However, it is Monique's work as a midwife that makes this book predominantly useful for learning the cultural dynamics in Mali of women's sexuality, childbirth, and reproductive health. The young midwife Monique Dembele who works in Nampossela and east of Bamako, the villages of Mali, is at the center of this fascinating story written by Kris Holloway who helped in the Peace Corps in Mali from 1989 to 1991. Kris, following Monique's instructions , assists in the work of a midwife in the small ruined birthing house, built by the Chinese in a previous initiative of