Hardage's English Class

mrhardage@yahoo.com
214/789-0359 (cell)
68262
Hits since 12 December 2010.
                      
Pretoria, Republic of South Africa is as close as my weather service gets to Botswana.
Questions to consider:
1.  Where is Botswana?
2.  How long has it been independent?  From whom.
3.  What was its name before that?
4.  Whose land was it called?
5.  What is an acacia tree?
6.  When is it set?  (Published?)

Reading/Quiz Schedule:
In detail as it develops, but you can plan of 20-25 pages per day.

First Quiz Monday, 4/7/08 over Chapters 1-8, ninety-two pages.
Chapter 1, "The Daddy".
pages 3 -14

1.  What are the assets of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency?
2.  Is Mma Ramotswe a woman of action or contemplation, and why do you say that?
3.  What, exactly is/was the Bechuanaland Proctectorate? 
4.  When did the Bechuanaland Protectorate gain its independence, and from whom?
5.  How did Precious Ramotswe fund the start-up of her detective agency?
6.  What are some of the things involved in "everything has been something before" that Mma thinks about?
7.  Where, on a map of Botswana, is Gaborone?
8.  What is an acacia tree?
9.  What is a Brahmin in the context of this story?
What or who is he/it?
10.  Who is/was Khama?
11.  Where on the map is Mochudi?
12.  Define "dither."
13.  Was her father excited and supportive
about her starting her detective agency. 
Document your evidence.
14.  What is the study of the shape of the head
called?
15.  Where is Bulawayo?  Which direction? 
What country is it in?
16.  Who or what is (a) Motswana?
17.  Where is Maun on the map?
18.  Who is Happy Bapetse?  About how old is she?
What is her position in business?  How big is her house? 
Does she own it or rent it? 
19.  How long has Happy's Daddy been gone, and, now, how long has he been home?
20.  What does Happy want Precious to do for her?
21.  Define "effrontery"
22.  Define "chicanery."
23.  What is the allusion to Solomon about?
24.  "There were blood tests these days."  (pg. ll)  What
sort of blood test did Mma Ramotswe eimploy?
25.  Define "charlatan."
26.  What or where is Lobatse?
27.  Was Happy happy with the results the No. ! Ladies'
Detective Agency produced?  Document your answer.
The Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency
by Alexander McCall Smith, 1998
Chapter 2, "All Those Years Ago".
pages 15 - 30
Interactive weather map of southern Africa


1.  Who is Obed Ramotswe? Where was he born?

Who was he named for?
2.  Where is Francistown on the map?
3.  Where is Plumtree?  In what country?
4.  What is Setswana?  A second relationship table shows this . . .
5.  What is a hornbill?  What is a molope?
6.  What does Dutch Reformed refer to in the Hospital?
Are we talking here about medical practices?
7.  Who are the Sotho miners?
8.  Wha do the lyrics of the song mean?
"The mines eat men.
  Even when you have left them,
  The mines may still be eating you."
9.  What specific things will Obed Ramotswe mean when he says, "The only thing that makes me sad is that I shall be leaving Africa when I die."
10.  Where are Angola and Namibia that they block access to the sea?
11.  What is/are Tswana?
12.  Look at page 19 (in the Anchor Books edition by Random House) where Obed talks about God.  Is this man a deep or shallow thinker?  Document your answer and relate it to how you think.
13.  Locate Lesotho, Mozambique, and Malawi on the map.  Listen to Malawi's national anthem.
14.  Listen to Botswana's national anthem.
15.  Why do people to to South Africa (Republic of South Africa) to work in the mines?
16.  What is a Boer?  What was the Boer War?
17.  Where is Mafikeng, and why is it a historical site?
18.  What is biltong?
19.  Where is Johannesburg?  Which country.  Why do people go there?
20.  Where is/was Western Transvaal?
21.  What is Funagalo?
22.  How does Obed see the Earth?  As alive or dead?  Consider his
words ". . . rock sense.  He had to be able to see what the rock was
doing -- what it was feeling -- . . ."  (pg. 23)
23.  What/who are Swazis?  Basotho?  What is a sjambok?
24.  What is a gramophone?
25.  How long did Obed work in the mines?
26.  What is Xhosa?  Afrikaans?
27.  What is a totsi/tsotsi?
28.  When did Obed leave the mines?  Therefore he had gone down into
mines what year?  That means he got married when, based on the text?  And his wife (Precious' mother)
died when?  And how often, for how long, did he get to see her while he was working in the mines?
29.  What is a kopje?  What is sufuba?  (Actually I could not find a specific definition of this disease.)
30.  How many white men did Obed meet when he was working in the mines that he made friends with?
Did he make any friends of them?  Did he see any of them after he left the mines?  How many?
31.  How much money is 200 rands in today's US dollars?  Bear in mind that the US dollar has decreased
markedly in value over the past five years due to many factors, including the Iraq War.  However,
currencies always have a relative value that remains more or less constant.
32.  What did Obed do with that money?


Funagalo (“Funny galore”)
A patois developed by Afrikaner and Anglo mine owners in South Africa so that their workers who came from many different African tribes could communicate. It is basically a collection of the words common to many Bantu tongues. The language is very limited in vocabulary but knowledge of it will enable you to speak a pidgin version of most Bantu tongues. See ChiLapaLapa
Chapter 3, "Lessons About Boys and Goats,"
pages 20 - 44

1.  What does it require to change o storeroom into a person's living room, to make it ". . . luxury almost beyond
imagination . . .?
2.  Whom did he install in that room?  Why did she not go home to her mothen?
3.  What was her crime?  How long ago?  Did her ex-husband maintain any kind of contact with her?
4.  If Precious is now four years old, how long after her mother's death did her Daddy invite the lady into his
house? 
5.  Was her father a good man, or did he take
advantage of his cousin?
6.  Why did "cousin" want the baby to
be clever?  What, exactly, does that word
mean here?
7.  What was the name of the (only?) store in
town?
8.  What is a marula? 
"A pip" here means "a seed."
9.  Where is Kenya?  Who is Dr. Louis Leakey? 
Who is Dr. Richard Leakey? 
Who is Lucy?  Why is she named so? 
This information is in the "Lucy" link. 
10.  Who is Sir Seretse Khama?  Have we seen
this man before, or a relative of his?
Note the banknote.  Why are the colors
different?
11.  Where did Precious Ramotswe learn the
difference between good and evil?
12.  In what range of their voices did the
Sunday School children sing?  Why?
13.  Who was this boy named Josiah? 
Did Precious enjoy knowing him?
14.  On page 18, the author says "this lesson stayed with her for many years, and was to prove very useful
later on, as were all the lessons of Sunday School."  Is this foreshadowing?  To what does it refer,
specifically?
15.  How long did the cousin look after Precious?
16.  Why did she leave?
17.  Who paid for the wedding?  How big was it?  How many
cattle were slaughtered?  How much beer was
bought/brewed?  It is important, actually, to note
where the beer was bought or brewed.  How is this
different from our country today?
18.  At least one route of the bus company was between the
cities of Gaborone and where?
19.  How far away did the cousin move to live with her new
husband?
20.  Who was the best artist in Mochodi?  What was the topic
of the winning drawing?
21.  Did the judging committee understand the subject of the
drawing?
22.  How did the government Minister describe
Precious Ramotswe?

Chapter 4, "Living With the Cousin and the Cousin's Husband," pages 45 - 59

1.  How old was Precious when she went to live with her father's cousin?  What year was this?
2.  Was this a punishment or a treat?  Document your answer.
3.  Her Daddy, in his thoughts, considers that ". . . love was a form of blindness that closed the eyes to the
most glaring faults."  In what way is this foreshadowing?
4.  What is the cousin's husband's source of wealth?  There is a finite number attached to this.
5.  Is the OK Bazaars store a fictional creation of this writer?  Well, how about the Small Upright
General Dealer?
6.  How do the other clerks in the bus company feel about the way Precious works?
7.  How does Precious feel about the way she works?
8.  How much money is involved in Precious' first detective case?
9.  Who is Note Mokoti?  Where did she meet him?  Why did she not walk away from in on the street?  What
is the simile used in that scene?  What is a mealie?
10.  How many years has Precious worked with her cousin and her husband?  This makes her how old?
What year would this be, then?
11.  What is the old way for a daughter to greet her father?
12.  How does Ramotswe's father feel about people and their cattle?
13.  When Note said, "You see most people in this country once or twice."  "There are no strangers."  What is
he saying about the size of the population and the size of the country?
14.  Yes, with the trumpet, he is a musician.  What kind of music is Quella?
15.  What is a braavivleis?
16.  What were your impressions when Precious and Note first were together?  Is that a right way for
people to act?  Why did she not leave?
17.  After  Note, without Precious there with him, asked her fother for her, what did Obed say to his
daughter?
18.  Precious knew "Hew was not a good man . . ."  Why did she not leave him?
19.  What part to humiliation, urgency, and pregnancy play in this drama?
20.  Is October hot or cold in Botswana?
21.  Did the Dutch Reformed Church minister who married Precious and Note think it was a good idea?
22.  Did Precious support Note at his jazz club gigs?
23.  Who are: Hugh Masakela?    Dollar Brand?       Spokes Machobane?
24.  What happened when Precious quit coming to Note's gigs?
25.  What happened when Precious got home from the hospital?
26.  What do these numbers signify?
14
34
  5
  1

Chapter 5, "What You Need to Open a Detective Agency," pages 60 - 72

1.  Where on the map is Pilane?
2.  Where was Obed's money banked?
3.  What was the final clue to Precious that the lawyer had no understanding of the world, or women, specifically?
4.  Who is Precious model detective/observer of human nature?
5.  On what street did Precious find her house?
6.  Did she build a new building for her agency, or did she buy an existing structure with a history of other
businesses in it?
7.  Where did she buy her typewriter?  Why did she not buy a computer with word-processing software?
8.  Describe Mma Makutsi, the secretary.
9.  What is a ghastly mistake?  Describe a skeletal dog.
10.  What is a parlous job?
11.  What is the name of the first official client of the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency?
12.  What are the three stages of loss when a woman's man goes missing?
13.  What day did the husband go missing?  Whom/what did Precious suspect?
14.  Is Precious Christian?  Ponder that . . . consider reasons pro and con.
15.  What is the story on the missing man, the sinner whom God called to his bosom, according to Reverend
Shadreck Mapele?
16.  What is your first though Precious is going to do with the dog?  Is that what she did?
17.  Who taught her to shoot a rifle?
18.  Was the first official client of the Agency satisfied with the Agency's services?
19.  How did the client express her grief?
Chapter 6, "Boy," pages 73 - 78
- This is not a pleasing story.  It is well written, but it is out of place here. -
- I'm not sure why it's here. -

1.  How old is the boy?  But he looks how old?
2.  Why do the parents secretly think he's small?
3.  What's the strangest thing about this boy, other than his size, in his society?
4.  What time of day does the action really start in this story?
5.  What is the story the man with the strange lip is telling about?
6.  What is bilharzia?
7.  Is this a story about family vengance?
Chapter 8, "A Conversation with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni,"
pages 86 - 92

1.  Based on the age of J.L.B. Matekone, how old is Precious Ramotswe?  What year is this now?
2.  What qualities did this gentleman have that Precious saw as attractive?
3.  Why do these two people enjoy talking together?
4.  Perhaps a santawana took the boy or a thokolosi.  Oh, my!  With the meaning of thokolisi that is shown, I
question the translation of "santawana" as a "consolation."
5.  What is everyone afraid of?  Perhaps even Precious, though she might well be Dutch Reformed Church?
6.  What terrified our heroine at 3:04 AM?

"Don't disregard a hunch.  Hunches are another from of knowledge." pg 79
Chapter 7, "Mma Makutsi Deals With the Mail," pages 79 - 85
- OK; I get it.  The author is setting us up with the previous story . . . the rat-dog. -

1.  Precious has bought a manual about being a detective.  Do you think she needs it?  Why or why not?
2.  How much is 250 pulo in US dollars?
3.  Define "aghast."
4.  What does Mma Ramotswe think the second woman's has been doing?
5.  What does Mma Makutsi suggest as a reason for the man's smelling of perfume?
6.  What is the topic of the letter the Agency received?
7.  What gives Mme Ramotswe a reason for going on?


Chapter 9, The Boyfriend,
pages 93-121
(This book just keeps getting cooler and cooler; I'm going to need a sweater to finish it.)

1.  How many “quite exceptional houses (are there) in the country?”
Mokolodi house     There is a Nature Reserve of that name.
Phakadi houseA.C.J. Phakade Primary School   Situated in Nomzamo, an informal settlement community between the N2 highway and the False Bay Coast, in Strand, ACJ Phakadi Primary serves a very poor community that is riddled with unemployment and crime. The community has a very basic infrastructure and is totally lacking in resources.
  Patel house
What bird is worked into the ironwork of the gates of the
grandest?
What is the main drawback of the second-grandest?
What is the compensating factor for the second, though?
2.  Who owns the one Mma Ramotswe has not been invited to?  Is it a single building?
Is he tall or short?
What is his distinguishing physical characteristic?  It involves metal. 
Where did he get it? 
Does he feel better ones are available?  From where?
3.  What is the source of his wealth?
Who helped set this man up in business?
4.  What is his racial/national heritage?
5.  How many children does he have?
6.  Are they all proud of their family name?
What profession did his son go into? 
What name did he take? 
What was his excuse?
7.  Did that ever happen in this country (USA)?
8.  What is the name of the daughter the client wants to investigate? 
How old is she?
Where does she go to school? 
Is it a real place?
9.  What does the client wish to learn?
10.  Who recommended Precious should get a client like this one? 
What sort of information does this advisor have about that specific client?
11.  Why does Mma Ramotswe want only a photograph of the girl?
12.  On page 104, middle paragraph of the page . . . what events led
to that event?  How do you feel about that?
13.  Was Nandira, indeed, easy to follow? 
Why/not?
14.  Who is Clovis Andersen? 
Actual person or fictional?
15.  Who is Jack? 
Actual person or fictional (in the context of the story)?
15.  Is “bush tea” available here?
16.  Uh, just how big is Mma Ramotswe?
17.  Why is Precious so fascinated with The Snakes of Southern Africa?
18.  What is the primary difference between the green and
black mambas?
19.  Define “apocryphal.”
20.  What are “Mopani worms.” 

What are they used for? 
Are they worms, or something else?
21.  How does Mr. Patel emphasize his language?
22.  Which row is the “penultimate”?
23.  Who is Mma Bapitse? 
Can she be trusted? 
What is your evidence?
24.  See question (15).  Who is Jack? 
Is he fictional or actual in the context of the story?
25.  Did Mma Ramotswe get the outcome she wanted from the case?  Is your "Yes" or "No" answer




Chapter 10,
"Mma Ramotswe Thinks About the Land While Driving Her Tiny White Van to Francistown",
Pages 122 - 124

1.  Probably equally, authors use existing landmarks or fictional landmarks to give detail to their
landscapes/settings.  Are the Kalahari Breweries real or fictional?
2.  How about the Dry Lands Research Station?YesNo
3.  Why does not Mma Ramotswe not stop to pick up the hitchhiker? 
Which preceding chapter of this book is this particularly related to?
4.  What is the/a Limpopo?
5.  What is a hoopoe?   I came across a character named Jabaal the Hoopoe in The Source by James A. Mitchener in the latter half of the prior century.  I loved that character.  I have identified with him since
6.  Are cattle the only animals that are kept in by the fences?  This is not stated in the text.  I found an image
on the net, but I couldn't find it when I went back.
7.  Define “hinterland.”
8.  Define “ochre.”
9.  What is the Namib?
10.  Define “crenellate.”
11.  A “Cattle Post” is the equivalent to the American term “Cattle Ranch” or the Australian term “Cattle
Station.”  Originally they were much larger than today.  A good idea is the 6666 Ranch.
12.  Identify these plants listed by Mma Ramotswe as being visible during her road trip.

Namaqualand daisy


tsama melon

aloes
13.   What is a Tokoloshe that are being kept away by fire?  Are Tokoloshe only in Botswana, or are there equivalent beings in other folklore?
14.  Why do you think no other thought come to Precious as she stood by the fire under the empty Kalahari sky?



Chapter 11, "Big Car Guilt,"
pages 125 – 131

1.  What was the fee Mma Ramotswe charged Mr. Patel to discover his daughter’s boyfriend?

How much is that in USD?http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi
2.  Who is Mma Pekwane?  What does she fear her husband has done?
3.  Who is Note Mokoti?
4.  What does Mma Pekwane want Mma Ramotswe to do?
5.  How does Precious Ramotswe know Billy Pilani, and what does he do now?  In which country?
6.  Image of the African Mall.
7.  What sound does Radio Botswana broadcast at 6:00 AM?  I found this particularly fascinating.
8.  What does Mma Pekwane learn about her husband?


Chapter 12, "Mma Ramotswe’s House In Zebra Drive,"
pages 132 - 134

1.  Did Mma Ramotswe buy a new house, or have it built?
This is not intended to be a trick question. 
There is an answer.  Is it in the middle of the
block, or on a corner?  How big is the yard?
2.  What are the plants in the yard?

Pawpaws
Pumpkinsextra credit if you can bring me

documentable images of Botswana

Pumpkin

Bouganvillas     more extra credit if you can tell
me if there is a connection between

this plant and the Pacific island of

Bouganville in the Solomon Islands,

site of a very bloody battle in World War II.


Elephant ear ferns

3.  Precious has two pieces of special china on her mantelpiece.  These are . . .
4.  What is a kgosi and who are the Bangwato people?
4.  What color is the kitchen floor?
5.  What is unique about Rose’s children?


Chapter 13, "Why Don’t You Marry Me?,"
pages 135 - 138

1.  Why are twenty-year-old-people blind?
2.  How many mistakes has Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni made in his lifetime?
3.  How many mistakes has Mma Precious Ramotswe made in hers?
4.  Who proposes to whom?



Chapter 14, "Handsome Man,"
pages 139 – 144

1.  Is the handsome man in this chapter the same one from the previous chapter?
2.  Who is the client?
3.  What are the only two kinds of men who do not carry on with the ladies?
4.  Define “feckless.”
5.  So what is "feck."  This is noe of those words you have to be really careful with.
6.  What is the name of the handsome man, and where does he work?  Which bar does he go to?
7.  What does Precious use as bait to trap this straying husband?
8.  What does she use as proof of this client's husband's activities?
9.  Does her client approve of the evidence?
10.  Define "waive." 


This page was last updated: December 13, 2010
Just a side note . . . to keep you on your toes
about how this author works . . . a wee question:
is the Botswana Book Centre a real place or a fictional one?  Hmmmmm?
Chapter 15, "Mr. J.L.B Matekoni’s Discovery,"
pages 145 – 151

1.  Based on Alice Busang's shouted insult in paragraph 2, is she a substantial African woman, or is she
underfed?
2.  What was the only thing Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi could do in the face of the client's
response?
3.  "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost," is a kids' rhyming lesson
from England.  Some say it alludes to Richard III's loss, defeat
and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field.
4.  Why were African persons (Batswana) familiar with English
nursery rhymes?
5.  How does J.L.B. Matekone dress differently from Kremlin Busang?
6.  What does Mma Ramotswe wonder about when she considers
everyone's thinking in the auto shop?
7.  What has Mr. J.L.B. Matekone discovered?  Where?  In whose car?
8.  Define "muti."
9.  Why does Mma Ramotswe say, "Nothing can happen to me now. 
I'm protected."  Does she really feel that way.?
10.  Define "duiker."  How big are these things?












11.  If Charlie Goto were an Anglo-American, why would Al Pacino or (the late) Marlon Brando portray
him in a movie?  What blockbuster movie did these gentlemen act in together?
12.  Which came first: the video rental company or the term "blockbuster"?




Chapter 16, "The Cutting of Fingers and Snakes,"
pages 152 - 174

1.  Sentence two is there just to to remind the reader of what fact of life in Botswana?
2.  Did change sweeping in overnight as the result of large government programs and campaign promises?
3.  What was the volume of truck production from that first factory?
4.  How far is it from Gaborone to the Congo (the country)?  You're going to have to work this one out
with your Social Studies teacher.  When I went to find the airline mileage, it got a little weird,
because, apparently, there are no direct flights.  The traveler has to fly from Gaborone to
Johannesburg to Nairobi, to Kinshasa.  Why do you figure that is?
5.  Is Congo still called Congo today?  Since when?
6.  Finally, on page 154 (in the Anchor Books edition) we meet the client, whose name is . . .
7.  He manufactures a whole list of different products.  Right?  The purpose of his product line is to
do what, exactly?
8.  Define "Bantustan."
9.  The disgruntled employee got a raise of fifty pula a month, which is ___________.
10.  Then he turned around a sued for four thousand pula because he l
ost a ____________________.
11.  One reason Hector invited Mma Ramotswe to the President Hotel
was to discuss business. 
What was the second type of business he wanted to discuss?
12.  Was this a meeting based on economy or on image-making? 
Remember, local folk pay in local money.
13.  Why doesn't Hector just settle?  His insurance company wants him to.
14.  What was the metaphor "the boy with the hole in his brain" used to
describe the disgruntled employee?
15.  Authors use small personal touches to personalize their characters. 
Each of us has small habits and preferenes we have developed over
the years.  What does Mma Ramotswe wear on her feet when she
pads around her house at night?  Why?
16.  Where does she go to get paper copies of evidence?
17.  The attorney tries to impress, to intimidate, to "snow" Mma Ramotswe
on the phone with references to the regional judicial center, the
Appellate Court in which town, in which country?
18.  Is our intrepid lady intimidated, or does she have a different attitude?
19.  On her drive along the highway to the meeting with the lawyer and
Moretsi, she can, through her open van window hear a sound
familiar to Texican ears.  Especially those ears that are at
"home on the range," (where the kudo and the cape buffalo play).

Where else have we read about the cape buffalo?
20.  What kind of snake sped/shot across the road?

o Black Mamba
o Green Mamba
oCobra
21.  Which is the most dangerous?
22.  Did Mma Ramotswe see the snake get on across the road?  What did she do?  Did she have help?
23.  How did she kill this serpent?
24.  How did Mma Ramotswe surprise Mr. Jameson Mopotswane, the Mahalapye attorney?
25.  What was Moretsi's reason/excuse for his scam?



Chapter 17, "The Third Metacarpal”
pages 175 - 180

1.  Mma knows everybody in the country, it seems.  For whom is the Princess Marina Hospital named?

(OK; OK; who is/was Princess Marina, O Wise One?) 
2.  Define "pathology."
3.  Does Mma respect the nurse who is guarding the hospital?
4.  Does the bone Mma Remotswe brings puzzle Dr. Gulubane
for any appreciable time?
5.  What question does the good doctor ask that completely
knocks the good detective for a loop?
6.  Is going to the police a viable     option?

o Yeso No
7.  Mma Ramotswe decides, then, to do exactly what?




Chapter 18, "A Lot of Lies,"
pages 181 – 187

1.  How should one attract Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's attention? 
One should specifically not do what?
2.  Define "Spanner."
3.  In what way is the man sent by Charlie Goto resemble
Kremlin Busang?
4.  What, O Blushing One, is Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's fantasy?
5.  How do J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Ramotswe set this meeting with
Charlie Goto's agent up?
6.  Does it work?
7.  How does J.L.B. Matekoni tell his fellow-plotter he is through
with this scary stuff?
8.  Did it work?
9.  What was his reward?





Chapter 19, "Mr. Charlie Gotso, BA,"
pages 188 - 193


1.  How does Charlie Goto feel about fat women?  How
do you feel about fat women?  How do you feel
about the word "fat" at all?  How heavily is that
word emotionally charged in America 2008?  Is
that your own feeling, or is it one planted there
  by media-driven interests?  Hmmm?
2.  How long has he been married?  Where do he and
his wife live?
3.  What does "BA" mean after his name?
4.  What does Charlie Goto want Mma Ramotswe to do, to find?
5.  What does she give to Charlie Goto?
6.  What is one of Charlie Goto's responses to Mma Ramotswe that he shares with other male characters in
this novel?  Have you explored your ideas, your thoughts, of what constitutes female beauty?
7.  What relationship do Charlie and Precious establish?  Is it possible that we might meet this character
in future books?  I don't know the answer to this, but would this man possibly be a good contact to have if one were a private detective?
8.  What does Mma Ramotswe get from this meeting that she wanted in the first place?




Chapter 20, "Medical Matters,"
pages 192 - 221

1.  What about hospitals does our African gumshoe not like?
2.  Define "gumshoe."
3.  What item of hospital attire does Mma Ramotswe particularly not like?  Why?
4.  There is a shaggy dog story in the paragraph beginning "Now constipation was quite a different
matter . . ."  What is the punchline to the joke?  What is it that makes it funny?
5.  And, just to push the hidden humor angle: in the very next paragraph, she goes to speak with Dr. Maketsi
on her way home about "the business ________________________".  What is the pun here, for
Pity's sake?

(I'm starting to wonder right here, how many other times Mr. Alexander McCall Smith sat at his word processor with his tongue wedged far over in his cheek as he embedded little swifties in his text that I did not even notice . . . the hound!)


"Thank you, Mma Dibia, for your presentation
to our classes last Friday, 18th April.  We
learned a lot more than we had reason to expect..  Thank you.
Chapter 21, "The Witch Doctor’s Wife”
pages 222 - 230

1.  Define "sump."  What do Americans call it?
2.  Define "inexplicable."
3.  Define "setotojane."
4.  Define "dumela."
5.  Does Precious Ramotswe tell the witch doctor's wife she is a private detective when she starts
digging?
6.  There's quite a statement about smelling fear.  Is that possible?
7.  Why does Mma Ramotswe not speak to the witch doctor's wife during the four-hour ride to their
destination?
8.  How badly did the witch doctor damage the boy in order to get the third metacarpal bone?
9.  Define "wizened."
10.  We see the word "sjambok" again.  What is that? 
Is it like a "gemsbok"?  Or a "sprinkbok"? 
Or a "steenbok."  What are possible word origins
and derivations?   
11.  How long did Mma Ramotswe wait for the witch
doctor's wife to finish her conversation with the
cattle herders?
12.  What was her fee for recovering this child?
13.  This is Chapter (21).  We first heard about this child
in Chapter (6).  Why did the author make us
wait this long to find out his fate?  What is he
suggesting about the development of Mma
Ramotswe's skills as a detective, as a connector
of human actions and motivations?  Was this a simple or a complex case?



Chapter 22, "Mr. J.L.B Matekoni,"
pages 231 - 235

1.  Five paragraphs into the chapter, Mr. Matekoni says “Anything can be fixed. Anything.”  What needs to be fixed, as far as the story goes?  Is there a sub-plot going here?
2.  Whose heart is broken in two pieces?  Why?
3.  Who is “Professor Barnard down in Capt Town?” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Barnard
4.  I found several references to “Lion Beer” online.  There is one from Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
and one from South Africa.  Which do you think Mma Ramotswe drinks?  Why?  You
might consider that she has her beer at the President Hotel.
5.  How does Mr. Smith show us his protagonist’s professional skills?
6.  Define “bakkie.”  http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/bakkie/
7.  When the mechanic comes to your home to fix your car, do you make him a cup of tea? 
How do you get a mechanic to come to your home to fix your car?  Was this meeting
a simple business transaction?
8.  When Mr. Matekoni pulls out the “large part, from which wires and hoses protruded.” 
how does the writer change the mechanical to the organic, and then to the
emotional? 
9.  How does Mr. Smith establish an atmosphere of domesticity, for comfy-cozy peace in
these paragraphs?
10.  Mr. Matekoni says “. . . anything can be fixed.  Even an old van.”  Is there a hidden
meaning in his statement?
11.  Describe Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s vision of Precious Ramotswe.  It is one of heat, of flaming
passion?
12.  Can a mechanic be a poet?  Is there a zen component to that question, to that idea?  Is
Mr. Matekoni a samurai mechanic?
13.  Was this ending mushy “romance novel” style or the “assumed close” of the very
competent salesman?
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