Monique and the Mango Rains

[JVSANDWICH]

I was so glad I heard about this book. I loved it! As I was reading this book I felt as though I was there. I enjoy Kris's work so much and look forward to reading more of her work.

[KrisH]

I'm curious - what helped you feel like you were there in Mali? What brought it alive for you?

Kris

[ande]

And how did you hear about this book?

[hollyrcpm]

I'm not the original poster, but I can tell you that your evocative descriptions of the heat, the smells, the bugs - even the giardia - are all things familiar to me. I have not lived in villages like you, but I have been to Africa and could relate to everything you wrote about. I got giardia in Ethiopia and even though I was staying in a hotel with a flushing toilet, I thought I was going to die. I had "attacks" in various important gov't buildings, too, where they had toilets but they definitely did not flush. I thought I'd die there too, of embarrassment. Good job.

[KrisH]

Isn't giardiasis fun? The worst was when I was taking a public bus, packed with people (and I mean packed), and had to ask the driver to pull over so that I could run up to a house along the side of the road and ask to use their "nyegen" (pit latrine). The kind man led me around the back of his hut, and I had to have my little explosion while hunkering down below the very short mudwalls as his family cooked, and chattered, and worked all around me. No privacy at all. But what a lovely thing: the bus driver didn't groan when I asked to pull over (and, in fact, everyone got off for a little break), and the man had no qualms about letting a stranger into his home. Hard to imagine that happening here in the U.S with such ease and kindness. And then there was the time that I had to drop my drawers in the middle of someone's field...but, I'll stop before you all realize the pages of bodily fluid stories that (fortunately) got cut from the book.

Kris