is down, crafts packed.  Knowing me as many of you do, I packed the arts crafts and mementos first and those things the kids gave me to make life comfy here: battery chargers, Life Save Water Bottle, Steri-pen, solar charger.. I continued to be one of the best prepared PCV’s in country – thanks again to the forward thinking of my kids. 

Naively I thought I had only one suitcase of treasures. Well – the joke was/is on me. Two 40lb bags later, I realized that packing to leave is actually more complicated than packing to get here and for one simple reason: things I forgot from home could be (and were) mailed to me and – I knew I would return to the States and the family and friends.

Leaving here, I realize it’s entirely possible I won’t return – or at least not for years. And – as is my nature – I want to take every morsel of memory back with me. And it appears I’m doing just that. So – pack-unpack-repack repeat.

Mentally, I’m somewhere else. Physically, I’m here doing what I need to do to leave. Part of that equation is Peter and setting up a really functional and caring support network for him when I’m gone and one that can manage his continuation in school assuming his grades on his Primary Leaving Exams allow that. Since we won’t really know that until January, things will have to move fast because school starts again on February and the group will have to find him a school and one I can fund. Peter certainly had good people in his life before I arrived on the scene and they will be the constants in his life when I leave.

The challenge has been convincing Peter of that life will move forward, but slowly-by-slowly as the expression goes that is happening. We gathered in the office of the DRDC (Deputy Residential Regional Commissioner) who has been so instrumental in helping Peter when problems have come up. It’s amazing the people Peter has gathered around him – how a street kid can become friends with and befriended by high district officials, the police, pastors and others. But it was through Peter that I began to know most of Gulu! Anyway – that network is in place and that feels good for all of us.

I met a young woman who is here working with Educate for Change and she’s taking over the house making the task of finding places for all the furniture a lot easier.  She’s also helping with Peter.  So things are falling into place. The universe works in amazing ways.

My LABE friends here are wonderful and they have just this week moved into the larger offices promised a year ago, but still have no power or water.  This is an office we’re talking about – no copier, internet, lights, etc.   The library project however, seems to be in hands that will work to continue its growth and that’s satisfying.

I spent the weekend saying goodbye to friends I’ve served with and a curious thing in happening.  One volunteer I really like met Travis and Brett and will probably connect with Travis in Florida to go cave diving.  A Ugandan friend who left while I was traveling, turns out to be in Dallas now working as a CPA.  We’ll get to visit when he comes to see friends who have a house in the Austin hill country!    Another RPCV who is working here with a social-enterprise group also left while I was traveling, but is going to be in Austin the day after I arrive! So we’ll also see each other.  The world keeps getting smaller and I like it.

The post Fixin’ to Get Ready – appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

N

The post Lift off! Embracing the grand adventure… appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

What I want now is more sleep – but 22 hours on a plane should take care of some of that.
N

The post Stretching the umbilical…. appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

Two 40 pound suitcases and one carry on later  (all have been weighed and measured to conform to Peace Corps regulations) it’s been a challenge to think ahead to what one will need for two years away.
And I’ve had to get more techno-savvy to go to a country without technology.  Go figure!    Enough of that tho – here’s the schedule: fly out tomorrow for Tuesday staging- where we will get lectured on safety, get Peace Corps passports, sign papers, etc.   Wed. morning we check out of the hotel and climb on a bus a head to JFK for a 6:25 PM departure on American Airlines to fly to Brussels.  Then from Brussels to Entebbe – 22 hours.  I’ve been able to discover there are 46 of us on the flight.

Now you know about as much as I do! In Kampala, we will be matched to Ugandan families with whom we will live for the first three months during training.  They will try to get us oriented to life in Uganda (bucket baths, latrines, Luganda language, customs, food, etc.).  I’m nervous about learning Luganda or Swahili!!!  

Up ’till now it’s been mostly the mechanics of getting out the door.  Tomorrow it gets real!

The post Whew! Closing One Door, Opening the Next… appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

Partly I’m posting this to see if, with a new posting, folks are notified in email of a new post.  So let me know – would ya? Still figuring this out… , while I pack, sort, pack again, finish the course on Teaching English as a Foreign Language and oh yes re-pack, say goodbye to friends and last but not least – sell the car.  Is it un-American not to have a car, insurance bill, credit cards, phone, TV????

The post Fixin’ to get ready appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

In the late 70’s I left an administrative job and went sailing (right) for a year aboard a 29-foot sloop with a new husband.  In the 90s I quite another husband and ushered myself and two sons into a new history. When the nest emptied, it was a soul-bending experience and I felt the need to recalibrate and moved to what the locals call West-by-God-Virginia, but I just couldn’t turn it into Austin – so I came back.  When I grow up, maybe I’ll settle down…

Austin has always felt the most like home, the familiar, the place closest to my heart and way of being in the world – the place that always pulls me back.  Bluebonnets! I’ll miss bluebonnets in the Spring. But each departure has been a lateral move, simply moving my belongings, account, utilities, business and passions to another place.  This one is altogether different – not a transfer of things – but a release of many of the externals that have identified me.   This is a total jettison of the trappings, taking just the essentials and who ever I am at the core – without the identifiers of business,  friends, clothes, make-up, hairdryers, electricity, running water – to see how I can contribute to a larger world and a larger me.

It’s three weeks and counting: still not knowing whether the house will sell or lease or how to bridge the gap between this stage and the next – operating on total trust, the goodness of friends and the universe at large and the belief and experience that life evolves in divine order.  Fortunately, we don’t always know what this is – so part of the adventure is discovering it along the way.

If you’d like to join me on this quest, come on along.  I’ll post when I can, answer e-mails when I have the luxury of a connection and have a cell phone at some point in the future.  It may – or may not – work.  But I’m not on the moon – just gone-ta Uganda!

The post Musings on leavings appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.