Monique and the Mango Rains

Monique and the Mango Rains

Answer to Question ONE: What makes rare connections possible?

The fact that Kris Holloway had joined the Peace Corps and was willing to give up two years of her life to leave Ohio and travel to troubled Africa for an assignment that would be challenging speaks volumes about her as a person. Had she stayed in Ohio and hired on to a more traditional post-graduate job, she most likely never would have been in touch with a woman Like Monique. Meantime, Monique Dembele would never have met Holloway or even heard about the Peace Corps if Holloway hadn't come into the village. The question to be answered is, "What makes these kinds of relationships possible?"

The short answer is that when you join the Peace Corps, you have opportunities not only for travel but you have opportunities to interact with cultures that are as distant from the American culture as Africa is from Ohio. The more thoughtful answer is that these kinds of relationships between people of vastly different cultures and stations in life are extremely rare. In her Introduction, Holloway explains that the "…lives of women in Mali…are not easy" (p. 3). Women in Mali get married young and give birth to six or seven children, "one of the highest fertility rates in sub-Saharan Africa" while ironically Mali is a place where "the risk of death during childbirth and pregnancy is among the top ten highest in the world" (p. 3). So Holloway volunteered for this assignment, worked side-by-side with Monique, the midwife in a small village, as an assistant and a loyal friend, and it led to an unexpected long-term friendship based on Holloway's altruism and courage. The rewards for Holloway -- beyond the actual value of the experience of working in a foreign country where people desperately need help -- have paid off handsomely for Holloway in the publication and popularity of her book. That shows that her karma was very positive: giving altruistically and willingly has brought an unexpected return in many ways.

Answer to Question TWO: The hardest part to adapt to in Mali?

Holloway's experience is not anything like what I would have imagined a Peace Corps assignment to be. No doubt if you volunteer for the Peace Corps, you may not have a choice as to exactly what you will be doing in your chosen country, but if Holloway had known she would be assisting a midwife rather than planting trees, she may have opted for more training in the healthcare field. There are many "hard parts" for me to have been able to adapt to in a poverty-stricken village of 1,400 people; one, certainly, would be having digestive track movements with no available toilet paper. I know that in some developing countries they use newspaper or grass for toilet paper -- but using the left hand? That would be difficult to adjust to.

Also, no clean drinking water would be both difficult to consume and dangerous. Any number of microbes that could make a person sick lurk in dirty water. We in Western society are very comfortable and enjoy the good life. So it wasn't too surprising when Holloway explained (p. 12) that a third of the volunteers did not last the full two years and that sickness, injuries and homesickness took "its toll." And Holloway's job wasn't just about helping give birth to babies; in the morning villagers would be waiting to be seen by Monique for ailments including "…oozing infections to enervating malaria" (p. 13). I'm not sure I would be able to deal with running out of tampons -- especially when there was no toilet paper. How horrible.

What would I miss coming back to the U.S. Probably I would miss the close friends from the Mali culture, such as Monique. There is also a certain innocence in a developing country like Mali; even with disease, dirty drinking water and packs of feral dogs roaming and dangerous, the innocence of Africa that might be missed. And for certain I would miss the sky at night, with the cosmos so bright and clear because of no city lights to pollute the sky.

Answer to Question THREE: Can we learn from Monique?

Culture has everything to do with how a person approaches childbirth. In the U.S. A woman has prenatal care and when her due date is near she has healthcare professionals keeping track of everything about her condition. And if the husband and wife grow frustrated with the delay in the birth, they opt for cesarean and the doctor just goes in and gets the recalcitrant baby. On pages 88-89 Holloway makes a point about the difference between Mali culture and American culture when it comes to childbirth. "I was astounded at the rate of Cesarean sections (around one quarter of all births) in such a healthy, rich country (could they all really be necessary?). Here is Kris Holloway in a pitiful little building with pregnant women lined up to see Monique, and she reflects on the fact that in the U.S. "the medical establishment" had taken "control" over the birthing process.

Quite dramatically different was the culture in Mali, where giving birth was "a family and community event" albeit birthing lacked "almost all modern medical interventions." What we can learn from Monique is how most of the world -- certainly the developing world in particular -- treats childbirth (with more of a sense of community good will than in the U.S.). And yet a mother like Bintou died after giving birth because she bled to death. "During the pushing, some women tore horribly and then had to get stitched up" (p. 88). The good news is that Monique was a capable midwife and could do the stitching. The bad news is that the morality rate for mothers giving birth is very high in Mali. I would rather give birth in a modern, clean hospital environment -- or in my home if a competent midwife cared me for. I would never wish to give birth in a place with filthy water, limited toilet facilities, and disease all around me. It just seems that would be bringing my child into the world in a risky setting.

Answer to Question FOUR: What affect Kris had on Monique.

I believe that Kris Holloway had a dramatically positive affect on Monique. One can read between the lines and be certain that not only was Kris a huge source of physical and emotion support, she became like a member of Monique's little family. Monique had to put up with some horrific situations, and Kris was there for her every step of the way. And of course these conditions were not new to Monique, she nonetheless had to put up with some terrible working conditions. How sad for Monique to deliver baby after baby for a woman like Oumou, who on page 91 had lost yet another child. "I cannot have more children, Fatumata, please," said Oumou. "I lose them. I had nine. Now I am left with five and this one," she said, pointing to her belly. "Too many have died, and yet my husband, Daouda, he wants to have more." How sad that the husband can't be respectful of his wife's desire to avoid further childbirth -- but that is part of the culture and Holloway made the necessary adjustments, which certainly helped Monique.

There in Africa, Kris Holloway was learning that death is part of the package when you help a midwife in a very rural and remote area of abject poverty. Holloway's life would never be the same having seen malnourished women giving birth to children they can scarcely afford to feed. With very little information available about contraception and men being ignorant about what damage they were doing to their wives, it had to have a dramatic (and negative) impact on a bright, eager, open-minded person like Holloway. With everything else in the local environment being problematic (shabby, unclean, well-meaning and yet wholly incomplete) -- and in the birthing room the equipment was rudimentary, bare bones or less -- now in the rainy season terrible storms brew up and on page 90, Holloway reports that "the damage was extensive" from the violent rain and winds.

Answer to Question FIVE: The importance of weather in the book.

During the long very hot dry season the villagers have to dip deep down into dirty wells and fetch water that is filthy. The only precipitation that falls in the dry season is light rains that arrive in February and March. They are called Mango rains because, as Holloway writes, "They come when the earth is dry and the heavy rains sill far away to make the mangoes sweet." Those mango rains are a metaphor for the few tiny and sweet blessings that survive in a country that is not sweet at all, but rather bitter, especially to a person from the United States. One of those sweet blessings is Monique, because she does so much for the community -- and is indeed one of the few positive things that happens to these downtrodden people.

The heat is oppressive and because of that heat Holloway had to endure "an overpowering stench" in the birthing room. Walking into that room on a day that was probably over 100 degrees Holloway (p. 6) said the building "was like an oven, baking all the secretions [from pregnant and post-partum women] into a rank casserole" (p. 6). Holloway said she felt like she was "drowning in the smell of flesh, body fluids, and leftover food" -- all made more aromatically spicy by the torrid head in the dry season.

The fierce storms that arrive in rainy season have a huge impact on the village and on the story that Holloway is telling. In many countries, the rainy season would be a blessing after a long, hot dry spell. But the rains that arrive in Mali as the rainy season started are terrifying. "I was startled out of my thoughts by a clap of thunder that rattled the roof," Holloway writes (p. 91). "The noise was deafening, as if herds of miniature beasts were crisscrossing at breakneck speed along the roof." The rain was so fierce that it was "threatening to break through the bricks" (p. 92). "What a trade," Holloway writes on page 92. "Life giving rains came at the expense of devastating erosion." Topsoil that was badly needed for crops was "washed away by the very thing needed to make it flourish."

Answer to Question SIX: "Every act of development necessarily involves an act of destruction."

I don't agree entirely with that passage. Sometimes in order to create a better facility the old one must come down. But there are situations where you start from scratch and build where nothing has been there before -- hence, there is no destruction just constructive building. And there are situations like the birthing house that needed a new roof but that didn't mean tearing the entire building down and starting over.

Do Americans and other foreigners have the right to intrude in another culture? It depends on the meaning of "intrude." Clearly in the past Americans have pushed their way into other cultures trying to help -- and failing. Certainly the occupation of Iraq by U.S. troops was an intrusion that was totally unjustified. Especially in hindsight, given that there were no "weapons of mass destruction" to be found, one of the justifications given at the time of the invasion of Iraq.

But American Peace Corps members come to countries with permission, and they are trained to be gracious guests and learn ahead of time what their role is to be. If Peace Corps members tried to force the Western culture on the people they were supposed to help, that would be very wrong. But in the case of Kris Holloway, the help the Peace Corps provided was not only totally appropriate, it was sorely needed.

Answer to Question SEVEN: Values.

Yes there are certain values that transcend borders and cultures. The universal values that come to mind include health, safety, and the sanctity of life itself. Every person in every country around the planet wants to be free of illness and from the misery of serious disabilities. Good health depends of course on the availability of food, clean safe drinking water, and medicine. When Holloway went to Mali, it was her duty to help in any way she could to make villagers healthier -- and it turned out she played an important part in a midwife's livelihood. Monique and Kris Holloway both offered healthcare services, especially maternal healthcare to the female members of the village.