Hi all,
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
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Soft-cover, hardback and Kindle:
Available via the author, Amazon, Bookshop, your local bookstore, and numerous other outlets.