Bookcover
Nationwide — Global Safari is a memoir-travelogue, offering an account of the author’s intercontinental travel experiences from his local village to the more global “village”, from Africa to Europe, the Americas, and Asia. This book is a story about courage, international friendship, hope, survival, procrastinated return and homecoming to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In 1978, the author left his country for Rome, Italy. His safari or journey started as a three-year pilgrimage, so to speak, or religious education and spiritual pursuit at the world’s headquarters of Catholicism. As a seminarian, he studied theology at Pontifical Urban University de Propaganda Fide, about three blocks away from St Peter’s Square. He had the golden opportunity to serve as a Good Friday’s acolyte or Altar boy to His Holiness Pope John Paul II for whom he had a great admiration. But he exited the seminary because he was no longer interested in becoming a Roman Catholic priest.
So the short-lived spiritual journey to Rome ended up being a long and temporal Europe Tour. Taking advantage of the Old Continent’s international educational opportunities and student mobility, he frequently traveled to England, France, Liechtenstein, and Germany to study languages and cultures. His proficiency in German turned out to be a life-saving experience with a great economic benefit. It secured him a seven-summer employment in Germany as an international student worker (Werkstudent, in German). That’s how he was able to pay for his education after losing his generous scholarship from the Vatican.
The road to Rome also ended up becoming a Columbus-like rediscovery of the Americas, a pursuit of the American Dream through Nationalization, and a World Tour as the author took his safari to China and South Korea. The book shows the process of achieving international competency and ‘cosmocitizenship’, or global citizenship, through a “world-ready” education, working, networking, and immersion into world cultures and languages. Its distinguishing features include the willingness to tell real-life stories, share lived travel-based experiences, and draw lessons for personal, professional, and community benefit. Its effective use of wonderful photographs will also provoke in the reader a desire to discover some of the cultural heritage sites and wonders of the world. In a nutshell, Global Safari is the account of the quest and conquest of a new self through transits, transitions, and translations.
In celebration of the United Nations-designated World Tourism Day 2015 (September 27), Cambridge Scholar Publishing selected Global Safari among its “three best-selling titles on travel and travel writing.”
Book Details:
Global Safari: Checking In and Checking Out in Pursuit of World Wisdoms, the American Dream, and Cosmocitizenship
By Zekeh S. Gbotokuma, Ph.D. (New Castle Upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015)
Pages / Size: 715 / A5
Hardback
ISBN-13: 978-1-4438-7556-1
ISBN-10: 1-4438-7556-2
Web site: www.cambridgescholars.com/global-safari
About the Author
Dr. Zekeh S. Gbotokuma is a polyglot and a US citizen of Congolese descent. After twelve years of education and work in Europe, he is currently an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, and the founding President of Polyglots in Action for Diversity, Inc. He is the former Director of the Center for Global Studies at Morgan. His “extraordinary commitment to global learning and international understanding” made him the recipient of the prestigious Dr. Sandye Jean McIntyre, II International Award 2008. His multilingual publications include OBAMÆNON (2011), Césaire, Césairologie et Humanisme Universel (2007), A Pan-African Encyclopedia (2003), Dizionario Italiano-Lingala/Lingala-Italiano (1990), and a forthcoming Lingala-English-Français-Italiano Dictionary.
PRESS CONTACT:
Dr. Zekeh S. Gbotokuma
(443) 885-1805/ Cell: (410) 440-4753
zekehgbotokuma@gmail.com