Monique and the Mango Rains

This is the best Peace Corps Volunteer memoir I’ve read. It’s unusual in that it’s focused on the story of Monique Dembele, a traditional birth attendant in a small village in Mali, rather than on the PCV, Kris Holloway. We get to know Monique through Kris’s eyes—and Kris so obviously loves her friend and delights in the rural Malian community where she’s stationed. The cultural exchange and friendship that Kris experienced and describes are what Peace Corps is supposed to be about. This was a satisfying matchup of two young women from radically different worlds who saw beyond their… show more.

Equally heartwarming and heartbreaking, this tale of friendship between a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali and her local counterpart vividly portrays the realities of volunteer life. Holloway gently guides the reader through sensitive and taboo subjects—often through heart-to-heart conversations with Monique—such as menstruation, domestic violence, rape, female genital mutilation, sexually transmitted diseases, childbirth, and motherhood. Kris illustrates how women in her village—as in many places around the globe—suffer and fall to untimely deaths due to lack of education, personal agency, available resources, or financial independence. A beautifully written and important read.