She looked out over the square, twenty feet or so below the raised veranda of the hotel. It was a typical bustling Saturday-morning scene, with shoppers and strollers moving lazily between the various traders who had their wares spread out on groundsheets and on pieces of newspaper about them. A display of cheap sunglasses, examined with admiration by two young men and a woman in an unflattering yellow trouser suit; a stout woman selling dresses from a mobile rack; a cobbler conjuring sandals out of strips of rough leather—Mma Ramotswe marvelled at the ingenuity of the sellers in making attractive displays out of cheap merchandise. That is how we live, she thought, by selling things to one another, or by working, as she did, to make money to buy things from these people who were so keen to sell them. Not all the things we bought we needed; very few of them, perhaps, especially when it came to fancy shoes and dresses. How many outfits did you really need? she wondered. On the other hand, when you saw something you liked, then it so often seemed that you needed it, and in a sense, if you believed that you needed something, then you really did. She sighed. This was economics, and try as she might, she had been unable to make much sense of economics beyond the simple truism, so often stressed by her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, that one should not spend more money than one actually had. And yet, when one read the newspapers, that is exactly what so many economists seemed to recommend that people do. It was all very puzzling.

The fruit scone disappeared rather more quickly than she would have liked. The red bush tea, though, lasted: a single pot might be eked out over an hour, giving ample time to absorb what was happening below in the square and to plan the rest of the day. A Saturday-afternoon sleep, perhaps; there was a great deal to be said for that, especially in hot weather, when nobody would wish to be out in the sun until at least four o’clock. Then, with the sun beginning to sink, it might be cool enough to venture out into the garden and inspect the plants. On particularly hot days—as today was proving to be—they could look so discouraged, as if every drop of moisture had been sucked out of them by the dry air. But they had their ways: the plants in her garden were native to Botswana, and knew about heat and dust and how to make the most of every drop of rain that came to them. These were the waxy-leaved plants of the Kalahari, the mopipi trees, the strange, spiky aloes that sent up their red flowers in fierce defiance of the creeping brown of drought and aridity.

“Mma?”

Her thoughts were interrupted by a woman who had appeared at her side.

“Are you Mma Ramotswe, Mma?”