Excerpt of Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith
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Aunty Emang, Solver of Problems
When you are just the right age, as Mma Ramotswe was, and when
you have seen a bit of life, as Mma Ramotswe certainly had, then
there are some things that you just know. And one of the things
that was well known to Mma Ramotswe, only begetter of the No. 1
Ladies' Detective Agency (Botswana's only ladies' detective
agency), was that there were two sorts of problem in this life.
Firstly, there were those problems-and they were major
ones-about which one could do very little, other than to hope,
of course. These were the problems of the land, of fields that
were too rocky, of soil that blew away in the wind, or of places
where crops would just not thrive for some sickness that lurked
in the very earth. But looming greater than anything else there
was the problem of drought. It was a familiar feeling in
Botswana, this waiting for rain, which often simply did not
come, or came too late to save the crops. And then the land,
scarred and exhausted, would dry and crack under the relentless
sun, and it would seem that nothing short of a miracle would
ever bring it to life. But that miracle would eventually arrive,
as it always had, and the landscape would turn from brown to
green within hours under the kiss of the rain. And there were
other colours that would follow the green; yellows, blues, reds
would appear in patches across the veld as if great cakes of dye
had been crumbled and scattered by an unseen hand. These were
the colours of the wild flowers that had been lurking there,
throughout the dry season, waiting for the first drops of
moisture to awaken them. So at least that sort of problem had
its solution, although one often had to wait long, dry months
for that solution to arrive.
The other sorts of problems were those which people made for
themselves. These were very common, and Mma Ramotswe had seen
many of them in the course of her work. Ever since she had set
up this agency, armed only with a copy of Clovis Andersen's The
Principles of Private Detection-and a great deal of common
sense-scarcely a day had gone by without her encountering some
problem which people had brought upon themselves. Unlike the
first sort of problem-drought and the like-these were
difficulties that could have been avoided. If people were only
more careful, or behaved themselves as they should, then they
would not find themselves faced with problems of this sort. But
of course people never behaved themselves as they should. "We
are all human beings," Mma Ramotswe had once observed to Mma
Makutsi, "and human beings can't really help themselves. Have
you noticed that, Mma? We can't really help ourselves from doing
things that land us in all sorts of trouble."
Mma Makutsi pondered this for a few moments. In general, she
thought that Mma Ramotswe was right about matters of this sort,
but she felt that this particular proposition needed a little
bit more thought. She knew that there were some people who were
unable to make of their lives what they wanted them to be, but
then there were many others who were quite capable of keeping
themselves under control. In her own case, she thought that she
was able to resist temptation quite effectively. She did not
consider herself to be particularly strong, but at the same time
she did not seem to be markedly weak. She did not drink, nor did
she over-indulge in food, or chocolate or anything of that sort.
No, Mma Ramotswe's observation was just a little bit too
sweeping and she would have to disagree. But then the thought
struck her: Could she resist a fine new pair of shoes, even if
she knew that she had plenty of shoes already (which was not the
case)?
Excerpted from Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander
McCall Smith Copyright © 2006 by Alexander McCall Smith.
Excerpted by permission of Pantheon, a division of Random
House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may
be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing
from the publisher.
