In this complex debut, Peace Corps worker Erdman, who lived in eight countries growing up, takes the reader on a vivid and compelling journey into the colorful world of a small village in the Ivory Coast. Arriving in early 1998, she faced extraordinary challenges as she taught children how to read and women about nutrition and birth control, overcoming superstition, language barriers, ignorance, diseases, lack of funding, and her own personal fears. The lecherous gendarme; the many children; the old women of the village, who raise money to begin building a clinic; and Erdman's friends, local nurse Sideb and his wife, Abi, are all wonderful, three-dimensional characters that liven up the narrative. Erdman's eloquent descriptions allow the reader to appreciate the scenes of cautious yet excited village women who show up each month for the healthy-baby contest and then to desperation at the description of a baby dying of AIDS. The author's sensitivity to the traditions of the villagers, the unique ways she found to overcome and incorporate those traditions in her work, and the despair she sometimes felt over the intrusion of the modern world make this a complicated but also contemplative book. Highly recommended for all libraries.

-Linda M. Kaufmann,
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Library
North Adams, Massachusetts