Could not finish this book...this woman was so crazy. I've seen western women fall under the Masai spell, and it's not pretty.

Toată adolescența mi-a vorbit mama de cartea asta. La vremea respectiva nu eram interesata de lectură, însă atunci când am descoperit pasiunea pentru cărți, am.tot încercat sa fac rost de povestea asta Pana acum puțin timp, întreaga serie se găsea foarte, foarte greu.
Ma bucur ca s-a reeditat primul volum, sper sa se continue seria pentru ca ar fi păcat sa nu aflu întreaga poveste.
Cartea este una complexă, poate una dintre cele mai dure povesti de dragoste din câte am citit eu pana acum.
Corinne îl cunoaște pe Lketinga întâmplător atunci când ajunge in Kenya cu iubitul ei pentru o vacanta. Se îndrăgosteste iremediabil și decide să nu se mai întoarcă acasă, practic își asuma risc după risc pentru un războinic samburu, un om din cu totul alta lume fata de a ei.
Viata împreună cu el nu este ușoară sub nicio formă, barierele sunt la tot pasul, nivelul de trai în mijlocul tribului este sub orice critica, însă datorita iubirii Corinne accepta totul.
Mi-a fost greu sa înțeleg cum cineva poate trai în asemenea fel doar pentru ca s-a îndrăgostit nebunește de un necunoscut atât de diferit de ea, însă am înțeles încă o data ca dragostea poate fi de a ajuns pentru a fi fericit oriunde, cu oricine. Sau...nu.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this book. I initially picked it up due to my interest in the subject matter; I having a passing interest in anthropology and enjoy reading about other cultures, and have read a couple of books before about the tribes of this region of Africa. This seemed like just the thing; someone with knowledge of both western and Masai culture telling the ultimate tale of becoming immersed in another culture for life. Except it wasn’t.

I became concerned early on when Corinne recounts how, on holiday in Kenya with her boyfriend, she is immediately struck by the good looks of a Masai warrior. From that moment she feels compelled to engineer meetings, pursue him wherever he goes, and tell her boyfriend in no uncertain terms that it’s over. Her very first thoughts, upon seeing Lketinga for the first time, are: “I can’t take my eyes off him; sitting there in the last rays of the sinking sun, he looks like a young god. Five minutes from now, I think to myself, suddenly depressed, you’ll never see him again.” Her boyfriend thinks she’s not acting like herself, and I have to say I agreed with him. She bullies him into going places where she thinks she might by chance encounter “my Masai” again, and treats him with very little regard, and by the end of the holiday decides that she’s going to sell her life in Switzerland to come and live and be with Lketinga. This despite them not sharing a language at all, and the author herself admitting “I have no idea if I’m even remotely attractive to him.”

n  “The next day is our second to last, and I’ve made up my mind to tell my Masai that, after the end of the holiday, I’m leaving Marco. Compared with what I feel for Lketinga, everything that I have felt up until now seems laughable. Somehow I have to make that clear to him tomorrow and tell him that soon I will be coming back on my own. Only for a moment does it cross my mind that I don’t know what he might feel about me, but immediately I tell myself there is only one answer: he feels exactly the same!”n

To be honest I kept reading out of morbid curiosity; the old crash in slow motion playing out before your horrified eyes. The author makes it out to be some sort of epic love she feels for this man, but it’s not, it’s just lust – her dreamy musings about him revolve around his appearance, there’s nothing deeper she knows about him that she can point to as a reason for love. During the months back in Switzerland whilst she sorts out selling everything she owns, she claims to “get hold of everything I can find about the country” but it seems doubtful that she did thorough research given the deep misunderstandings she later makes about Lketinga and the customs of his people, and for some reason she spends the time learning English instead of the Samburu language, or even Swahili. She gets nervous as her departure date gets closer and Lketinga doesn’t write to her, but talks herself out of her doubts with this horrifying line: “n  And then my resolve steels itself again, and I am as convinced as ever that this man is all I need to be happy.n”



I expected the author to have spent a considerable amount of time living with and volunteering to work with the tribe before meeting a man and a relationship developing, having a good understanding of the culture and at least a passable smattering of the language. I definitely did not expect this. The author approaches the relationship in the worst possible way, mistaking lust for love, plunging in without finding out about the life, the culture, or indeed the man himself, and sacrificing everything for this man she barely knows whilst convincing herself that her happiness depends entirely upon him. I have to say the author was breathtakingly foolish and incredibly lucky not to end up robbed or dead several times over (as it is she has several life-struggling battles with various nasty diseases that she was lucky to survive). She learns fairly quickly that kissing and physical contact is completely taboo, and the sex is perfunctory, but still when the object of her lust disappears she travels back to the country and alone, not speaking the language, travels into the bush to find him, determined to marry him. It’s only two days before her wedding that she discovers that the ceremony starts with female circumcision for the bride, something that would be expected of her future daughters too, and for the very first time she flat out refuses to sacrifice everything for this man and asserts her own identity. The wedding goes ahead anyway, due to her husband’s quick thinking in telling everyone that she’d already had the circumcision done at birth, and the author sinks all her money into trying to make a life out in the bush. Needless to say, it doesn’t end well; she tries to open a shop but her husband lets people have things on credit, they’re stolen from, her husband develops a bad habit for alcohol and a native drug, and it’s only after she’s married that she discovers that in this culture it’s quite normal for men to be obsessively jealous and suspicious of their wife’s fidelity – though the warning signs were there beforehand, if the author hadn’t been so blind with lust to ignore all the red flags. I must admit I found it difficult to sympathise especially when the author so recklessly and obsessively pursued this man whilst hardly bothering at all to get to know the other people in the community or to learn more of the language and the culture of these people.

Of the writing style, the best I can say is that it is competent and functional. It lacks creative flair, and didn’t grip me, but it’s passable. It felt tedious at times simply due to the repetitive grinding toil that author recounts week on week; I lost count of the number of journeys she had to make in her car to the nearest village to get supplies during which the car broke down yet again. And yet, I have to admit, I did finish the book cover to cover, due to this sense of morbid fascination with the disaster unfolding before me. It will come as no surprise that after turning the last page it was a definite “I told you so” moment.

3 out of 10

This is not great literature – just a woman’s memoir of her African experience.

Nevertheless, that experience caught my interest. On the one hand, I am very interested in Africa myself, and have a penchant for narratives of intercultural exchange. On the other hand, I admired the author.

I really think Corinne Hofmann made a very big mistake. She fell head over hills in love at first sight with a Samburu warrior. She was 26 at the time. The last time I fell in love at first sight was at 15. At my present age, I carefully consider if I could have a satisfactory relationship with a woman I am fond of.

Secondly, the author let herself drift in that passion and didn’t consider the vast gap between her Western world and the world of a humble Samburu from deep Kenya who had not even gone to school. I myself promised marriage to a North-African woman but, after second thought and getting to know her better, I gave up. I would not have been happy.

That said, I have to admit that Corinne was consequent with her option and gave everything for her love. She cancelled a promising future in Switzerland, sold everything she had and went to Kenya. Her beloved one had vanished and she was able to find him 1,460 km away from Mombasa. She started living in a humble hut in the Samburu district. She married the man under the Kenyan law and gave everything to make a nice future for both of them. She married him. They had a daughter. She caught malaria and later on, hepatitis. She worked like hell…

But the man was unable to understand her, not even to appreciate all she had done.

The rest, and how life is in Kenya for a white, you’ll read it for yourself. On my part, I have to praise the woman because she was a fighter and, even when she had not been able to be reflective, she showed courage and a strong emotional intelligence. I’m happy she was later on able to become rich by telling her story, and sometime in future I’ll read her second book.

But, for the time being, I want to go back to real literature.

DNF :( i liked how the author was super motivated to find the Masai, but her perspective and obsession made her overlook and underestimate the cultural differences. In some scenes, it felt somewhat rude, as if the author was belittling the Masai and his way of life.

Poprilično loš stil pisanja, ali prica je istinita i vrlo neobična pa se uz puno strpljenja i preskakanje nepotrebnih rečenica da pročitati.
Ovo nikako nije ljubavna priča između dvoje ljudi iz različitih kultura već priča o upornoj i sebičnoj ženi koja mora ostvariti ono što si ucrta u glavu bez obzira na posljedice.
Po meni, samo je unijela nemir u život i okolinu jednog primitivnog čovjeka koji se nije ni snašao u novonastaloj situaciji.

I saw the movie first, so of course I wanted to read the book. It is an extraordinary story, to fall in love at first sight and then go live in the bush in a hut made out of branches and dung.

Predictably— she wants to change the man she fell for; and the charm of the rough living does not last forever. The story is somehow compelling and appalling at the same time.

(Subsequent volumes of this tale are just appalling).

She "responded to her inner child." She "made herself vulnerable"... and all the other talk show guru advice. You have to hand it to her... she did it. She married a warrior who couldn't count (numbers, money, etc.) and tried to make it work. She almost died in the process, but kept at it.

I can't get over her spunk! She had ran 3 different businesses in Kenya. There was a ton of red tape, translation problems, unreliable transportation, and her own malaria and difficult pregnancy. Despite these considerable obstacles, all three businesses might have been successful were it not been for her undermining husband.

Many times, she wrote of stress, being tired and being emotionally drained. She rarely says she was afraid. Whenever her car broke down or when her husband got jealous, I was afraid for her! She writes of uncomfortable and probably unsanitary living conditions, but she describes and doesn't complain. She is obviously a very strong and capable woman which makes this story all the more amazing.

While this not a sociological study, one can't help but notice how deeply sexism embedded in the Kenyan society. In so many places, Mama and Priscilla accept their losing battle, and advise Corrine to do so as well.

I held back one star, due to problems that might be with the English translation (i.e. when she left Switzerland, did she sell a car, or cars? There are places where it's hard to tell what a pronoun refers to.) and not her text. Regardless of what you think of the adventure, anyone who reads this will be glued.

Now ladies, what have we learned here? When on vacation in a foreign country, don't fall in lust with the noble savage ( right in front of, and in spite of, your current boyfriend). Don't do it. It's not only vulgar but also dangerous. No man is worth dysentary, diptheria and yellow fever. And let's be honest dearie, I doubt even Martha Stewart herself could do much with a cow dung hut. And why have your baby out in the hellish bush with lions and snakes and God-knows-what lurking about when you can have it in the air-conditioned comfort of a proper hospital where the staff not only shower now and then but also give you DRUGS! Yes dearies, they have Lovely, very helpful drugs and also those wonders of modern science, those most excellent inventions that changed our mothers lives forever-DISPOSABLE DIAPERS! Yes girls, let us learn from this poor woman's experience and stay at home to have our wild flings. Home, where deoderant, toothbrushes and diapers are always to be found. They are on the shelf, just there, next to the mosquito repellant.

„Îndrăgostită de un masai” de Corinne Hofmann este genul acela de carte pe care îl parcurgi cu sufletul și care te ține puternic ancorat între paginile sale. Autoarea surprinde tocmai prin exotismul poveștii și prin extraordinar și neobișnuit. Este o carte autobiografică prin care Corinne își prezintă experiența ei de viață într-un colț uitat de lume de care s-a îndrăgostit: Kenya, Africa. Este europeancă la origini, născută și crescută în Elveția, însă, o simplă vacanță alături de iubitul ei pe continentul african îi dă întreagă viață peste cap. Ea alege să renunțe la tot ceea ce avea acasă și nu era puțin lucru, căci era proprietara unui magazin de haine, să rupă legătura cu Marco și să se mute în Kenya, unde a simțit pentru prima dată fiorii dragostei la prima vedere și nu față de oricine, ci de un războinic masai care i s-a părut a fi perfecțiunea în persoană. Tocmai acesta este ineditul situației, pentru că ea nu trăiește o poveste de iubire tipică, nu petrece mult timp cu cel care i-a cucerit inima, Lketinga, însă simte că el este bărbatul alături de care vrea să își petreacă întreaga viață, indiferent de cât de multe are de pierdut din acest motiv.
https://crampeiedesufletblog.wordpres...

I wasn't completely sympathetic with the heroine however her writing gave me a vivid picture of life in Africa. The juncture of first and third world is always jarring and this marriage gives the subject a new dimension.

Litterärt sett är den här boken inget särskilt, men författaren har en spännande historia att berätta. Dessutom kul att få väcka lite minnen från Kenya