“And did she shoot people?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

“No,” said the cousin. “Somebody shot her. But…”

“There you are,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I assume that it was a man who shot her, or was it some lady, do you think?”

The cousin said nothing. A small boy was peering over the wall of the lelapa, staring at the two women. His eyes were large and round, and his arms, which protruded from a scruffy red shirt, were thin. The cousin pointed at him.

“He cannot speak, that little boy,” she said. “His tongue does not work properly. So he just watches the other children play.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled at him, and called out to him gently in Setswana. But the little boy might not have heard, for he turned away without replying and walked slowly away on his skinny legs. Mma Ramotswe was silent for a moment, imagining what it would be like to be a little boy like that, thin and voiceless. I am fortunate, she thought, and turned to say to her cousin, “We are lucky, aren’t we? Here we are, traditionally built ladies, and there’s that poor little boy with his thin arms and legs. And we can talk and he can make no sound at all.”

The cousin nodded. “We are very lucky to be who we are,” she said. “We are fortunate ladies, sitting here in the sun with so much to talk about.”

So much to talk about-and so little to do. Here in Mochudi, away from the bustle of Gaborone, Mma Ramotswe could feel herself lapsing again into the rhythms of country life, a life much slower and more reflective than life in town. There was still time and space to think in Gaborone, but it was so much easier here, where one might look out up to the hill and watch the thin wisps of cloud, no more than that, float slowly across the sky; or listen to the cattle bells and the chorus of the cicadas. This was what it meant to live in Botswana; when the rest of the world might work itself into a frenzy of activity, one might still sit, in the space before a house with ochre walls, a mug of bush tea in one’s hand, and talk about very small things: headmen in wells, goats and jealousy.