THE PLOT THAT Phuti Radiphuti had chosen for their marital home was well placed from more than one point of view. Gaborone had grown, with the result that many people now had a long journey into work each day, making their way into the city in swaying, crowded minibuses. It would have been easy for Phuti to find a plot of land in one of these new suburbs, but neither he nor Mma Makutsi wanted to spend hours on the roads. So when Mma Makutsi noticed that there was a small parcel of building land not far from Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and the contiguous office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Phuti was quick to inspect it—and equally quick to snap it up.

“It’s perfect,” he said, when he reported back to her. “It will take you five or ten minutes to get to work—no more. And I will need fifteen minutes to drive to the store. It could not be better.”

The plot was at the end of an untarred road, a cul-de-sac that led nowhere and down which few cars would venture. There were one or two houses not far away, but nothing close by, and on at least two sides of what would become their garden, there was acacia scrub—thorn trees, low-lying bushes with twisted brown leaves, tussocks of hardy grass that would miraculously become green within hours of the arrival of the first rains. It looked like poor earth—dusty and unwelcoming—but it was enough to keep cattle happy, and they could be seen wandering across this landscape, picking at what nourishment they could find, the soft sound of their bells filling the air.

Negotiations for the purchase of the plot were swift and uncomplicated, and within days of Phuti’s seeing the plot it was theirs. Now came the task of designing the house that would be erected on the newly acquired land. Phuti Radiphuti, it transpired, had a friend who was a draughtsman. “You do not need to pay an architect for this,” he announced to Mma Makutsi. “My friend can do all the drawings for nothing.”