The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Throughout the novel, Botswana’s landscape and wildlife appear as a recurring motif, supporting the theme of national and cultural pride. The novel’s opening pages introduces the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by highlighting its natural surroundings: “to the front, an acacia tree, the thorn tree which dots the wide edges of the Kalahari […] In its branches, in the late afternoon, or in the cool of the early morning, one might see a Go-Away Bird, or hear it rather” (3-4). The animal and plant activity as perceived by humans in this passage is indicative of the novel’s interest in how Botswana’s people interact with the landscape and wildlife. In some instances in the novel, animals present a threat to human life, as in the case of Mma Malatsi, whose missing husband was eaten by a crocodile while he was being baptized in a river. Even in these instances, however, the novel offers empathy for wildlife; Mma Ramotswe kills the crocodile, and she laments that “these creatures were not meant to be in the Notwane River; it must have wandered for miles overland, or swum up the flood waters from the Limpopo itself” (71). This passage demonstrates Mma Ramotswe’s intimacy with wildlife patterns of behavior, and the connections between animals, landscapes, and people.