Get Real, Friends -
It's a Work of Fiction, For Goodness Sakes

We're sorry to have to break the news, folks, but the Mma Ramotswe novels are works of fiction.

Now, before you start straining your eyes and complaining at the lack of definition in these maps, we have to point out there's no such street or road as Zebra Drive, although there is one called Zebra Way.

We've read in various sources that Mma Ramotswe's house is the "last on the left before the bend", or alternatively at the end of a cul-de-sac off Zebra Way, but we’ve no idea whether or not Sandy had this in mind when he devised Zebra Drive. We suspect tour companies make up a good yarn to bedazzle the gullible tourists. Whoops, we hope that wasn't you, dear reader, never you.

Having walked up Zebra Way on Google Maps, neither of these locations is clear to us, as Zebra Way is straight, and we couldn't see a cul-de-sac you could drive up, as both Mma Ramotswe and Mr J L B Matekoni would have to do to park their vehicles where they do in the books.

Another story is that he used a friend's house as the model. But whether that story is factual, and whether the house was in Zebra Way, we don't know. We doubt it, because changing Way to Drive to avoid people walking all over his friends' front yard is rather an underwhelming way of achieving their privacy.

Lex says he's sure he's read somewhere that Sandy referred to Zebra Drive and Zebra Way being one and the same in an interview somewhere, but he's not been able to track it down again.

The red marker is on Zebra Way (NOT Drive!). Note the Princess Marina Hospital towards the bottom, between the centre and left side of the map. Further to the left is Gaborone's Main Mall. To the right side of the Princess Marina is the National Stadium. Up above, on the other side of the golf course, is Maruapula Secondary School. To the right of the school is the University of Botswana Teaching Hospital. Further to the right is the Gaborone Game Reserve.

Zebra Way, in its entirety.

Okey dokey, one and all. Let's go for an actual wander up Zebra Way (or down, if you prefer - after all, Australia's on the top of the world, and Europe's downunder!).

This is the western end of Zebra Drive, on its corner with Chuma Drive. On the left-hand corner is the Kenyan High Commission.

A bit further east. The sign on the left is for the entrance to the Kenyan High Commission.

A little further down and we start to get an idea this is not a poor part of town, albeit not the richest either. How can I tell? Well, no garbage in the streets, no people walking up and down, front fences, long fences indicating reasonably sizeable houses, and the dead give away, barbed or razor wire, sometimes electrified on top of the fences. These people believe they have something worth stealing and, perhaps more importantly, thieves think they've got things worth stealing. This is a classic sign of a place that has haves and have nots. Botswana may not be the worst place in Africa by any means, but it has poverty - and where there's poverty and gross in-your-face inequality there's crime.

Two houses on this site. You can just see what may be electrified wire. This is possibly some sort of family compound.

More of the same, and note the size of this block of land.

The house on the hard right has quite a garden, something that's not all that common. Botswana's a very dry place, on the whole, and access to water for gardens must be pretty expensive.

More of the same, lots of wire.

This place coming up on the left has a good focus on dry climate plants along its front fence. You can see a street coming up on the right.

Off to the right is Elephant Road.

Odd sign on the left, apparently warning of three-breasted women.

More electric fencing, apparently electrically wired. I've seen a photo of a security bits and pieces shop in Gaborone. It's huge, with heaps of gear for building your own electrically wired fencing.

This site on the near right is a building site according to the sign on the fence. However, it looks like it has been used as a through road for quite some time, and you can see what looks like a street and parked cars in the distance. The heavily wired fortification further on is what appears to be pricey flats (or apartments as real estate agents insist on calling them). Well outside Mma Makutsi's price range, I suspect.

This is more or less opposite the building site. In this case, it's a purposefully left walking path. I don't know what the big thing in the middle of the path's foreground is.

This is another shot of the pricey block of flats. It looks like it may have a smart court or maybe a swimming pool. Note the air conditioners; another, if we needed one, indication these would be a pricey accommodation option for ordinary Batswana. On the far left you can see the street that forms a T-intersection with Zebra Way.

This is the house on the opposite corner to the flats. I love the garden, I would really like to have a garden like that if I lived here.

Rather obviously, this is an aerial shot of Zebra Way. Aah, I see it's a swimming pool in the block of flats. You can see the walking path leading past the fence of the building with the bright yellow things in its yard. I forgot to mention, this building is a child care centre (pre-school, kindergarten, whatever you call them). Interestingly, there seem to be some kind of constructions along each side of the drive through opposite the walking path. I don't know if this is from before or after the earlier street level shot, probably after. In which case the drive through looks as though it's still in place. I don't know why the patch there is blue. Note that behind the houses on the southern side of Zebra Way is a grassed area, through which is a walking track. On the other side, most of the houses appear to back onto houses in the next street along.

This is the western end of that grassed area behind the houses.

Aah, this image explains the blue patch at the end of the "through road". It's the Northside Primary School, an International School, private and pricey. There may have been a street there once at tbhe end of the through way, but the construction site was, I suspect, part of the school being built or expanded.

This is just a more distance shot to put Zebra Way into more of a geographic/urban perspective.