Mma Potokwane
Mma Potokwane is, like Mma Ramotswe, a very traditionally built Motswana lady. She is the matron of the orphanage, whose clientele is growing every day with the passage of that "terrible disease" throughout Botswana. She is an extremely wise, smart, cunning, and kindly generous woman. She has Mr J L B Matekoni wrapped around her little finger, with the assistance of Mr J L B Matekoni's great weakness - heavy, moist, flavoursome fruit cake.
I must admit, I don't understand Mr J L B Matekoni's taste in this regard. I can't stand fruit cake. Heavy, moist, flavoursome chocolate cake, with yummy icing, it's got to be iced, is much more my thing. Bronwyn makes a brilliant one, and if Mma Potokwane gave me some of that even I would agree to fix up the brakes on her bus every month or so, even though I don't know one end of a brake pad from the other. In fact, I don't even know if they have ends.
All right, all right, back to Mma Potokwane. I'm unsure what orphanages are like in Botswana, but I know from personal knowledge what they were like in Australia, and likewise in Luang Prabang, the old royal capital of Laos, and they were and are really horrible places for many, if not all, the children who have the misfortune to pass through their gates.
The orphanage in Luang Prabang, for example, is mostly staffed by people who see the children as a means to make a profit in a country where all government employees are grossly underpaid. The latest thing is to build tourist accommodation in the grounds. Some of the tourists are at the lower end of problematic, simply giving money with the condition they can spend time with the kids, and have their pictures taken with the happy, smiling, little orphan children.
Frankly, this is objectionable enough, and I know none of you readers would do anything like this. But even worse are the sex tourists, mostly paedophile men, who ... well, you know or can imagine what they get in return for giving the orphanage money. And while some of this cash is spent on the kids, the great majority of it is siphoned off by the staff, who have and display absolutely no feeling for the kids other than contempt.
Well, Mma Potokwane's orphanage is not one of these. She would have no truck with the "poor little orphan" tourists, let alone with sex tourists, no matter how hard up she is for cash. Fortunately for the orphans, Mma Potokwane is extremely good at separating rich men from a portion of their mostly ill-gotten gains, without them getting anything in return apart from whatever happiness they get from pretending to be generous to the hard up. But she still has to operate the orphanage on less than the smell of an oily rag.
What Mma Potokwane thinks of sex tourists is never revealed, as Sandy doesn't use that kind of language in his books, but her love and care for her charges is very much revealed. She may often appear as stern and rather forbidding, but this is only because circumstances require her to be so, and she is capable of appearing so. But in reality she is a bit of a softy, and she shows this in the good friendship, care and concern she displays to Mma Ramotswe and Mr J L B Matekoni, and the great care she takes to make sure her charges are adopted by families that both match them and which will give them love and care. Those that aren't adopted, she makes sure receive the best possible education, and are gainfully employed as they enter adulthood.
I must admit, I don't understand Mr J L B Matekoni's taste in this regard. I can't stand fruit cake. Heavy, moist, flavoursome chocolate cake, with yummy icing, it's got to be iced, is much more my thing. Bronwyn makes a brilliant one, and if Mma Potokwane gave me some of that even I would agree to fix up the brakes on her bus every month or so, even though I don't know one end of a brake pad from the other. In fact, I don't even know if they have ends.
All right, all right, back to Mma Potokwane. I'm unsure what orphanages are like in Botswana, but I know from personal knowledge what they were like in Australia, and likewise in Luang Prabang, the old royal capital of Laos, and they were and are really horrible places for many, if not all, the children who have the misfortune to pass through their gates.
The orphanage in Luang Prabang, for example, is mostly staffed by people who see the children as a means to make a profit in a country where all government employees are grossly underpaid. The latest thing is to build tourist accommodation in the grounds. Some of the tourists are at the lower end of problematic, simply giving money with the condition they can spend time with the kids, and have their pictures taken with the happy, smiling, little orphan children.
Frankly, this is objectionable enough, and I know none of you readers would do anything like this. But even worse are the sex tourists, mostly paedophile men, who ... well, you know or can imagine what they get in return for giving the orphanage money. And while some of this cash is spent on the kids, the great majority of it is siphoned off by the staff, who have and display absolutely no feeling for the kids other than contempt.
Well, Mma Potokwane's orphanage is not one of these. She would have no truck with the "poor little orphan" tourists, let alone with sex tourists, no matter how hard up she is for cash. Fortunately for the orphans, Mma Potokwane is extremely good at separating rich men from a portion of their mostly ill-gotten gains, without them getting anything in return apart from whatever happiness they get from pretending to be generous to the hard up. But she still has to operate the orphanage on less than the smell of an oily rag.
What Mma Potokwane thinks of sex tourists is never revealed, as Sandy doesn't use that kind of language in his books, but her love and care for her charges is very much revealed. She may often appear as stern and rather forbidding, but this is only because circumstances require her to be so, and she is capable of appearing so. But in reality she is a bit of a softy, and she shows this in the good friendship, care and concern she displays to Mma Ramotswe and Mr J L B Matekoni, and the great care she takes to make sure her charges are adopted by families that both match them and which will give them love and care. Those that aren't adopted, she makes sure receive the best possible education, and are gainfully employed as they enter adulthood.
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