Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith

known the cattle that made up his herd. He had known the strengths of each beast—its potential to grow, its lineage, its ability to withstand drought, and so on. Mr. Molofololo was like that with his players,and she expected at any moment that he would launch into a discussion of how to breed football players, but he did not; that would perhaps be taking it a bit too far.
    For the first fifteen minutes or so, it seemed to her that nothing much was happening. The Kalahari Swoopers got possession of the ball and lost it from time to time to the Township Rollers. Then they got it again, and the action switched back where it had been before they lost possession. Then everything changed again.
    “How are we doing?” she asked Mr. Molofololo at one point. And he replied, “Nothing is happening yet, Mma. You must be patient. This is not like cooking.”
    She wondered whether to take objection to that remark, but decided not to. It was not just that Mr. Molofololo was the client, and one should not offend clients; there was something strange about Mr. Molofololo, something that she could not quite put her finger on. He had a tendency to make remarks that were just a little bit disconcerting—as if he was thinking about something quite different, or as if he saw a dimension to an issue that you did not.
    Mma Ramotswe settled into her seat and watched the match unfold. From time to time Mr. Molofololo became animated and shouted out encouragement; at other times he groaned and sank his head in his hands. And others in the audience were behaving in a similar way as the fortunes of the match flowed this way and that. It was all new to Mma Ramotswe, and she reflected on how strange it was that things like this—football matches, with all their passion and complexity—had been taking place right under her nose in Gaborone and she had known so little about them.
    Puso seemed to follow exactly what was happening. He was sitting next to Mr. Molofololo, and the great man occasionally leant over and discussed a point of tactics with him. At half-time, when the players went off the field and the Botswana DefenceForce band marched out onto the field to play, Mma Ramotswe asked Puso how the match was going.
    “Not very well,” Puso said. “The Swoopers are going to lose, I think. Unless Quickie Chitamba can do something.”
    “Quickie Chitamba? Who is this Quickie Chitamba?”
    Puso looked at Mma Ramotswe with the condescending tolerance of one explaining something to another who cannot possibly understand. This was men's business, he seemed to be saying. “Quickie Chitamba is a striker, Mma. It is his job to score goals.”
    Mma Ramotswe nodded. She understood that goals were the object of the whole exercise, but could not any player score a goal?
    “And the goalkeeper has to stop that, doesn't he?” she asked.
    “Of course,” Puso replied. “And we have a very good goalkeeper, Mma.”
    “We?”
    Puso explained again. “Our team. Swoopers. The goalie is Big Man Tafa. He is a very good goalie.”
    Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I see. Being a big man must be a good thing if you are a goalkeeper. Big Man Tafa must block the mouth of the goal.”
    Puso shook his head. “Except he is very small, Mma.”
    “Big Man Tafa is small?”
    “Yes,” said Puso. “He is very small, Mma. But he is also a very good goalkeeper.”
    Mma Ramotswe was silent. She was learning a great deal about football in a very short time. She was learning about possession of the ball, about strikers and their doings, about big men who were really small; and there would be more to learn no doubt during the second half.
    They returned to their seats, the band marched off, and the match began once more. Mma Ramotswe noticed that the teamswere now playing in different directions and that the pace of play seemed to have increased. The crowd, that seemed to have swelled for the second half, was even more vocal, and shouts in both English and Setswana were directed