Customer Reviews

Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali

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I love the music of Mali. Love how the songs of Ali Farka Toure and Boubacar Traore are about community --- farming and water and schools. And a passionate, exciting CD called Divas of Mali taught me that however poor Mali is --- and it's the fifth poorest nation on the planet --- women in Mali are encouraged to sing. And is that not positive as well?

When she got her letter from the Peace Corps in 1989, a college senior named Kris Holloway knew a few things about Mali I seem to have overlooked. Like: Forget singing --- it's a particularly hard place for women. Most marry by 18 and have 7 children. Mortality rate for pregnant women: about 1 in 12, among the 10 highest. Genital cutting? In Mali, it's almost universal.

And yet here is Monique Dembele, the young midwife in Nampossela, doing amazing work against ridiculous odds. The town's birthing house stinks. A storm has ripped off a corner of the roof. The heat is oppressive. But it is one place where men may not go --- though she has little medicine and modest training, Monique rules here.

The Peace Corps has sent Kris --- the first white person ever to live in this village of 1,400 --- to be Monique's assistant. The friendship is instant. But who wouldn't be inspired by Monique? She has an unfaithful husband. Her father-in-law, a village elder, gets her pay and skims off so much for himself and his son that she can't take good care of the household. And yet Monique is one of life's ebullient spirits: ever-positive, warm-hearted, always looking to help others.

This book is many things --- a reminder of our good fortune in the West, a granular look at another culture, an appreciation of the rich variety of human experience --- but I like it best as an account of a friendship. Kris shares the story of her romance with another Peace Corps volunteer in Mali; he's now her husband. And she becomes the "beard" for Monique's visits to the city where her true love works.

Every aspect of life is magnified and clarified in stories like this, if only because nothing can be taken for granted. "I have never lived so close to death," Kris writes. "Death here was not quarantined, something that only took place in slaughterhouses and hospitals, that only occasionally escaped in the form of car accidents. It was in every home, all the time."

Not that this is a grim book. Kris makes a grammatical mistake that becomes a legendary joke in Nampossela. Monique finds a way to get ripe mangoes from the treetops without having to climb up. And the dancing is soul-stirring.

In the end, though, it's the work that keeps Kris in Mali, and the work that binds her to Monique. They're a formidable team --- when they decide to upgrade the birthing house, you'll be completely convinced they can get it done. (And you'll be stunned when you find out what stands in the way of its rehabilitation.) And when a door closes, a window opens. There's always another project --- like a communal garden where the vegetables are earmarked for babies.

The last third of the book is a great reversal of fortune. No spoilers here, but you will want Kleenex handy. To say nothing of a sense of outrage --- these pages will surgically remove any residual feelings that it's too hard to change things, that it's best to look only after your own interests.

I read something in The New York Times real estate section that kept surfacing as I read this book. An agent was showing a New York woman and her husband a $3 million house in the Hamptons. The wife didn't find it adequate. So she snapped at her husband: "If you'd only make something of yourself, we wouldn't have to live like this!"

In Mali, Kris lived in a dump of a house, with vipers and cobras as neighbors. What Monique put up with --- much, much worse. But they had mutual respect and a true mission and a love for children. They could live badly and still live well.

When our daughter is old enough to understand how that works, I'll give her this book. You might want to do the same for your daughters --- and for yourselves. The midwife in Mali has much to teach us.

I can add nothing to the praises that previous reviewers have given this book except to say that it is absolutely a must-read. At times funny, at times tragic, always fascinating, it gives great insight into village life and culture in a society very close to the edge of bare survival. An infant mortality rate of nearly 50% is a most sobering statistic. When the infants involved are the children of your friends and neighbors it becomes a heart-breaking one, as I well remember from my year in Nigeria. Certainly the harsh treatment (overworked, genitally mutilated, without any rights to speak of, worn out by constant child-bearing) of women in Mali must play a major role in holding the country back. Those women who, like Monique, labor to improve the situation of their sisters are their country's hope and its future.

Thanks so much, Kris Holloway, for reminding me of what West Africa is like, and for making me acquainted with two quite remarkable women--your friend Monique Dembele, and yourself.

I bought this book because it was required reading for a class in Medical Anthropology. Despite this inauspicious beginning, it is a fascinating, intimate and very readable account of women's lives in an African village only a few years ago. The author is a Peace Corp volunteer who explains her experiences in a clear and fascinating way. It is a book that you want to read and that you learn from at the same time.

Before reading this book, my favorite midwifery book was Baby Catcher by Peggy Vincent. Monique and the Mango Rains is every bit as good. I read it in just two sessions, sitting in my comfortable house surrounded by healthy children, too much food, and free-flowing clean water, uncomfortably aware of how much I take it all for granted. I won't easily forget Monique.

Heartfelt memoir of a 22 year old Peace Corps volunteer during her 2 years with a midwife in Mali. Though the book centers around the budding friendship between Kris and Monique, wonderful tidbits provide insight around what the day-to-day is like for the people in that small village, and how it's changed over the years. I wish there had been more: more anecdotes about the villagers, more stories about the births, the pregnancies, the babies and how they got along without diapers, the food, the water, the harvest, the different kinds of patients Monique attended to at her clinic, etc. I was not ready for the book to end.

This book will also unwittingly serve as the best advertisement ever for the Peace Corps, although I suspect Ms. Holloway's relentless enthusiasm, overwhelmingly positive experience and deep connection with that village is not necessarily the norm. And yes, I will recommend the book to all of my friends and family, and I am touched to learn that proceeds are helping Monique's family.

I'm always looking for books written by Returned Peace Corps volunteers, having been in the Peace Corps myself. This book is a fantastic and moving memoir of Kris Holloway's two years in the Peace Corps in a small, impoverished village in Mali. The book recounts the close friendship of two women (Kris and her Malian counterpart, Monique) from very different worlds, a friendship that continued after Kris returned to the U.S. It also very respectfully portrays the day-to-day lives of African villagers...the good, the bad and the ugly. I read the book in one day, often with tears in my eyes. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in Africa, or to anyone who would just like to read an entertaining (yes, it does have plenty of funny moments!) and moving story.

Incredible book. It's been days since I finished the book, and not an hour goes by that I don't think about it still. It's just an incredible story...one that I will pass to all my family and friends. Great gift for the avid reader!

....and as a returned Peace Corps volunteer myself, I've read several. Most I've found to be cynical, patronizing, or superficial, or some combination of the above. Kris Holloway has written this memoir from the heart, and has thus given us a loving but true and unsentimental portrait of her life in Nampossela. She describes her experiences with real humanity and humility, and the Malians in the book are flesh-and-blood people, not caricatures or idealized visions of the noble poor. This is due not only to her skills as a writer but also to the heartfelt, human love she felt for the place and her family and friends there, and to a maturity and level of insight beyond her 22 years. Like many of the other reviewers, I cried and laughed often while reading this book.

Disclaimer: I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania, the country right next door to Mali, during the same period of time that Kris was in Mali. I've also been a practicing midwife for 13 years. So obviously this book touched me personally on many levels, and it's hard for me to be objective. Still, given the other positive reviews, I don't think I'm alone in my love of this book. Buy it and buy many copies, because part of the proceeds go to help educate Monique's children!

An interesting and very personal account of a young American in a southern Mali village. I expected more information on birthing practices of the Malian people, and less anecdotal and 'fish-out-of-water' narrative. Unlike many other books on birthing traditions of other cultures, Holloway fails to offer anything positive or beautiful about native Malian traditions. Her love and admiration for Monique Dembele is honest and heart-felt, but this is definitely written from a WESTERN perspective, with 'poverty' overshadowing the power and beauty of the people. The portrait is quite depressing. The genital mutilation chapter is well done and poignant; no doubt the most disturbing but necessary story told in the book. I felt this story shared a typical problem among peace corps workers in Mali... that they are there to teach, rather than learn. Despite the help the Malians need, and the problems they face, Holloway never saw life from their eyes...the writing suffers from that anthropological bias.

I am a librarian in Connecticut and I just wanted to thank Kris for writing about her Peace Corps experience and Monique's life. This book will be forever etched in my memory. The book will connect with so many women, for many reasons- just seeing the similarities and hardships of life that women share whatever the culture may be. You will laugh, cry, and be deeply moved by Kris and Monique's friendship.