Customer Reviews

In Pursuit of My Python Trail: A Winding Journey through Both Sides of a Dream

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4 star:		(2)
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As a preface: I know Richard, thereby this review might appear a bit biased. However, I asked his approval to offer an unadulterated, para-professional review as I have come to grasp after reading his work.

Pro: It is truly a story of one young man's struggle to find his place... to discover `where he stands'. From his early struggles in Cameroon, as a minority English speaker where he traded labor in his relatives homes - servitude & mistreatment - for an opportunity to attend school and achieve a decent education despite the distance between his most valued family members and himself. Unto his first flight directed to the wrong end of the continent... the wrong Portland... and his still on hiatus luggage. His experience attending an American school, then the all too common story of being in possession of a higher degree but working far below it's merits. Followed by the struggles associated to being a `family man' when the bureaucracy overtook the US post-911.

Richard is a psychological stalwart. A Contraire all the setbacks, the US systemic abuse, being a minority in the US and an immigrant who gained political asylum, work withholdings, the unsettled state of his own Cameroon... his perseverance is sharply astounding.

Neg: This is a very enjoyable story if (IF - more difficult for some picky readers than others) you can surmount the abundance of grammatical errors and the sometimes apparently out-of-sequence order of the chapters. Richard assures that he'd enlisted a professional editor, but it hardly seems so. Your money was ill spent, my friend. But in the very end - I'm glad for you, because you for the most part, know where you stand. You have surely done your mother proud.

A 5-star story minus 1-star due to the difficulty created by the poor editing.

Review for "In Pursuit of My Python Trail" by Richard Afuma

By C. C. Quint, Westbrook, Maine

I enjoy memoirs so after reading two books by Americans who had lived in Cameroon as volunteers with the Peace Corps I was surprised to discover that a book had been written by a native of Cameroon who had struggled to come to America.

A friend recommended "In Pursuit of My Python Trail" to me. I found the story intriguing because it confirmed the truth of most of the experiences related by the Peace Corps volunteers. My heart went out to the little boy who was sent from home to home and often treated poorly by his distant relatives as he pursued his dream of learning English and of one day coming to America.

I rejoiced when his persistence finally paid off and he had the opportunity to come to Maine where he became a student at Westbrook College. It warmed my heart to see that many people helped him once he arrived in America.

He continued to strive to better his life so that he could help his family still living in Cameroon and especially his mother whom he obviously loves dearly. He never lost his determination to become a United States citizen or his desire to write a book about his life experiences.

I would recommend that the book be read and shared by those who work with young people who often don't seem to appreciate the opportunities they have to obtain an education in this country.