Dembele Monique - Monique and the mango rains : two years with a midwife in Mali

Praise for Kris Holloways

MONIQUE AND THE MANGO RAINS

a tenuous hold on life and health is made achingly real

Boston Globe

Monique and the Mango Rains bypasses our calloused views and leads us to love and laugh with the amazing individuals who live and work in such dire circumstances.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Despite Holloways anger over wrongs seemingly imbedded in the culture she avoids the trap of cultural superiority. Instead, she simply seeks to help those she has come to love

Minneapolis Star Tribune

A poignant and powerful book.

Kirkus, Starred Review

Holloways moving account will interest all those concerned about the realities of womens lives outside the industrialized world.

Publishers Weekly

the rhythm of life and death in Mali shines through all the pages.

Library Journal

There have been many accounts, mostly by sociologists and anthropologists, of studying people from other cultures. But there have been few accounts of actually being friends with them. Anyone who is curious about what such a friendship feels like from the inside should read this respectful but intimate account of the bond between Kris Holloway and Monique Dembele.

Anne Fadiman, Author, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

This funny, poignant book connects us immediately with women in a far-off land; their triumphs become ours, their struggles become ours. It is a tale of the potential of crosscultural friendship and the power of intercultural exchange.

Carol Bellamy, Former Director, UNICEF and U.S. Peace Corps

Monique and the Mango Rains is beautifully and frankly written, both an ethnography of Malian health care and a coming-of-age memoir of Peace Corps participation. I entered this book curious about childbirth in rural West Africa, and learned a great deal about gender relations as they shape the meaning of children, development resources, and the many routes to Malian modernity. Like the short, sweet mango rains that punctuate Kris Holloways story, this text brings inspiration to its readers.

Rayna Rapp, Professor of Anthropology, New York University

Delicious like mangoes in season, you will not be able to put this incredible book down. We witness the stark reality of lives in a third-world country: the fate of babies and young children, of women dying in childbirth. But we are also there for breathtaking descriptions of beauty, generosity, and intimacy.

Brigitte Jordan, Author, Birth in Four Cultures, Fourth Edition, winner of the Margaret Mead Award

Monique and the Mango Rains is an astounding book. In her brief narrative, Holloway tells an exquisite story of crosscultural friendship, of womens commitment through their work to bettering the lives of other women, and of the contribution that can be made to a third-world society by citizens of the industrialized world when hubris is not part of the equation.

Marnie Mueller, Author, Green Fires, The Climate of the Country, and My Mothers Island

Kris Holloways Monique and the Mango Rains is one of the few personal accounts that describes the pleasures and frustrations of Peace Corps life, while simultaneously informing the reader of the realities of rural African life with its own particular joys and tragedies.

Elliot Fratkin, Professor of Anthropology, Smith College

The story of Monique is the saga of a woman caught in the web of tradition. I hope the book will reach the homes of many in the West so they may know about the lives of their fellow humans battling poverty, underdevelopment, and diseases in parts of Africa. I also hope the book will find its way back to Mali where Moniques contemporaries and fellow Malians would begin to take heart that loving souls exist abroad and their condition is being communicated faithfully and passionately.

Sulayman S. Nyang, Professor of African Studies, Howard University

I enthusiastically recommend this book, for it allows the reader to learn about midwifery and womens issues through the lenses of two very different cultures. It is full of warmth and insight, and having it end was like losing a friend.

Rahima Baldwin Dancy, midwife, author, and childbirth activist

The acceptance of what comes with being a woman and at the same time how to push for reform in an environment where women, even as victims, are less than equal is captured in the singular sagesse of Monique in Kris Holloways remarkable memoir.

Grace Reading Series, Book Club Pick

This is a truly inspiring story of a friendship between women from different cultures

Midwifery Today

Readers will find this memoir emotionally moving, beautifully written, and highly informative.

Journal of Community Health

The multiple themes and issues voiced in this narrative provide a useful point of dialogue and reflection for many audiences. Although the subtitle and a great deal of the story focus on midwifery, and infant and maternal morbidity and mortality, the narrative goes further. For students or teachers of African studies or anthropology, Holloway incorporates information about kinship systems, religion and witchcraft, familial and traditional power relationships, and decision-making processes that affect marriages, jobs, womens status, childbearing, and community self-help projects.

African Studies Review

For information about this book, contact:

Waveland Press, Inc.

4180 IL Route 83, Suite 101

Long Grove, IL 60047-9580

(847) 634-0081

info@waveland.com

www.waveland.com

Copyright 2007 by Kris Holloway

10-digit ISBN 1-57766-435-3
13-digit ISBN 978-1-57766-435-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

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For Aidan, Liam, Genevive, Basil, and Christini

Kle di shi kan ma mu

May God give you long life