Customer Reviews

Jambo, Mama

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

It was in search of information about Africa I first stumbled across the pages of a travel agency. Available on their pages was Jambo Mama. For free. Why not, I thought, and downloaded the piece. After I had read the three first chapters, I had to find out if the story was true or fiction, but the travel agency didn't provide much information about either author or the book itself. What was provided, though, was ms. Atwoods e-mail adress. Contacting her personally, I asked about the story's validity. She could confirm that all was taken from her own first-hand experiences of the country, people and culture of Kenya. Wow! Talk about a major adventure...

Her story is the story about a girl who, upon returning from a vacation in Kenya, finds that the easy, urban life of America is not satisfactory. A yearning for the warm African nights and all that goes with it builds to an irresistable urge to move for a longer period of time. She thinks things over, and decides to pack up her entire life and leave. She rents a house in suburban Nairobi and begins a life almost from scratch. It is the story of a girl who experienced African life up close. Some of the challenges she faces include surviving rough safari's (not designed for the average tourist), running a small-scale business (the African way) and maintaining a social life. As any good story, it also includes some good romance...

Melinda Atwood writes with an easy language that is full of life. Even though you won't find the most profound metaphors in her all over elegant sentences, you start imagining yourself in her situation after a couple of paragraphs. Her book gives a great description of the many moods of that which lies under the African sun. You can even expect to pick up a couple of phrases in Swahili. I can recommend Jambo Mama to everyone who wants to know more about Africa, and especially Kenya, but also to anyone who enjoy a good story. If you, after reading this review and others, find the book unworthy your time and money: pole sana! (don`t understand? read the book)

Reviewed by Stian Rein Andresen and Øystein Tøsse Larsen

I thorougly enjoyed reading this book! Melinda is a wonderful and entertaining writer whose description of her life in Kenya was written with complete honesty and candor. I am afraid vanity would not have allowed me to be quite so honest. Her detailed accounts of her trials and triumphs kept me turning the pages. Since I have visited Kenya several times, and especially the Masai Mara Game Reserve, I felt as if I were right there with her. She wrote with compassion towards the people she knew and loved there, and best of all, she wrote with a sharp wit and an incredible sense of humor. I found myself laughing out loud often. It wasn't an easy thing she did, moving to Africa by herself for an extended period of time, for Africa and New York are as different as night and day. Melinda did, however, what so many others only think of doing...she followed her dream. For the reader who wants to learn more about modern Kenya, this book is for you. For the reader who wants a fun, interesting, informative, romantic, and heartfelt book to read, then don't miss this one. I highly recommend "Jambo Mama."

Just finished reading this wonderful book this week-end! It's about a middle-aged woman with a dream to throw herself into "once-in-lifetime" adventure and fulfill a long time fantasy.....to live in Africa. I found her descriptions of Kenya and the other places she visited via Safari, to be informative and insightful yet at the same frightening and exciting. She describes her day-to-day life struggling to live out her dream. There are the cultural differences, language barriers, dangers, and the ever present lonliness but when she looks out at the vast beauty that is Africa, it is all worth it. She embraces each challenge with dogged determination to prove to herself that she can overcome the sometimes seeming insurmountable obstacles. I've never been to Africa and don't know if I'll ever get there in view of the dangers surrounding travel outside this country, but I was able to live vicariously through this magical memoir and dream.

Overwhelmed by the circumstances surrounding her mother's passing, Melinda Atwood needed to find a new inner center. Uncertain of where to search, but driven to as distant a place as possible, she chose Kenya, where she planned to spend one year hiding out and, hopefully, healing. She ended up staying there for six years, living by her wits, struggling with loneliness, isolation, financial adversity, a disastrous love affair, and single parenthood -- all the while recreating her life. In the process, she discovered within herself a core of strength and resourcefulness she hadn't known was there. Highly recommended reading for those who appreciate engaging biographies of interesting people caught up in usual circumstances and fascinating life events, Jambo, Mama: Memories Of Africa is her candid account of her journey, and an inspiring story of determination, hope, and courage told with honesty and humor.

Allured by the introductory chapters accessible on the net, I was enticed by the backbone of her solo mission to a place with an almost contrary rhythm to the West. She definitely chose a beautiful country, still raw, still real. I'm bias of course - Having grown up in Kenya; it was another opportunity for sweet nostalgia.

While reading the book, I enjoyed the witty incorporation of Kiswahili idioms and expressions. I enjoyed her novel descriptions of Kenya's unfamiliar Northern Frontier and I took pleasure in the recognition of places such as Karen and Kiambu. It brought familiar places back to life.

Nonetheless, although this book has the potential to play sugary games with the hearts of fellow Kenyans, it lacks some of the insight that I had initially expected and desired. I was not disgruntled by this but simply listened to another story between the lines. By this I mean that, whereas the book strove for transparency and appeal, some sections were opaque and lacked the detailed artistic revelations that this intelligent and perceptive woman so apparently preserved in her mind. It felt like there were pieces missing as she was pushed by her peers and fans to write on. Perhaps a more integral account of the relationships that went terribly wrong was needed, or may be more reflections on the how her past plays with her present lifestyle and state of mind. The reader demands the full story.

There seems to be a lot of latent potential that I know can come through in a sequel (which I would read -hint hint). After all, writing is a never-ending journey as we grow and evolve. I'd like to see how the author processes her life and her past and changes accordingly. Overall, It's a very nice book and I hope that Melinda continues to write as she progresses through life. Hopefully we will get a chance to see what this strong and incredible woman has learned with time. Share.

I have found the first information about Kiswahili in Melinda's book. I am from Turkey and I always wanted to travel to Africa, and so i found Melinda's book in the net and her story triggered my wish out to travel to Kenya and start to learn Kiswahili. I love her book and will always read it, after watching the old film "African Queen" yesterday eveing on TV, I had the strong urge to read some chapters of Jambo Mama. It strangely soothed my soul which longs to be in Africa again. As I am having a baby soon, I cannot travel to Africa for the next two years, so i will keep Melinda's story next to my favourite chair and looking forward the long cold winter nights. I can absolutely recommend to buy this book, if you want to travel to Kenya or Africa or if you prefer travelling in your mind with Melinda to this wonderful country. with love from Turkey Asiye

I really enjoyed this book from the first page through the last. It took me on an incredible journey of life in Kenya, Africa with all it's mishaps, adventures, safaris, and real life day to day living as a local living in Kenya. I really hated to see it end! This book is a must have for anyone planning a trip to Africa or for anyone that loves exotic destination travel.

A couple of years ago I was looking around for Internet sites on Kenya and by chance came across the first chapters of Melinda Atwood's story. I was immediately hooked and still keep dipping in to reread chapters over and over again - I grew up in Uganda and Kenya and found Melinda's story telling so refreshingly truthful about the place I still think of as 'home'. I saw Kenya again, and all the people I had known, but through her eyes, and felt so homesick. The people and the places she writes about are all very real. They do exist (from the scruffy streets of Nairobi to the open grasslands and beyond). The incidents she tells us about are sometimes touching, sometimes downright funny, and sometimes so heartbreakingly sad, especially when you know that they really did happen. Some of the incidents she recalls may even seem totally bizarre, but this is the real Africa (you won't read this story in any guide book) and by the time you've read the final page, Africa will have worked some of its magic on you as it has done on Melinda, myself and everybody who has even been there. This book should be compulsory reading for anyone who is even toying with the idea of a visit to Kenya. Melinda will open your eyes to the good, the bad and the ugly of being a mzugu in Kenya, and you'll still want to go and see for yourself! Forget Karen Blixen, this is `Out Of Africa' updated for the next millennium!

I just loved Jambo Mama. I read the prologue and the 1st chapter on the internet and was hooked. I had to know more about this brave (or is it insane?) woman who left her family, friends and all that was familiar to her to set up a life in Kenya. The Kenya of the 1980's that Ms. Atwood writes about is part small town, part wild jungle, part exotic tourist trap and never ever boring. She paints the picture of the place and the people she encountered so well that, by the time I finished Jambo Mama, I felt that I too had had an adventure in 'Ahfrica'. In the first chapter, after squeaking through the somewhat unconventional customs at the Nairobi Airport, Ms. Atwood, instead of finding herself in the Karen Blixen house of her fantasies arrives at her new rental to find gold bedspreads and the walls painted forest green. That first experience of fantasies crushed is just the first of many in this book about starting over and reinventing yourself. But despite countless disappointments and endless tussles with the culture Ms. Atwood just kept on going, kept on showing up and manages to have a sense of humor through the whole bloody thing. She writes with wit, and honesty about the journey she went through, on many different levels, during those six years. This book manages to be sweet and irreverent at the same time. Right up my alley.

Ditsy rich girl from a dysfunctional family braves the wilds of suburban Brit ex-pat community in Kenya!

No threat to Dinesen or Markham. The only redeeming quality is the locale.

Modest "go girl" appeal and a couple of good swahili puns. Constant reference to "Ah-frica" became very annoying.