Two Years in Mali

Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris Holloway (2007)

This riveting memoir covers the two years Holloway spent as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa starting in 1989. While there, Holloway developed a deep friendship with Monique, the village midwife. Monique, who was only 24 with very little education, worked without electricity or running water and was solely responsible for all births in her village and some surrounding villages. She worked every day with malnourished and overworked pregnant women in her run-down birthing clinic. Holloway's story relates the consequences of not having adequate prenatal and infant health care, as well as the everyday interactions of the small village where she lived.

Monique and the Mango Rains is available in the Nonfiction Section of Chicopee Library.