Monique and the Mango Rains (Two Years with a Midwife in Mali) is a memoir of Holloways’ experience as a Peace Corp volunteer in Mali, where she befriended midwife Monique Dembele.

From the backcover:

Monique Dembele saved lives and dispensed hope in a place where childbirth is a life-and-death matter. This book tells of her unquenchable passion to better the lives of women and children in the face of poverty, unhappy marriages, and endless backbreaking work. Monique’s buoyant humor and willingness to defy tradition were uniquely hers. In the course of this deeply personal narrative, as readers immerse themselves in the rhythms of West African village life, they come to know Monique as friend, mother, and inspired woman.

I know! I know! Yet another memoir. This one I couldn’t resist, mostly because I’ve read hardly anything at all about Africa, except a short story by Hemingway. (Why is it I can’t remember any of the details of The Sun Also Rises and… another Hemingway novel I read? Can’t even recall the title of that book).

Plus, I won this book from the Early Reviewers group over at LibraryThing. I had to read it.

Oh, darn. You all know how I hate a memoir. Ha.

Modern medicine in Mali looks nothing like what we take for granted here in the United States. I look back at my four birth experiences, and nothing that I’ve complained about with those hospital births comes close to what the mothers in Mali have to endure. We American mothers are blessed, and dare I say – spoiled – with the health care we have available.

Have you read any books about African culture? Please share in the comments below. Have you been to Africa? Tell us your experience.