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Ramotswe smiled. “You are a Motswana, then, Mma.”
    It was a compliment, and Susan responded warmly. “You’re very kind, Mma.” She knew, though, that it was impossible; one might be a
paper
Motswana—there were plenty of people who were eligible for various African nationalities, but one could never become the real thing. It simply did not work that way. Citizenship and membership were different things, whatever the law might say. Mma Ramotswe understood that; she did not like it, but she understood it.
    Susan continued. “I was never a citizen, though, Mma. I didn’t have the right, as my parents were foreigners—working in the country when I was born. They were Canadians, you see. My father was a doctor and my mother was a teacher. He worked out at Molepolole for five years and then they came into Gaborone. He worked for the people who run those medical planes—you know the ones, Mma, the ones that go out to the very remote clinics—that set-up.”
    “I know the people,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They were like Dr. Merriweather’s mission, but different.”
    “That’s right, Mma. He worked with them and my mother taught at a small school near the old prison.”
    Mma Ramotswe waited for her to continue. She was remembering what Gaborone had been like in those days of greater intimacy. She thought of it as the
quiet time;
the time before the world suddenly became busier and noisier. The time of cattle; the time of bicycles rather than cars; the time when the arrival of the day’s single plane was an event; the time of politeness and courtesy.
    It was as if Susan had heard her thoughts. “Gaborone was a different place then,” she said wistfully.
    This was the signal for Mma Makutsi to join in; she had said very little since Mma Ramotswe had returned. “The whole world was different in those days, Mma. Up in Bobonong it was different. Down here it was different. None of this rush, rush, rush.”
    Mma Ramotswe saw the flashing light from Mma Makutsi’s spectacles. “No, people walked more slowly in those days.”
    “They certainly did,” said Mma Makutsi. “If you look at people today, their legs go fast, fast—just like a pair of scissors. We did not walk like that in the old days.”
    Susan nodded. “I’m not sure why people are in such a hurry. I live in Toronto now and—”
    “Oh, they must walk very fast in Toronto,” interjected Mma Makutsi. “That will be one of the worst places for walking fast. That and Johannesburg, where they are always running to get from one place to another.” She paused, and then shook her head. “But Toronto…”
    She did not finish, and Susan looked at her with some puzzlement. “Toronto is a nice place in other respects, of course…”
    “I am not saying it is not a nice place,” said Mma Makutsi. “I am just saying that they walk very fast there. I have seen a film of that. They were walking very fast in the film.”
    “I think you should continue,” said Mma Ramotswe. “So you were born out in Molepolole, Mma?”
    “Yes. I actually don’t remember Molepolole very well because I was only four when we left and came into town. I think I have a memory or two of the place; I remember a garden with a tall rubber hedge—you know those hedges with the white sap that comes out if you break off a piece? I think I remember that. And I remember sitting on a verandah, which must have been at my parents’ house out there. Apart from that, my early memories are of this place—of Gaborone.”
    Mma Ramotswe made a note on the pad of paper before her.
Early life,
she wrote.
Gaborone.
    “We stayed here until I was eight. Then we left.”
    “Why was that, Mma?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
    “My father was paid by the Canadian government,” said Susan. “It was a funded project and the money was given to something else. Aid people are always doing that—they support something for a while, and then it’s somebody else’s turn. It’s fair enough, I suppose. And