!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> Streamline Training & Documentation: "Monique and the Mango Rains"

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

"Monique and the Mango Rains"

When my book group met this evening, we were lucky enough to be joined by the author of the book we were discussing, who happens to live in Northampton.


The author is Kris Holloway, and her book is "Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali," an account of the friendship that grew up between Kris and Monique Dembele when they worked together during the two years Kris was a Peace Corps volunteer in Monique's village.

At 25, Monique was three years older than Kris when Kris arrived in Nampossela, a community of 1400 people about 160 miles from Bamako, the capital of Mali. Monique was a hardworking, able, and charming midwife. Kris spent her time assisting Monique and learning from her.

Here is Kris Holloway's own explanation of how she came to write Monique and the Mango Rains:
I always thought I’d write a story about Monique. She was such an amazing African woman, midwife, and mother — really the first “feminist” in her tiny, rural region of West Africa. I lived with her as a Peace Corps volunteer from 1989-1991 and her effect on me was profound. But my life here in the U.S. was full with work and kids — way overprogrammed as all parents can relate to, and writing about her remained a dream, something others would remind me about saying, “you really should write a book about her…” I was just happy that Monique and I stayed in touch, through long letters and cassette tapes. But in 1998, when she died in labor with her fifth child, I knew that this book had to be written. I had to go back, had to tell the story of her life, her death, and her remarkable legacy. This book grew out of that trip and took on a life of its own.
A couple of additional notes: The "mango rains" are the three-month rainy season that comes around mid-June. (The mango season itself runs from April to June.) In contrast to the 90% of Mali's 12 million people who are Muslin, Monique's family were Catholic.

The chance to talk with Kris in person was memorable both because Kris is quite personable and because she could bring us up-to-date on how Monique's family and village are faring. (Kris, her husband, and her two sons will be traveling back to Mali for a visit toward the end of this year.)

Other book groups interested in having Kris participate in a discussion of Monique and the Mango Rains — in person or by speaker phone — can make arrangements by contacting Kris at kris@moniquemangorains.com.

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