She put the paper aside and marshalled her thoughts. It was all very well sitting there on her verandah thinking about the problems of others, but it was getting late in the afternoon and there were things to do. In the kitchen at the back of the house there was a packet of green beans that needed to be washed and chopped. There was a pumpkin that was not going to cook itself. There were onions to be put in a pan of boiling water and cooked until soft. That was part of being a woman, she thought; one never reached the end. Even if one could sit down and drink a cup of bush tea, or even two cups, one always knew that at the end of the tea somebody was waiting for something. Children or men were waiting to be fed; a dirty floor cried out to be washed; a crumpled skirt called for the iron. And so it would continue. Tea was just a temporary solution to the cares of the world, although it certainly helped. Perhaps she should write and tell Aunty Emang that. Most problems could be diminished by the drinking of tea and the thinking through of things that could be done while tea was being drunk. And even if that did not solve problems, at least it could put them off for a little while, which we sometimes needed to do, we really did.

CHAPTER TWO

CORRECT AND INCORRECT WAYS OF DEALING WITH A SNAKE

THE FOLLOWING MONDAY MORNING, the performance of the Zebras in the game against Zambia on Saturday afternoon was the first topic of discussion, at least among the men.

“I knew that we would win,” said Charlie, the elder apprentice. “I knew it all the time. And we did. We won.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. He was not given to triumphalism, unlike his two apprentices, who always revelled in the defeat of any opposing team. He realised that if you looked at the overall results, the occasional victory tended to be overshadowed by a line of defeats. It was difficult, being a small country—at least in terms of numbers of people—to compete with more populous lands. If the Kenyans wanted to select a football team, then they had many millions of people to choose from, and the same was true, and even more so, of the South Africans. But Botswana, even if it was a land as wide as the sky and even if it was blessed by those great sunburned spaces, had fewer than two million people from whom to select a football team. That made it difficult to stand up to the big countries, no matter how hard they tried. That applied only to sport, of course. When it came to everything else, then he knew, and was made proud by the knowledge, that Botswana could hold its own—and more. It owed no money; it broke no rules. But of course it was not perfect; every country has done some things of which its people might feel shame. But at least people knew what these things were and could talk about them openly, which made a difference.