When Mr J.L.B. Matekoni eventually did arrive, she was ready for him, sitting directly in front of the fan in her office, feeling the benefit of the blast of air from the revolving blades, looking out of the window at the lushness of the trees outside. Although Botswana was a dry country, at the end of the rainy season it was always green, and there were pockets of shade at every turn. It was only at the beginning of the summer, before the rains arrived, that everything was desiccated and brown. That was when the cattle became thin, sometimes painfully so, and it broke the heart of a cattle-owning people to see the herds nibbling at the few dry shreds of grass that remained, their heads lowered in lassitude and in weakness. And it would be like that until the purple clouds stacked up to the east and the wind brought the smell of rain-rain which would fall in silver sheets over the land.

That, of course, was if the rain came. Sometimes there were droughts, and a whole season would go by with very little rainfall, and the dryness would become an ache, always there, like dust in the throat. Botswana was lucky of course; she could import grain, but there were countries which could not, for they had no money, and in those places there was nothing to stand between the people and starvation. That was Africa’s burden, and by and large it was borne with dignity; but it still caused pain to Mma Potokwane to know that her fellow Africans faced such suffering.

Now, though, the trees were covered with green leaves, and it was easy for Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to find a shady place for his car outside the orphan farm offices. As he emerged from the car, a small boy came up to him and took his hand. The child looked up at him with grave eyes, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni smiled down on him. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a handful of wrapped peppermints, and slipped these into the palm of the child’s hand.