Wail distractedly to mother, somewhere in Africa (6)
I believe the answer is:
malawi
'in africa' is the definition.
('Malawi' is part of 'africa')
'wail distractedly to mother somewhere' is the wordplay.
'distractedly' indicates anagramming the letters.
'to' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'mother somewhere' becomes 'ma' (ma can mean mother. I am not sure about the 'somewhere' bit.).
'wail' with letters rearranged gives 'lawi'.
'lawi' put after 'ma' is 'MALAWI'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for malawi that I've seen before include "Landlocked country of south central Africa" , "Republic" , "African country, capital Lilongwe" , "Central African country" , "Landlocked African state" .)