The journalist and the photographer arrived together, barely an hour after Mma Makutsi had made her telephone call. The journalist was called Bandie Mokwena, and she was known not only for her feature articles but also for her recent marriage to Quicktime Tsabong, a jaunty and well-liked sports commentator on Radio Botswana. They were the perfect media couple, much photographed themselves at charity events and public occasions. Quicktime had accompanied the Botswana team to the last Olympic Games, and wore the Olympic rings symbol on his blazer to remind people of the fact. Bandie, although quieter than her colourful husband, had a natural charm that set her interview subjects at ease and elicited facts that a less friendly manner would simply fail to uncover.

The photographer was a young man with a rather effusive manner. He looked at Mma Makutsi critically, asking her to move around the office until she was in the right light before he started to photograph her.

“I think I should stand over here,” said Mma Makutsi, positioning herself in front of her certificate from the Botswana Secretarial College. “Do you think this would do?”

“Okay, that’s good,” said the photographer. “Now smile, honey. Show those teeth to the readers. That’s perfect; snap, snap. Perfect.”

The interview was conducted over a cup of tea prepared by Mma Ramotswe. Bandie addressed all her questions to Mma Makutsi. “It complicates matters to have too many names in a piece,” she said. “So we’ll stick to you, Mma, if Mma Ramotswe doesn’t mind.”

She did not mind, and listened, bemused at times, to Mma Makutsi’s telling of the story.

“This lady had a broken heart,” Mma Makutsi explained. “All the time she was in Canada she was pining, pining for Botswana. And now she wants to come back and see all her old friends. That quest brought her to our door, and it will be our pleasure to help her. I shall not rest until I bring these two ladies together so that they can talk about those old times.

“The place where you are born, you see, is very special. If you are born in Botswana, you are very lucky, as from your very first day you will have the sun of Botswana on your face. You will have the sounds of Botswana in your ears. You will have the smell of Botswana in your nose.”

That was a lot for a small baby to deal with, thought Mma Ramotswe, but she agreed with the general sentiment. There were blessings to be counted, and Mma Makutsi was right to list them. She would have added the sound of cattle coming home in the evening and the smell of their sweet breath. She knew that these were the things that her father said he would miss as he lay on his bed of illness.