“I have stopped,” shouted Mma Makutsi from the back. “It’s too heavy, Rra.”

The man was perplexed. “They are very strong …” He tailed off. He looked at Mma Ramotswe. “Perhaps, Mma, it might be better if we asked the other lady …” He gave a toss of the head in the direction of Mma Makutsi. “Perhaps we could ask that lady to steer while you pushed. It’s just that she’s quite a bit less …”

Mma Ramotswe was polite but firm. “Traditionally built.”

“That is right,” said the man. “She is a bit thinner, and you are …”

“Traditionally built,” prompted Mma Ramotswe again. “Don’t worry, Rra. I am not ashamed of being who I am.”

The man made an elaborate show of rejecting the very thought. “Of course, Mma, of course. It’s just that the donkeys are a bit old—that one in particular—and they are finding it a bit difficult to drag a van and a … a traditionally built lady. With the other lady at the wheel, I think we can do it.”

Mma Makutsi, who had been following this exchange, smiled as she made her way round to the door. But she said nothing; that would have been rude, of course, and would have demonstrated a complete lack of feminine loyalty. Men, she knew, did not understand these matters.

“You must be careful not to get too thin, Mma,” muttered Mma Ramotswe, as she yielded her place in the van.

Mma Makutsi smiled. “Mma, I am already becoming a bit traditionally built. I do not think there is any danger of that.”

The man now returned to his position with the donkeys while Mma Ramotswe leaned up against the back of the van, digging her feet into the sand and preparing to apply her weight in the hoped-for direction of travel. Already, as she did so, the van moved slightly, even before the donkeys had engaged.

“I’ll count to three,” called the man. “Then we’ll pull and you push, Mma. One, two, three!”

This time the reaction of the van was immediate, and Mma Ramotswe had to act quickly to avoid falling over backwards.

“That’s it!” shouted the man from the front. “Pula, pula, pula!”

Pula, pula, pula! was the cry of triumph, of joy, that was universal in Botswana. It meant rain, rain, rain—just the right cry for a dry country that lived for the day that the first life-giving rains arrived—that day of ominous purple skies, and heat, and the wind that precedes the first drops of water splattering and dancing on the baked ground. Pula, pula, pula!