“But it works,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have seen those ladies, and they are very fine people. The children love them.” She frowned. “Surely the board doesn’t want to do away with your house-mothers. Who would there be to love the children?”

Mma Potokwane assured her that the board had no intention of getting rid of house-mothers; there would still be plenty of work for them to do. “They keep the houses clean. They mend the children’s clothes. There are many things. But the big thing, Mma, the big thing they do is they cook the children’s food and they eat it together, round a table, like a real family.”

“And if there is a new hall and a kitchen—”

Mma Potokwane became animated. “That will all go, Mma Ramotswe! That will go! And if that happens, then the heart of our place will be …” She searched for the right words. “It will stop beating. There will be no heart any more.”

Mma Ramotswe looked down at her hands. Of course Mma Potokwane was right: your family was made up of the people you ate with as a child. Everybody knew that. And how could the people who sat on the board not understand it as well? Had they themselves no people to eat with?

She put that to Mma Potokwane, who thought for a moment before she replied. “I think that maybe they know that, but they are dazzled by all the money that they are being offered. That is what money does, Mma Ramotswe—you must have seen that. Sometimes we need to look the other way when people put money in front of our noses. We have to look at the other things we can see so that the money doesn’t hide them.” She sighed. “And they are very pleased at the thought of savings. They are always saying to me that we must look for ways to save money. And here is one. They tell me that it will cost only half as much to make the same amount of food in one kitchen. They say that we cannot ignore that.”