ACCIDENTAL AFRICAN BLESSINGS

About the Book

As I pondered on a title for this book, I thought about my first life and work experience in Africa. How I suffered several severe cases of malaria, how difficult it was to adjust to the hot humid climate and the discouragements from my relatives and friends back home that I was in a wrong place to which I almost succumbed. The only thing that made me stay was a sense of duty to the other five Jesuits working with me. As this mission was only new I did not want to demoralize any of them. This decision has later proven to be one of the best decisions I have ever made. All that experience brought many turns to my life in Africa, bringing me from Nigeria to Zambia to Ghana and back to Zambia again. These events were like accidents. Accidents are unexpected, unplanned and often painful. It was just an accident of history that the mission was just getting started and that it bad so few people on it. It might have been another accident of history that the Biafran War began just as I made my way to Nigeria that made it more difficult to recruit new members to the mission.. These accidents of history brought me to a painful decision to return to Nigeria when I didn't feel attracted to the prospect. Yet, this painful experience turned out to be a great blessing for me. I came to love the people and the continent more than I could ever have imagined, and found myself greatly enriched by the experience. It is this development in personal growth that I want to share with the reader. Cover Design by Danny Chiyesu

About the Author

Father Ugo Nacciarone was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA in 1933. He entered the Jesuits in 1950, was ordained in 1964 and was missioned to Nigeria in 1967. He spent the next 40 years working in Africa. He returned to the USA in 2007. This book is a reflection of those 40 years in Africa.