Safari Jema Wins Indie Book Award for Best Memoir!

Yippee! Safari Jema won the Indie Book Award for Best Memoir! I, and winning authors in other categories, will be honored at the Indie Books Awards on June 4, 2012 in Manhattan. Onward!

(Photo taken atop the highest sand dune in the world, Namibia.)

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          Safari Jema
     

     

          by Teresa O'Kane
     

     
     

         
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The Reviews are In!

Safari Jema, A Journey of Love and Adventure From Casablanca to Cape Town






Available in book, and e-book formats on Amazon.com. To order, click here:http://www.amazon.com/Safari-Jema-Journey-Adventure-Casablanca/dp/1463741790/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336091890&sr=8-1

Here's what readers are saying...

Armchair Travel at its Best, May 2, 2012

By Gail -

This review is from: Safari Jema: A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town (Paperback)

O'Kane paints a truly fascinating picture of Africa's landscape and people, while adding color about her upbringing, and the cast of characters she meets along her journey. This is a great book for those who want to experience Africa through the eyes of a brave, smart, funny, and sensitive adventurer. By the end of the book, you'll have a greater sense of the beauty of Africa in its many forms, and also gain an understanding of the daily struggles many Africans endure. The author and her husband traverse Africa in many different ways, from an overland truck, to bush taxis, ferries, buses, planes, and automobiles. From each experience a fascinating story ensues, and you find yourself wishing you were there, and not there, all at the same time. Since I am an armchair traveler, I look forward to taking another amazing journey with the author someday, from the comfort of my living room.

Safari Jema is a Gem, March 24, 2012

By Greg Maggipinto

This review is from: Safari Jema: A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town (Paperback)

Move over Peter Mayle and make room for Africa's version of A Year In Provence. Covering a year of travel in Africa with her husband Scott, Teresa O’Kane is blessed with the rare gift of observation that entrenches you in the moment, as she delights her readers with the lore of cultural contrast as told through her well adjusted parochial school eyes and wit.
For those just interested in the pros and cons of visiting the exotic places chronicled, you won't be disappointed. But what makes Safari Jema special is O’Kane's brutal honesty in recounting her hilarious reactions to events that would jar even the most seasoned traveler. This is what comes when fear, and an unquenchable desire for adventure, collides in the personage of a natural born raconteur, who also happens to be the proverbial catholic girl next door.
Where else can you find tales of a girl’s shoes not polished enough to be "almond worthy" and learn about the Ethiopian Ark of The Covenant, in the same paragraph! Who else is rating countries on a Donkey scale, to assess the treatment of their beasts of burden? And if that's too boring, O’Kane can also recount the sexual habits of her overland truck mates, as well as wild African life in equal detail. Such is the power of her unique curiosity, always retold with a genuine dose of humanity.
You surely will not fall in love with some of O’Kane's African journey, but you can't help but fall in love with the diarist and this story.

  

Africa the way few people get to experience it, March 22, 2012

By Lloyd Newgren "Lloyd"

This review is from: Safari Jema: A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town (Paperback)

This is the ultimate in armchair travel. I don't think I'd have the courage or fortitude to travel through Africa the way the author and her husband did, so it's a real treat to get to read about their journey without running the personal risk of being eaten by an irritated hippo. Almost as much as the wonderfully up-close-and-personal experiences, I really admire the author's sense of adventure and fun, her desire to get to know the people she meets on her travels, her respect for her surroundings, and her "take things as they come" flexibility. I'll be on the lookout for future adventures!

Wonderful book, amazing stories, March 11, 2012

By Chris Soden

This review is from: Safari Jema: A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town (Paperback)

Safari Jema is a wonderful book, not only for those who love Africa and/or hope to travel there, but for anyone who loves a good book. Through Teresa's stories of her travels we learn about her and she is charming. She is a wonderful storyteller and her stories are inspiring, heartbreaking, hilarious and compelling. I love this book and will continue to follow Teresa's adventures on her blog.

Safari Jema: A journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Capetown, March 9, 2012

By Brent Nielsen

This review is from: Safari Jema: A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town (Paperback)

I am definitely not into travelogues but Safari Jema has been a charming and delightful exception. The author's tale of she and her husband's experiences in Africa are warm, vibrant and so wonderfully descriptive I felt the heat, the rain, the smells, the frustrations, and delights Ms O’Kane relates. Like E. G. Burroughs' Tarzan adventures, when it rains in her story, I feet wet! Her prose is absolutely riveting, and as no amateur traveler myself, so very detailed I felt as though I were sitting in the truck, right next to Tris and Scott, as they experienced the trek of a lifetime. Absolutely required reading for anyone contemplating a similar experience, it will delight and astound the armchair adventurer as well. I found myself sneaking a read when I was supposed to be doing something else! I highly recommend this warm and at times heartbreaking story to readers of all ages and gender!

Africa.........the hard way, March 3, 2012

By Ross

This review is from: Safari Jema: A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town (Paperback)

Teresa O'Kane has a great story to tell about the journey she and her husband took from one end of Africa to the other. It is an adventure story that she tells superbly. Teresa and Scott eschewed the up-scale luxury safari system and chose trucks and buses and bush taxis; in doing so they experienced a fascinating connection with the people and the land. She uses words wonderfully. More than once I came across a sentence or a paragraph that did its job so perfectly that I had to stop to reread and savor the image conjured. Read the book and you will find yourself admiring the courage and spirit of adventure of these two travelers.

Love love love this book!, February 16, 2012

By R. Amooi 

This review is from: Safari Jema: A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town (Paperback)

Africa is very high on my list of places that I want to travel with my wife. I love to hear stories from others to learn more about the culture and the country. This is such a great book in so many ways. Teresa O'Kane is a great storyteller but what makes it even better is that she and her husband took the less-touristy route to see THE REAL Africa. Her stories are amazing and some SO funny. It's the perfect blend of adventure and humor. Of course, there are some sad things I read and some things that just blew my mind. But we all know that the country has many problems. I especially like how she gives the reader tips on how to do the same trip or a trip that's more scaled down, if you don't have 10 months to travel. A pure joy to read. Form what I can tell, she hasn't written anything else but I hope she does. I would love to read about another wild adventure like that.

The Broad Canvas of Africa, February 7, 2012

By John Kenny

This review is from: Safari Jema: A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town (Paperback)

Books about Africa are legion. Good books about Africa are much rarer. Many writers lose themselves on this broad canvas. Teresa O'Kane succeeds in blending the personal, physical and spiritual journey she and her husband Scott underwent on an extraordinary expedition from Casablanca to Cape Town. It is a highly personal and impressionistic account, but Ms. O'Kane never loses either her objectivity nor her openness. Her descriptions are vivid and the characters memorable, from "the Mechanic" a crazed Aussie, with whom they start their overland journey in Morocco, to John, their instructor at Game Ranger school in South Africa.

Her central character, however, is always Africa; Africa in all her multifaceted, contradictory splendor; Africa with her complex tapestry of peoples and cultures; the daily struggle for survival and sheer exuberant joy living. Ms. O'Kane brings to life moments of wonder, adventure, hope and tragedy, while avoiding the pitfalls of colonial condescension, blithe optimism or hopeless hand wringing.

There are travel tips to be gleaned from her account, but what Ms. O'Kane succeeds most of all in doing is writing a book that describes not what to see in Africa, but how to immerse yourself in Africa, if as she says, you have to will to do it.

Excellent, fun read, January 21, 2012

By Judy

This review is from: Safari Jema: A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town (Paperback)

If you like personal stories about adventure travel in Africa, if you like the sense of getting to know the author, if you enjoy a good laugh, I recommend Safari Jema. Teresa O'Kane is a wonderful raconteur (raconteuse?) who includes interesting details without tiring the reader, and who presents the land and people of Africa in a positive yet realistic manner. A lot of good tips are woven in, but even if you are not planning a trip to Africa, this book is very entertaining.

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Sample chapter from Safari Jema, A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town

Meat is Meat

Victoria Falls roared nearby while Scott watched a tourist leap
from the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia and disappear
into the abyss over the Zambezi River. He couldn’t bring himself to actually lean over the railing because he has a fear of heights. Just standing on the bridge was enough to make his knees buckle. While he waited for the next bungee jumper to vanish from sight, he became an instant trillionaire when he bought a stack of Zimbabwean one hundred billion dollar notes from a man on the bridge. A trillion Zimbabwe dollars didn’t buy much. Inflation had topped 500 million percent and a single one-hundred-billion dollar note would buy little more than a loaf of bread or a few eggs. But the billion-dollar notes had become a commodity. While President Mugabe continued to ruin an entire country, he had inadvertently created a market for Zimbabwe
dollars on eBay. Unfortunately many months later, in Thailand, our backpack was relieved of eight hundred billion dollars along with our beloved Swiss Army Knife. The knife wasn’t your run-of-the-mill gadget with a blade and screwdriver. It was one I had purchased direct from the source in Switzerland. It was called The Superchamp and it had dozens of tools incased within its only-available-in-Switzerland black body. Not
only that, engraved on its side was a personalized mushy dedication to Scott. More than a portable toolbox, its knife and corkscrew alone represented romantic picnics in the Alps and glasses of Riesling along the Rhine. Somehow I think I would have mourned the loss a little less if the Superchamp were being put to use building a bridge in Africa instead of opening a can of beans in some communal kitchen of a backpacker hostel in Thailand.

Billion dollar notes aside, it was tragic what was going on in Zimbabwe. People desperately waited for something to change. There were fuel shortages, grocery store shelves were empty, and farms sat derelict. Those who were able would cross the border into Zambia each day to work—or to sell stacks of Zimbabwe dollars to travelers— before returning at night to a ruined Zimbabwe. Most Zimbabweans seemed to accept their lot with something closer to pragmatism than bitterness. We asked a taxi driver waiting for fares near the bridge how he felt about what was happening in his country and if he thought Mugabe should step down or be thrown out. He answered with a resigned shrug, “It’s better to have the devil we know than one we don’t.”
It wasn’t always like that in Zimbabwe. Until recently it was our favorite African nation. It is a physically beautiful country and we had always admired the resourcefulness of her people. As recently as 1999, Zimbabwe was still considered a breadbasket of Africa, the economy was relatively healthy, and inflation was not yet a major headline. On two previous visits we had been able to travel anywhere in the country in relative comfort and security.

During one such trip we noticed a billboard advertising “Business Days, Zimbabwe Trade Zone,” from our seats on a crowded long-distance bus. As we entered the colonial city of Bulawayo, we decided it might be interesting to see how a trade show in Zimbabwe might differ from one in Silicon Valley and we made a plan to attend. I am sure we were the only tourists there. When we arrived at the entrance they couldn’t decide under what category to admit us. Finally someone handed us badges that read, “Foreign Guest,” and we entered the trade show floor. Salesmen hawked furniture, crafts, and import-export opportunities from within hundreds of tents and booths. In lesser number were agents representing safari and game lodges. One lodge, located in Hwange National Park, offered trade show attendees a full board package including game drives at a place called Ganda Lodge for a price almost too good to believe. Scott gave me a look that said, “What have we got to lose?” We purchased two nights and received an official-looking voucher.

The next day we took another bus to Hwange National Park where we met Happiness, Cuthbert, Fortunate, and Boniface, all part of the Ganda Lodge staff. I wondered who they thought we were because we received the royal treatment. Soon we learned we were the first guests they had had in weeks and that we would have Ganda Lodge to ourselves. After a welcome drink of something orange and cool, we were shown a selection of two-story cottages to pick from. We quickly chose one fronting both the water hole and the swimming pool. This in turn overlooked a grassy savannah shaded by acacia and mahogany trees. In a branch of a thorn tree overhanging a second-story viewing platform, a lilac-breasted roller came to rest not two feet from where we sat. The spectacularly colored bird preened its feathers like an actress preparing for a close-up. It was
the dry season at Hwange and most of the water in the holes had evaporated. Fortunately there was still water in the pond near our cottage and that was what brought thirsty animals practically to our front door.
After we settled in, the head ranger David took us on a game drive. We stopped briefly to watch zebra and giraffe grazing near the lodge, and then headed out into the bush. One hour into the game drive we stopped near a herd of some two hundred elephants. One juvenile elephant immediately performed an impressive mock charge, running at our vehicle with his ears flared out and his little trunk flailing wildly. Then while I held my breath, another young female elephant walked directly over to where I sat in the backseat of our open-topped Land Cruiser and calmly draped her trunk over my shoulder. My heart was beating so hard I thought it would leap from my chest. I sat like a statue even though my insides tingled with excitement. There was nothing I could do to stop the happy tears that ran down my cheeks.
After a few minutes of close-encounter bliss, we continued through the game park stopping again to watch a group of slow-moving impala and giraffe. The air was so hot and parched that the grasses crackled under the hooves of the animals. I felt nearly on the verge of heatstroke.I’ve never been one to handle the heat well anyway, and the temperature out on the savannah was pushing me to my limit. Evidently it showed
because David glanced at my clammy, flushed face and asked, “Would you like to go back now?” As much as I wanted to have another close encounter with an elephant, I knew that driving around in one-hundred-
degree heat in an open-top vehicle might do me in. Reluctantly I nodded at David and said, “Yes, please.”

Back at the lodge we changed into swimsuits and chilled down in the icy cold pool. As we hung on to the pool’s edge feeling our body temperature return to normal, we watched zebra come to the water hole and drink. Boniface brought us cold beers. It was heaven. Though attending a trade show is not something most travelers usually do, it paid off big for us. The price for the all-inclusive stay at Ganda Lodge was only fourteen dollars per person, per night. Total. For everything. At lunch a tall and dapper African named Cuthbert whose every move conveyed style and grace served us a plentiful meal and more cold drinks on a covered terrace. Watching Cuthbert move around the terrace, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the elegant giraffe we had encountered during our game drive that morning. When we finished eating, he cleared the table so effortlessly that it was as if he had just waved his hand over it and made the dishes disappear. He smiled at us more like we were guests in his home than visitors to a game lodge. “Which meat would like to have for dinner?” he asked.
“You mean we get to pick?” I asked. “What are our choices?”
“Chicken, or beef, or pork,” replied Cuthbert.
“Well, chicken sounds good. We’ll have the chicken,” Scott answered for both of us. Cuthbert seemed a little disappointed at our choice.

After lunch David drove us back to a water hole located about forty minutes from the lodge. During our game drive we had noticed a ladder leading to an enclosed platform in a tall tree near the water and asked if we could spend the afternoon alone there. David parked the vehicle directly under the tree so that we could
safely and quickly climb to the platform. Before leaving, he handed us a small box of cold drinks and said, “Be careful, and try not to become overheated.” We climbed the ladder and spent the next three hours
well hidden in the leafy tree spying on elephant and antelope as they came to the water to drink.

Game viewing that afternoon was a vastly more rewarding experience because the animals were completely unaware of our presence. Perhaps they were under the influence of the heat as well, but I have never seen African animals so relaxed. Some even napped. Without half a dozen safari vehicles filled with excited tourists destroying the calmness of nature (“Marge! Did you see that? Look over there. No, over there! Oh, you missed it! He’s gone now.”), we were able to see antelope just being antelope. It was just Scott, the African bush, and me. Because it was so hot and dry at Hwange, animals naturally gravitated to the water hole so it bustled with activity. Some animals drank from the water’s edge then rested in shade nearby before returning for another drink. Adult elephants stood in the pool and cooled their bodies with showers of water from their trunks while baby elephants rolled in the mud or playfully charged one another. The one behavior all the animals had in common was that they seemed reluctant to leave.
So were we. When Happiness and Fortunate arrived to take us back to the lodge, it struck me that their names expressed our emotions of the day perfectly.

At 7:00 p.m, we were called to dinner . Again it was a buffet with copious amounts of food, way too much for just the two of us. And there was plenty of chicken. I said to Cuthbert, “There’s so much
food!” and he responded, “If you eat more, you worry less.” It didn’t take too long for us to realize that the staff of Ganda Lodge and their families would be eating what we couldn’t finish. We also understood
that when there are no guests at the lodge, there are no leftovers to eat. We took small but sufficient portions of food to our table and ate while the staff watched at a distance.
From the terrace we could see impala, warthog, and giraffe come to drink. Gesturing towards the animals at the water hole, I remarked to Cuthbert, “It’s so beautiful! It would be wonderful to have a meal closer to the water hole.”
From the comfort of our bed the next morning, we watched more than eight hundred buffalo cross the savannah before we headed to the terrace for breakfast. Cuthbert met us at the step and swept his arm
around until it pointed down to the water hole. There on the bank was a table for two beautifully set with white linen, china, and a small vase of wildflowers. “Today, you will eat breakfast at the water hole.”
I burst into tears. To this day it is the most spectacular place I have ever dined.
As we finished our eggs, Cuthbert came to our table and asked,
“Which meat would you like for lunch today?”
“Which meat do you recommend, Cuthbert?” Scott asked.
“Well,” he said slowly. “Meat is meat.” He shrugged as if it did not matter which meat was chosen. “But,” he added quickly, “I don’t think you care much for the chicken. I think you prefer the beef.”
Scott looked over at me and smiled. “I think we prefer the beef too,” he said to Cuthbert.
And that is what we all had for lunch that afternoon. There was enough beef on the luncheon buffet table to feed twenty.

After lunch Cuthbert again approached us with, “Which meat
would you like for dinner?”
We smiled at him and asked, “Do we still like the beef?”
Cuthbert smiled back. “Yes, I think you like the beef most of all.”
Two days later when we left Hwange, we stopped back in Bulawayo
and traded facemasks and snorkels (I honestly can’t remember why in
the world we had facemasks and snorkels with us) and a little money
for a graceful wooden giraffe. Almost six feet tall and hand carved by
the seller, I named him Cuthbert.

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Safari Jema: A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town

reviews: 2
ratings: 3 (avg rating 5.00)

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