But as she drove along the Mochudi Road, passing each land-mark—that tiny rural school with the stony yard and the crumbling whitewash; that normally dry river course, now with a muddy trickle of water from the previous day’s rain; that graveyard just off the road with its tiny shelters, umbrella-like, above each grave, so that the late people down below might be protected from the sun—as she drove along this road with all its memories, she put out of her mind the things that had been worrying her. For out here, out in the acacia scrub that stretched away to those tiny island-like hills on the horizon, the concerns of the working world seemed of little weight. Yes, one had to earn a living; yes, one had to work with people who might have their little ways; yes, the world was not always as one might want it to be: but all of that seemed so small and unimportant under this sky. The important thing, and really the only thing, Mma Ramotswe told herself, is that you are breathing and that you can see Botswana about you; that was the only thing that counted. And any person, no matter how poor he might be, could do that. Any woman might drive her tiny white van along this road and feel the warm breeze on her face. That was the important thing.

And now, coming into Mochudi, the place where she was born, she followed the road that led round the back of the hill which overlooked the village. There was a choice of trees under which to park, and she picked the one that looked the shadiest. Then, without asking herself why she should be here and why she should seek out that place at the edge, where the rock stopped and there was several hundred feet of tumbling nothing in front of you, she made her way over to that place and looked down. This was where she had come with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni when he had been recovering from his depressive illness—his sadness as he now called it—and they had sat together. This was where, many years before, she had played with her friends as a child, daring each other to go closer to the edge, risking the ire of the teacher who had banned them from going anywhere near the void. This was where she could sit and hear the sound of the cattle bells drifting up from below. This was where she could always find peace.