Mma Ramotswe nodded her head in understanding. There was so much work for women in Africa: fields to be tilled, yards to be swept, clothes to be washed, children to be brought up. That was their lot, and they did it without complaint, without asking the men whether they would care to do some of this work that women did—not all of it, just some. And now here was this woman, her faded skirt cloth wrapped around her waist, taking a short break from all that work, sitting under her tree with the spare chair dangling above her head.

“I’m sure that your hands deserve a rest,” said Mma Ramotswe, glancing at Mr. Polopetsi as she spoke. He was a hard-working man, of course, but he was the only representative of the world of men present under that tree and so he would have to shoulder some of the blame.

Mr. Polopetsi shifted on his feet. “Mma Ramotswe is right,” he said. “Your hands surely deserve a rest, Mma. They can go to sleep now.”

At the mention of Mma Ramotswe’s name, the woman looked up sharply. “Mma Ramotswe? You are Mma Ramotswe?”

Mma Ramotswe inclined her head briefly and emitted the sibilant ee of the Setswana yes. That yes could be made to sound anything from accepting to wildly enthusiastic. This time it sounded cautious, implying that she might well be Mma Ramotswe, but people should not read too much into that.

“You are the lady detective?” asked the woman. “The one who has that office behind the garage? That one?”

“That is who she is,” said Mr. Polopetsi proudly.

The woman looked briefly at Mr. Polopetsi and then looked away, as if discounting the reliability of any statement he might make. “Is that true, Mma?”

“It is true,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But I may not be the sort of detective you think I am. I am not a lady who deals with criminal business. That is the job of the Botswana police force. They do it very well. I have nothing to do with all that.”

The woman seemed disappointed. “But you are still a detective?”

“Yes,” answered Mma Ramotswe. “But I am a lady first and then I am a detective. So I just do the things which we ladies know how to do—I talk to people and find out what has happened. Then I try to solve the problems in people’s lives. That is all I do.”

“But that is a big thing,” said the woman. “There are many problems in our lives. Big ones sometimes.” She suddenly unfolded her resting hands and gestured in the air to illuminate the immensity of the problems which people faced.