"If you could invite someone back to the USA from anywhere in the world for one month?"

Here is something novel to think about. Let us suppose for one minute that you can afford to travel around the world in search of someone you would like to invite back as a visitor to America for one month and you pay all the expenses. How would you go about doing this and what would be your criteria in making a choice? Well folks this really happened and Brad Newsham in his enchanting book TAKE ME WITH YOU invites us along with him to various countries in the world to choose the lucky person.

We journey one hundred days with the author to the Philippines, India, Egypt and Africa. We are introduced to people such as Ezekiel from Rizal Park, one-eyed Tony from Banaue, Subash the rickshaw man, Kerala Baba from Varanasi, Mohammed Ali, the New Delhi ear cleaner, as well as many more. Which one will be invited to America?

Notwithstanding the poverty existing in many of these countries, we are made aware of the warm hospitality of their inhabitants. They are only too happy to welcome Americans into their homes, offering them a meal and some interesting insight into their way of life. We are reminded that Africa is not savage, as some of us might believe. This clearly is reinforced when the author meets up with Njombo of Tanzania who states the following: "I think that people in America, when they think of an African Village, they do not even think we have permanent houses. I think sometimes people in the West believe we run around without clothes, blowing darts at each other and eating monkeys. But you have seen, we are not naked in our villages. Tell people that you sat at dinner with a savage who was educated by the British, that you sat on chairs and ate with silverware. Please won't you have some more po-tah-tos?"

Along the way we witness some unforgettable scenes, some of which are horrible others perhaps humorous. In India we come in contact with the "ear cleaner" that supposedly can perform magic in cleaning out the dirt in one's ears. However, we are also witness to some repugnant scenes such as people defecating and urinating in the streets without a second thought.

Newsham shows an uncanny ability to familiarize himself with the natives of a particular geographical location and to convey his knowledge to the reader in an uncomplicated manner. What is also very noteworthy is that the underlining objective of the journey never distracts the reader from learning about the many interesting places and people the author encounters.

However, one weakness of the book is the lack of more precise maps describing the exact locations of the various cities and villages the author visits. There is only one general map at the very beginning of the book. This map, unfortunately, is not very clear as to where such cities as New Delhi, Cairo, Luxor, Lamu, Nairobi, Mombasa and Harare are exactly located. If you were not very familiar with the geography of India or Africa you would not know that Lamu is in Africa or New Delhi is in India.

Who eventually is invited to the USA? I promised the author I would not tell you.

"Copyright 2002, Bookideas.com. Orginally published at Bookideas.com"

Reviewed by Norman Goldman
Courtesy Bookideas.com
Posted June 6, 2002