Once started, it is difficult to put down. The reading level is appropriate for adolescent as well as adult readers. Her book is tender and beautifully written in a personal, conversational format. Kris Holloway, a former Peace Corps volunteer, holds an MPH from University of Michigan and currently works in writing and development for nonprofit organizations. The reader shares in Monique and Kris' joys and triumphs, as their battles produce positive results, as well as their sorrow when they lose children or friends. These two women fight for a new birthing house, wages that go to the woman who earns them rather than a male family member, and contraceptives for women in Nampossela. Tradition, kinship systems, and power relationships are recognized, as is rebellion against traditions and standing up for one's beliefs. Instead, these issues are simply presented as parts of the culture in Mali. The author does not avoid sensitive topics such as maternal and neonatal deaths, unhappy marriages, infidelity, female genital cutting, family violence, women's rights, and contraception. This book vividly describes the lives of women in Mali. Placed in the center of the book, the reader has a chance to imagine these visions before actually seeing them. Black‐and‐white photographs of Monique, her family, and community life add to these visions. One can envision women in colorful pagnes, smell the odors of the birthing house and unfamiliar food, and hear the sounds of the village: scratchy voices on the radio, grinding of food with mortar and pestle, children playing. Her descriptions of everyday life allow us to smell, taste, hear, and see what it is like to live in a world so different from our own. Holloway immerses her readers in the culture of a rural village in Mali. Holloway does not simply live alongside the people of Nampossela, but rather lives among them, sharing their food, their jokes, their births and deaths, and their joys and sorrows. It is about the lives of these two women: their friendship, their passions and lovers, and their growth to adult women in a rural Mali community. From its beginning, when Holloway arrives in Mali and witnesses her first birth, the author holds the reader's attention. Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali is an incomparable book. Together, these young women forge a friendship as they struggle to improve health care to women and children in rural Mali, West Africa-Monique with her midwifery skills and revolutionary spirit and Kris with her Peace Corps enthusiasm and resources.
Kris Holloway is a Peace Corps volunteer Monique Dembele is a midwife in Mali. Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years With a Midwife in Mali Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years With a Midwife in Mali
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