Jambo, Mama

by Melinda Atwood

This ISBN is out of print. Please refer to ISBN 9781879384781 for the new paperback edition.

Genres: Africa, Kenya, Memoir

311 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 2000

Reviews

[Pier Briley · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the most annoying books I've read. the trials and tribulations of hiring the right servants can be so hard! She obviously has more money than she knows what to do with and moves to such an amazing country to sit around in boredom. She is always patting herself on the back for her cleverness, whether its how she figured out how to take pictures of villagers who do not want their pictures made or she is helping one of her staff members with medical help. She thinks that one of her employees that she takes to the hospital to deliver a baby should have named the kid after her! She romanticizes the colonial times of East Africa that were not nearly as glorious to the natural inhabitants of Kenya as she might think.

[Greer Noble · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being African myself and knowing Kenya I think it's a refreshingly honest memoir. It's well written and with a lot of heart. One certainly gets a good feel for what the people are like there, the suffering as well as the humor. I don't want to give too much away other than to say it's well worth a read but be warned, it might make you want to go and live there

[Deborah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is so racist and full of privilege it's hard to get through. I'm trying to finish, but it's painful. It details the life of a woman with money and time to burn, living an incredible life of luxury but calling it an adventure. On every page is language like "Most Africans do..." and "the landscape of Africa is..." as if the experience of one wealthy expat in Kenya entitles her to speak on behalf of an entire continent. The way she treats some of the Kenyans is truly offensive. I realize the book takes place in the 80's, but I keep having to double-check the date of publication to be sure that anybody in this day and age could still hold up Karen Blixen as an ideal and not an outdated example of colonialism. I don't understand who thought it was a good idea to publish this book.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

The memoir of an American woman who "runs off" to Kenya, apparently on a sort of whim, buys a hand weaving business in Nairobi, and then decides her life in Kenya is just too funny and quaint not to share. She is so naive one would laugh, except that she takes herself so seriously. Oh, the hardships of life in a third world country, the difficulties in finding competent decorators, good Chinese food, and then the endless funny problems of drunken and disorderly African help and all their hopelessly complicated and incomprehensible domestic squabbles. You do know how it is, darling.

[Ellyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is written by an American who lived in Karen, a suburb of Nairobi, for six years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The author writes mostly about life among the white community, although she relates the stories of some of the native black Kenyans with whom she becomes close. It was an interesting book, but I didn't feel like it gave me all that much insight into life in Kenya. The proofreading is terrible, and all of the grammatical errors annoyed me.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Woman takes up residence "at the foot of the Ngong hills" to enact her own Karen Blixenesque fantasy. A good read (though I struggled a bit not to pass judgement on the over her pretty over-entitled foolishness at points).

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the movie "Out of Africa" and this is along those lines.