Clovis Andersen finally shows up in this episode which i had thought (sadly) to be the final one. I'm glad to hear there is a new one to be released this year. I think Clovis serves as an alter-ego for the male author in this series otherwise dominated by females (J L B Matekoni doesn't talk much, and we don't even know his name).
All in all, a beautiful story of redemption. The best part for me was when Mma Ramotswe started quoting her own aphorism thinking that it had come from Clovis' book!
Quotes:
“I have come at last, Mma Ramotswe.”
“Yes, Mma. The meaning of a dream about beds is very simple. It means that you are tired. It means that you need more sleep.”
“I think I’m giving him enough food. I believe in demand feeding. I think that is what it’s called. I always leave some food out in the kitchen so that Phuti can pick up a snack if he feels hungry. There are other women who believe that you should only feed your husband at set times, so that he gets used to it. But I am not one of those women, Mma. I leave food out.”
“There are certain cars that are always chosen by dishonest people, just as there are cars that only the honest will drive. When you’re a mechanic for many years, you become able to notice these things.”
“My name is Andersen.”
There was a man in northern Botswana, for instance, who was a known cattle thief; and yet while he was visiting a relative up near Kasane, he had come under the influence of a charismatic preacher and had been baptized in the waters of the Zambezi River. The change in that man had been so remarkable that there was talk of its being attributable to the special qualities of the Zambezi River.
The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon.
Muncie Investigations
This was dry land at the limits of the inhabitable, and fields here, if they could be called fields, grew very little: a few melons and patches of sorghum—not much more than that. Yet the families who tilled them, scratching at the parched soil to coax growth out of what sometimes seemed little more than powdered stone, did so by ancient right. This is where their people had been as far back as anybody could remember, and they maintained this link with the land even after they had moved to towns and villages. Each year the women and children would trek off to their lands for weeks at a time, to plant and tend the crops. It was a ritual that survived growing prosperity, even when there was no real need to harvest these small crops; it was a way of showing children who they were and reminding adults of the same thing.
They went outside. As she left the building, Mma Makutsi ran out into the sun and uttered the traditional ululation of delight that women contribute to any great Botswana occasion.
I NEVER WORRY about my nails,” said Mma Makutsi as they passed the Princess Marina Hospital. “We were taught at the Botswana Secretarial College that long nails were not a good thing if you have to do typing. We were told some very alarming stories.”
As you say, Rra, in your own book: always ask the people who know.” Clovis Andersen looked pensive. “I said that, did I? Well, it sounds reasonable enough to me.”
We must think of late people because I believe they’re still with us—in a way. And so a late person can stay with you all your life, until it is your turn to become late too. And the late person doesn’t want you to be miserable. A late person doesn’t want you to think that your work is no use. A late person wants you to get on with life, to do things, to make good use of your time. That is well known, Rra. It is very well known.”
They walked to the far side of her garden. “We have a lot to be grateful for, Rra,” Mma Ramotswe said. She gestured to the small patch of her country that made up her garden. Her gesture took in her fence, and beyond that the road, and beyond that all Botswana and the world. “All that,” she said. “That is what we have to be grateful for.”
No comments:
Post a Comment