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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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.

The post Re-configuring the Puzzle of Me in Uganda appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

Last month I was honored to be invited to be a guest of Donna Seebo, Delphi Vision Broadcasting, on her international podcast program, Warriors for Peace, now its 7th year. “The program focuses on interviews with veterans and those individuals who are dedicated to making this world a more balanced, sustaining environment that supports the ultimate objective of peace.”

Donna is the consummate interviewer, regardless of topic, bringing forth the deepest issues of the subject, in this case women’s issues, education, and possibilities for change.

If you care to browse the archives, you’ll find a plethory of intriguing topics and guests. Mine initially aired July 14, Episode #2835.

Alternatively you can click here: http://107.182.234.197:2197/ondemand/donnaseeboshow/2835%20Jul%2014%202021%20Wed-Nancy%20Wesson-Warriors%20for%20Peace-PRrec0705-113435.mp3

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In case you missed it otherwise – I’m very excited to announce the release of my book, I Miss the Rain in Africa: peace Corps as a Third Act!  It’s been an interesting process writing and rewriting and rewriting and letting the muse take over when I really thought the book was finished.

We’ve all heard writers say that–at some point–the book took a turn of its own, one that wasn’t consciously planned.  And that’s exactly what happened as I began writing a book that I thought would just be about the adventures and misadventures in Peace Corps.   Yep – the burned foot, teaching Ugandans how to fight a brush fire in my back yard, attempting to remove a ring on my finger with a circular saw, and more!

But once I got home–in the book–the next adventure began to unfold and my muse really did take over.

They say writing is good for the soul, but in birthing this book, I really did realize that writing is soul-work. It took me into the deep recesses of memory, judgement, healing, and re-discovery of self.  The adventure continues.

To give you a little preview: I’m offering the Foreword.

 I Miss the Rain in Africa: Peace Corps as a Third Act, is an
absorbing record of a woman’s literacy work in Northern Uganda.
It is also a record of the exploration of self, explored by a woman
who enters a remote area of Africa at age 64 to work with a Non-
Governmental Organization (NGO). Ugandans were emerging from 
Joseph Kony’s cruel and bizarre rebel insurgency which had left the
 Acholi populace brutalized and mired in poverty. Assigned to an 
outpost in the north of Uganda, “where all bus trips begin with a
prayer” and “bathroom breaks can be hazardous to health,” Nancy
Wesson begins to live and work with survivors and strivers.

Western privilege and pride in institutional roadmaps to progress
 have no place here. Daily life for Ugandans is a struggle unimaginable 
even to the poorest Americans. Life is indeed precarious in 
Gulu, yet education is highly valued, and solutions hammered out of
 almost nothing. Season and weather guide life here and everything is
 “about the relationship, not the clock.” Westerners used to direct
and quick solutions must adjust quickly to decisions made through
 consensus.

But serendipity lives in Africa, too. Nancy gets to know her landlady’s
son which leads to literacy materials made of jigsaw puzzles.
The residents of Gulu leave a deep imprint on the author; in 
particular, Peter, whose education she sponsors. On trips to the 
bush, exhausting and hazardous, Nancy works with teachers to 
carve out learning spaces. Her work in Uganda would leave her a bit
 battered and re-entry to the States—shell shocked at the contrasts.
 “Recalibration” is sought and achieved through another exploratory
 journey into the maturing self, requiring a reckoning with 
remembrance, recognition and reconciliation.

With self-deprecating humor, curiosity in all things, and empathy 
for all, Nancy takes us through an account of acclimation, acceptance,
and peace with all the different geographies she encounters—
physical, communal, spiritual. “I had devised a portable life with
 total autonomy and it was daunting. Having infinite possibilities
 was both the good news and the bad news.” Living in Uganda
 brought home the knowledge that having choices is the ultimate
 luxury, to be made “wisely and often.”

Part adventure, part interior monologue, I Miss the Rain in
Africa: Peace Corps as a Third Act is an account of 21st century
 derring-do by an intrepid, intriguing, and always optimistic woman
 who will undoubtedly enjoy a fourth and maybe even a fifth act
 wherever she may find herself.

Eileen Purcell, Outreach Literacy Coordinator
                                                                                           Clatsop Community College, Astoria, Oregon

~~~

 Soft-cover, hardback and Kindle:

Available via the author, Amazon, Bookshop, your local bookstore, and numerous other outlets.

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1.  A friend recently asked me about Heiffer International, an organization I’ve contributed to in the past.   I’m happy to say I do have a first-hand story of success from Uganda. Denis, one of our favorite Peace Corps language trainers shared his story of how the gift of a cow from Heifer International changed his family’s destiny, which – in turn, contributed to changing  the community’s destiny. Every family uplifted in a developing culture, uplifts the community. Because of that gift,  Denis is well-educated, has a sought after job and also has a chicken hatchery. Because of the goodwill represented by  that gift, Denis continues to be an ambassador himself – giving back to his community and assisting foreigners who are in Uganda to help.  It’s a gift that keeps on giving you might say. A goat, bee-hive, water-buffalo, cow, clean water equipment,  business launch – the options are endless! All improve the quality and sustainability of life in profound ways that most of us would have a hard time even imagining. To access their wide range of options, choose a country or a cause or give a gift: http://www.heifer.org/

• Over 97% of donations will go directly to St. Mary’s to provide student and teacher scholarships or in some cases teaching aids.
• Holly and Bill Copeland pay for all foundation administrative costs such as website hosting fees, accounting expenses, mailing, promotional material and marketing. The only exception is credit card processing fees which are less than 3 percent.
• There are no paid staff and Officers and Board members do not receive compensation.
• Accounting for the receipt and disbursement of donations will be provided on request.
• The Principal of St. Mary’s, Sister Carmel Abwot, along with her staff will decide which students and teachers will receive scholarships.

Agnes, Gloria, Agness and Sister Godliver

Thus far, the foundation has supplied four scholarships. During their trip back to Kolongo in September of this year, Bill and Holly met  those fortunate four, pictured left.   A fifth scholarship of $2300  covering the full expenses for 30 months is well on its way. The fact that tuition, books, housing and uniforms are covered in that amount is part of the program’s success, because girls can concentrate fully on their studies. In programs where only tuition is donated, the need of even a book or a uniform can derail everything.  From now until December 31, 2015, Bill and Holly will “personally match at 50% all donations.”   Any amount makes a difference to not only the  students, but for the communities in which they will serve. To donate: http://www.familycopeland.com/

However you celebrate and choose to share in the holidays, I wish you each and all the warmth of home, family and friends and an awareness of the blessings inherent in freedom, choice and the options we enjoy.

Blessing to you all.

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But I have two homes and one of them is Austin,  where I sit now in the family room of a good friend with Cyrus, The Wonder Dog lounging in front of the fire. During Spring Break – I will be the surrogate mom to Cyrus, aka Pig, and his cat, a big, orange tabby named Travis.  Cyrus is a sweetie – but he plays with food – any food – any place – any time.  It will be an interesting week.

The idea for this 6000+ mile trip started with the idea to come back to Texas to teach my 9-hour “Arrange Your Listing for Success,” course as well as a half day class on Elder moves based on my book, Moving Your Aging Parents.  Both are being offered by Austin Board of Realtors and since I’ve missed teaching, I’m really looking forward to it after a three-year hiatus.

However, I have realized upon my return that much of what had been an extensive vocabulary has been left somewhere on the African plains, since it was unusable for the two-and-a-half years in Africa. Perfectly respectable words were lost, having been shoved out by not-so-respectable epithets essential for emotional  survival there, but unfortunately inappropriate for pedagogy.  Other returned PC volunteers have lamented this condition, reduced as we were to speaking Uganglish.  (The Ugandans were no-doubt equally frustrated in trying to communicate with Muzungus.)   Am hoping my mental thesaurus will be resurrected when I start teaching and that it will again supply something interesting and at least moderately appropriate.

Anyway, back to the road trip. The reasonable thing would be to fly – right?   As I remembered the spectacular scenery I would miss by flying across Oregon, Utah and New Mexico, a different idea began to bloom.  It was that idea that caused me to load Hissy-Fit with boxes of memorabilia and the huge-metal-Texas-star-that-has-no-room-in-the-cottage, to take to Travis some 3000 miles away.  Hard to do that even on Southwest Airlines, my favorite. Yes, the trip kept growing. I figured: once I’m in Texas it’s only two days to Florida and then only two more days back to Arkansas and then.. and then…. and then…..   twelve states and fifteen sets of friends (not counting those in Austin) along the way and I’ll be back in Cannon beach.  Well – I’m not in a U-Haul.

That being the plan meant I first had to outrun the winter storm known as Thor, whose ill-mannered trounce across the US coincided with my departure.  Instead of a leisurely drive through the canyon lands of Utah I drove like a bat-out-of-hell just in front of the snow-line (not adequately captured in the picture to the right). It caught up with me soon after Arches National Park and I drove through blizzard conditions until New Mexico, where I stopped to visit with a Peace Corps friend. A nostalgic trip to Santa Fe with its pinon-scented air took me back to road trips with the kids and a trek with friends  when a mysteriously thwarted vision quest in Ghost Canyon/Taos had us scrambling for the car at midnight. Lots of good memories there.  No vision quest this time, but wish there had been time and good weather to make it to Taos!  Another road trip?

Driving 13 hours from Albuquerque through the flat lands of west Texas erased any traces of the romance of  a road trip until a huge orange full-moon graced a clear, cold sky and led me through the hill-country the rest of the way into Austin.

So here I am getting my fill of Mexican food and Texas BBQ until March 31st at which point I’ll re-load the Hissie-Fit and drive through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and north Florida. I can’t wait to see Travis in his domain.  There will be no cave-diving…  though a canoe ride along some of those rivers  or a swim swim with the manatees would be fabulous!

After Florida – a trek up Eureka, Arkansas to attend a UFO conference!   Yes… a UFO conference.  The kids and I have shared a sequence of conscious experiences and mine continue.  As was their habit, the kids recorded their experiences in artwork and it  is also making the trip with me.   From Arkansas, I’ll drop down to see “my mother’s people” as they say in Louisiana and head back through Austin on the way west again taking the southern route through Arizona and all the way up the  California coast until I find my way back to Cannon Beach. I have friends to visit every 8 – 10 hours along the way so it’ll be great fun – if you don’t count driving in Los Angeles.

Who was it who said: “Go West old woman ….”?  No?  Oooooh yeah – that was “Go West young man..”  Oh well – one wouldn’t let gender or age get in the way.

Updates to follow for anyone still reading

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Being out after dark and seeing the night sky after being in a locked-up-night-time-prison for two years produces the same wonder that a two year old must feel  at discovering an iridescent, speckled  beetle. 

It’s been a little over a month since I stepped back onto US soil and I am just beginning to feel like a citizen – although a forever changed one.   I wonder if I will ever lose my excitement over being able to wash hands in warm water coming from a tap or flipping a switch and having light on demand.  Interestingly, internet access and phones continue to provide frustration, mystery (will it “be there”) and opportunities for a few foul words.

At the moment, I’m in Oregon loving every minute of being in Brett’s world.  He and Molly have gone to great lengths to set up a space for me and make me feel welcome, cosy and warm.  Although this is considered a “warm winter” on the mountain, Timberline – is encased in ice. Two other resorts are barely open, one making its own snow. From the crackling, fragrant comfort of  a fire in the three story hand-built fireplace in the lodge  I’m looking out at a mountain side sporting trees bent under the weight of foot-long icicles.  As most of you know by now, Brett is Director of Ski Patrol and as such is tasked with keeping errant skiers and snowboarders from killing themselves on the slopes.  This means – among other things – going out every morning, re-setting boundaries and breaking rime-ice off boundary markers.  Yesterday the ice accumulation on ropes and poles was one foot in diameter and will be worse today.  

 

Interesting to be here on the mountain to see what goes on.  The second day I was here Brett and another patroller happened to be on a ridge when they discovered a gaggle of young (and stoned) snowboarders out-of-bounds.  Going over to give them the out-of-bounds lecture, it was discovered that one of their motley crew had lept over a berm to rescue his gloves and proceeded to body surf to within six feet of a crevasse that would have taken his life had he not stopped.   They were able to rescue him with ropes, ice axes and cramp-ons, but it was treacherous as the lowering of temps has caused deep fissures in the ice between them and him. The snow-bridge on which he rested was fragile at best and heightened the risk, but thre was no time to spare.  Had they not been there at the time they were and been able to execute a rope rescue, this no-doubt would have ended a different way. 

The contrast between the grime, dust and primitive nature of Uganda and ice and snow at a luxury resort is mind bending. I could not have consciously chosen more opposite environments and cultures, unless it would be Travis’ world of cave-diving in Florida.  Across from me sits a woman wearing a full-length mink coat over her leopard-print pajamas.

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It’s a strange new world: soft bed, no  mosquito net, down pillows and comforter, a bath TUB, a toilet! More importantly a toilet that doesn’t require a two-foot long mingling stick to flush …  and fridge that works full time and is stocked with things like cheese and pickles and… and… and.  I went to wash clothes and discovered twin stainless steel monoliths facing me. Adorned with control panel to  rival that of a space shuttle, blinking blue lights with 20 possible selections of how to wash I wondered it they might also orbit. Does it speak?  Well – not yet anyway.

Next, there is the car and I am allowed to drive it.  Ah! no key but a button that begs pushing. I like keys.  They make me feel safe and grounded.  Well – get over it.  This car is push button and when I do (push the button) my seat glides silently and ever-so-smoothly into exactly the right position and the car hums to into action.  Windshield wipers think for themselves and come on when it begins to sprinkle, mysteriously speeding-up and slowing-down to match both rain intensity and car speed.  Said car locks with a mere swipe of the finger…    I have to check the back seat door to convince myself it’s locked, because if I touch the driver’s door, it unlocks and we have to start the verification process all over again.  So-long to my long-standing compulsion to double check the door by pulling on it.  Foiled again.  Last night I discovered that the headlights also have a mind of their own – I had them on bright at one point and they dimmed when I was at a stoplight.  

Jet lag and realty shock play strange games with the mind.  I lose things or forget where I put them moment to moment.  The storage locker I so carefully organized before I left was not quite as well ordered as I remembered.  The boxes I thought were in front so I could access them were “not there.”  Had to completely unload an 8×10 storage room to discover that a box of critical items as far from the front as they could be:  back wall – half way up.  Now I have found most of my clothes, but keep losing them in the room I’m in because—well just because.  Yesterday, I was late getting somewhere because I’d lost my underwear by putting it in alogical place that was SO logical  I couldn’t find it in my mental fog.  So now I’ve relocated the essentials  – for the moment.   I’m sure they are moving themselves around in the night.  At any rate, SOMETHING is waking me at 3:30 in the morning.  It’s the biorhythm thing and it sucks. 

have eaten my way into the new world: Mexican food, BBQ, toast made in a real-honest-to god toaster, eggs with yellow yolks, cheese, pickles, Torche’s tacos. There are stripes down the road, stop signs and red-lights and people know what to do with them! There is a startling absence of cows, chickens and goats on the road – where are they? Bicycles don’t have live chickens handing from the handlebars and waiting to be sold.

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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.

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