Great African Reads discussion

Monique and the Mango Rains / Kris Holloway
Has anyone read this book? I just finished it for bookclub and feel the need to talk about it. It is set in Mali. The author is a former Peace Corps volunteer who spent her time in Mali and got to know Monique and worked with her. Monique had limited training, but more than most had, and worked in the local clinic diagnosing various ailments and diseases, as well as working as a midwife and trying to educate women about pre natal care. I loved when the two found they had cultural clashes in respect to certain practices and how they learned from each other. I learned about Mali and the local culture and was in awe of Monique and her attitude towards life.

hi erin, i have not read Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali but it sounds good. i'm a little obsessed with Mali, so i'm adding this to my tbr right away! i have actually never heard of this book. but i really enjoy stories about navigating cultural differences (not that that is the only thing that i think sounds interesting about this book!)

Have you read any other good books about Mali?

I liked it! My review: The author, a Peace Corps volunteer in a village in Mali, recounts her experience with an emphasis on her friendship with Monique, the local midwife. The narrative is not as interior as some travel/work memoirs; the trade-off is that Holloway is able to focus on descriptions of the village, her work with Monique, and interpersonal relationships. Holloway is warm but not sentimental; she recounts her conversations with Monique about female genital mutilation as well as Monique's forbidden love for a childhood friend. The realities of hunger, disease, and war are all present, as well as the dilemmas faced by aid workers from more affluent and powerful nations. This is a memoir I hope to teach with in the future.

Erin wrote: "Have you read any other good books about Mali?"

i loved Seguvery much. it's historical fiction and done really really well. i'll have to check the recesses of my withered brain and figure out what other books i've read and come back...
:D

Sho, that's really cool that you enjoyed this book in a way that makes you want to use it in your teaching.

I have a good handful of students who go on to international service, and I want them to have a chance to talk about how to remain hopeful even when things don't turn out as you'd prefer.

Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali sounds great! I don't think I've read anything from/about Mali yet (so many countries... so little time...).

Just added to my TBR list. :-)

I liked Angry Wind: Through Muslim Black Africa by Truck, Bus, Boat, and Camel. Much of it was in Mali, I believe.

I downloaded Monique and the Mango rains. I'm in for the upcoming groupsread.

My copy arrived in the mail today so am ready for the group discussion - it will be my first one in this group

I LOVED this book, made me cry so have Kleenex handy!

Thanks for the warning!

And just FYI we will have a new thread for this book because its a Tour selection. I'll try to remember to link to it here. :)

Finished it - Monique wowed me - what a strong woman!

Just finished this and loved it so much, I went back to the beginning!

I feel so behind! I have it in hand, though. :)

I really loved the book. I finished it while on a fieldtrip in one of the remote cities in South Sudan. The reality of what I was reading is still so true here. During a training we have been discussing about the realities of the book. People wish for many children and many woman get yearly a new child. One of the young men in the radio station where the training was, decided to take child spacing and the advantages of good nutrition as a topic in his morning programme. It got some good number of call ins (unfortunately in a local language I do not understand).

I finished this book a few weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it- I think Holloway did an excellent job capturing the spirit of Peace Corps in a way that was reasonably balanced. I think there are parts that might be hard for people who were never PCVs to truly understand and/or believe, but she really nailed it in so many places. And it sounds like she got super lucky, too, to have found such a perfect counterpart. I had a similar stroke of luck in having a wonderful counterpart and that can make all the difference between a good and a bad Peace Corps experience.
I do wish I had not known how the book ended- I spent the whole book dreading that ultimate ending, however, regardless, it was an excellent book and I would highly recommend it!

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT!!! (If you didn't read the introduction, skip this post.)

I do wish I had not known how the book ended- I spent the whole book dreading that ultimate ending, however, regardless, it was an excellent book and I would highly recommend it!
..."

Oh, Elizabeth, I so agree about that. Even though I knew (from the introduction) what happens, I dreaded it. And even though I dreaded it, I thought I was kind of prepared for it. Nope. I cried buckets.

Here's something I was thinking about today. I'm pretty sure that in Mali, a young man and a young woman would not be allowed to live together unless they were married. And I understand that Kris and John are American and the village couldn't really stop them if they wanted to live together. But there surely must have been some disapproval, and she doesn't mention that at all. At all. Does anyone else think that was a little odd? It surely didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book, I just thought it was an omission.

I thought this was an excellent ethnographic portrait as well as a moving PCV memoir.

Katy wrote: "POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT!!! (If you didn't read the introduction, skip this post.)

I do wish I had not known how the book ended- I spent the whole book dreading that ultimate ending, however, regard..."

I thought a lot about the question of how they got away with living together and concluded that the village must have accepted it as in them being traditionally married. I seem to recall that they did get the blessing of the village headman to have John stay there. I am sure there was some acceptance of them living together in the context of being traditionally married. (the fact that they went on and got married certainly must have validated the village's acceptance of it).

Well Katy, I think it is not uncommon that nobody mentioned real dissaproval to them. It is often quite impolite to do so.

I don't know about the customs in that particular area but sometimes marrying is not more than a short ceremony or discussion about bride prize, handing over the prize and the couple can be together. Maybe in the eyes of the village they saw them as a married couple?

I agree it would be nice to have this information in the book.

I just read the book, and I loved how it dealt not with the author's overall Peace Corps experience but rather with this one relationship she built -- it makes for a much more unique book than it might have been, I think. (I too was dreading the ending, and cursing myself for having read the introduction!)

Re: them living together: I wondered at that too, but I ended up guessing that it was a combination of them being American and the dùgùtigi taking a relatively progressive stance on things (and possibly some discontent from villagers that was left out of the narrative).

The book has inspired some serious wanderlust, though.

For the tour discussion through July, please continue the discussion in our official thread. I know it's a little confusing, especially since this thread was set up almost two years ago...

Hattie, no worries! I meant to get the other thread open awhile ago. It's really confusing. And members have been enthusiastic about discussing this book. :)