In a decrepit birthing house in a small village in Mali, Monique, the village’s midwife and health worker, brings new life to the village.  Equipped only with a small medical kit, a plastic tub, innate good sense and invaluable experience, Monique oversees the laboring women, celebrating the births, and mourning the deaths (a Malian woman has around a one and twelve lifetime risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth).  When young Kris Holloway, a Peace Corps volunteer, is sent to help the village of Nampossela she assists Monique in weighing babies, educating women on health topics, and planning for a new birth house.  Monique soon becomes more than a host and a mentor to Kris; with only a few years separating them they become close friends and Monique shares with Kris her many burdens: an unfaithful, unloving husband who controls her money; Monique’s own yearning for the man she always wanted to marry; and the exhausting hours devoted to improving the health of the villagers.  An unforgettable woman, a beautiful friendship, Monique and the Mango Rains is a memoir to remember.