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we must love those with whom we live and work, and love them for all their failings, manifest and manifold though they be.

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It was a good thing to be an African. There were terrible things that happened in Africa, things that brought shame and despair when one thought about...more

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Africa was full of people in need of help and there had to be a limit. You simply could not help everybody; but you could at least help those who came...more

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Africa had a way of coming back and simply covering everything up again.

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Then there was Mr Mandela. Everybody knew about Mr Mandela and how he had forgiven those who had imprisoned him. They had taken away years and years o...more

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Everything, all those great things, had happened so far away--or so it seemed to [Mma Ramotswe] at the time. The world was made to sound as if it belo...more

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They sang that song which distills all the suffering and the hope of Africa; that song which had inspired and comforted so many, “Nkosi Sikeleli Afrik...more

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It was hard to disappear completely in Botswana, where there were fewer than two million people and where people had a healthy curiosity as to who was...more

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She believed in getting as much use as possible from everything, and thought that as long as machinery, or anything else, could be cajoled into operat...more

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A traditional house smelled of wood smoke, the earth, and of thatch; all good smells, the smell of life itself.

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The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, beca...more

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The only thing that makes me sad is that I shall be leaving Africa when I die. I love Africa, which is my mother and my father. When I am dead, I shal...more

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There was a great deal of progress being made, right under their noses, particularly in Africa, and this progress was good. Life was much harder for t...more