Is Botswana on Your Map?

As human beings we are constructors of realities. Last weekend I got caught in what Alexander McCall Smith keeps on constructing in Botswana. Before having read any of his books I had no idea about a country called Botswana nor about the life people lead there. They did not exist on my personal map of the world.

Medieval maps described unknown regions covering them with pictures of monsters, dragons and strange-looking wildlife, sometimes with the text "Hic sunt leones."

In fact those markings indicated that even those regions had a meaning. They somehow existed in people´s minds. But there are things in the world that do not exist even that much, matters that have no reference to. Atoms and radio waves could serve as examples of them.

A couple of years ago a pre-planned, but hasty visit to a bookshop in Edinburgh became my memorable entrance to life in Botswana. Since then I have learned to know Mma Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi as well as Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, and other people in The No. 1 Ladies´Detective Agency.

Had there not been a particular shelf dedicated to Scottish authors alone, I might never have had the possibility to spend my time In the Company of Cheerful Ladies or The Kalahari Typing School for Men.

Last weekend I got again stuck in Botswana, more closely in Caborone, Zebra Drive.

I do not stop admiring Alexander McCall Smith as an author. While reading my first Mma Ramotswe book I had to turn back to the front cover to check the name of the author. Really, the author is a man. In spite of that he describes women´s life leaving no room for leones nor pictures of dragons and monsters.

In an interview in Helsinki Mr McCall Smith was asked what makes this possible. "I just try to listen to women." He also told us that it is not easy. When women notice that they are listened to, they change the topic.

Is there anything to be learned from this? A simple answer: listening is a valuable skill. A not-so-simple answer: describing your own reality is involuntary, something that you do without paying attention to it. If focusing on the "correct" way to describe something, you loose the point, you make choices, in other words you start telling stories. Stories are always told to somebody, for some specific reason. They are stories, not descriptions of the so-called normal life. They take a moral standpoint. They present a challenge to be negotiated about. Stories bring in politics.

McCall Smith having entered as a listener in women´s discussions and chats, automatically changes the situation. What women talk about becomes something they purposefully let him hear or listen to. If that results in receiving and registering information of their normal life is for McCall Smith to decide. Obviously he is not content with what is offered, but reaches to the regions marked with pictures of dragons and "Hic sunt leones."

Another admirable feature in The No 1 Ladies´Detective Agency is the fact that you can pick up any of the eight books to be immediately in "medias res". Picking up the next book you meet the same people, you hear their life stories again, and anyhow the author avoids repetition.

It is evident that he is good at telling people´s life stories in the way we normally tell them. In the course of the life we offer each other situationally specific, lightly different versions of who we are and who we would like to be. Getting stuck with one version only would mean swimming against the currents of life and falsifying reality. In The No 1 Ladies´ Detective Agency it would mean the end of the story. Who would want that?

Have you ever thought about building a learning organization? No matter if it is a family or a business enterprise, you need the skill to make people adopt certain goal-oriented attitudes and behaviour. You may define the goals and the means to reach them, but anyhow people won´t do exactly what you want them to do. We are no copying machines. We want to make our personal versions of the goals as well as of the means and methods of making them become true. The personal and the collective needs to be fitted together. Unless the balance between them is found neither the collective goals nor the individual versions of them will be reached.

So far there are eight books describing The No 1 Ladies´Detective Agency. Each of them is different and all of them fulfill the same purpose. If you want to find out what that purpose is, you could read, for instance The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (ISBN:978-0-349-11773-7).

Botswana and Finland are far from each other. Anyhow, there are evident similarities between these two countries. One of them is described like this:

"Our stomachs live in towns," said Mma Potokwani, patting the front of her dress. "That is where the work is. Our stomachs know that. But our hearts are usually somewhere else."

Spring is coming. It is now five p.m. and almost full daylight. The period of short days is getting over. All who can will travel to Lapland to ski. People are starting to plan their summer, how to get back to the normal state of Finnish life, in the country, by the lakes, away from towns. Before that most traditionally built ladies start thinking of their diet, but similar to Mma Ramotswe very few take strict, concrete measures to limit their life. There is always a Mma Potokwani among one´s friend whose fruit cakes are irresistible...