The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party Read Online Free PDF

possible that there were men who liked shopping, and who understood exactly what it was all about, but Mma Ramotswe had yet to meet such a man. Maybe they existed elsewhere—in France, perhaps—but they did not seem to be much in evidence in Botswana.
    Of course, she knew that you had to be careful about this sort of thing. Like all women, she had suffered the put-downs of men, and there were still plenty of men who were prepared to say to women,
You cannot do this, you cannot do that, because you are justa woman.
She remembered many years ago, as a girl in the national school at Mochudi, hearing a teacher—a man—say to the class: “These are good jobs for boys, but not for girls; girls can do something else.” She had smarted at the injustice. Why could women not do those jobs? You did not have to be strong, with bulging muscles, to be a pilot or an engineer, or a president, for that matter. Such men, she discovered, such men who put women down, were really rather weak themselves, building themselves up by belittling women. A truly strong man would never want that.
    A truly strong man … Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was one such, and so, too, had been her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, that great man, that good man, who had never suggested that there were any limits to what she could do with her life. He had been old-fashioned, it was true, but he had always said that women should stand on their own two feet and do what they wanted. And in many respects he had clearly been in advance of his time when he had remarked, as he often did, that the day when women took over important jobs from men would be the day that things got better. But not even Obed Ramotswe, her precious daddy, understood shopping as a woman understands it. He would not have wanted to linger, as Mma Ramotswe now did, before the window of a clothing shop and admire the tempting display within.
    She gazed at the window. The proprietors of this shop had understood the situation very well: they sold clothing for both men and women, but in their window the women’s clothes were tastefully displayed, adorning coquettishly posed mannequins or draped temptingly on small supports, whereas the men’s clothing, distinctly less colourful, was simply placed on a low wooden table with the price tags showing. She saw that the women’s clothing had no prices; that was as it should be, because if the price were to be displayed then that would spoil the fun of potential customers outside.They might be put off by realising that they could not afford this dress or that dress, whereas with no prices attached, they could dream of affording them all.
    She noticed, too, that the mannequins modelling the dresses—those posturing moulded figures—were all waif-like and thin, as if the slightest wind might come and blow them away like so many leaves. Why were there not any traditionally built mannequins? Why were there not comfortable ladies in the window, ladies with whom those on the other side of the glass—not thin and hungry ladies, but ladies whose breakfast had clearly been generous enough to see them through the day—could identify? That was another thing that women had to be wary of, thought Mma Ramotswe; that was another way of putting women down—telling them that they should stop eating.
    Her eye wandered to a small display of women’s shoes in one corner of the window. One pair, in particular, caught her attention: cream-coloured, with high heels and two small buttons to fasten the straps. These shoes, she thought, would very much appeal to Mma Makutsi, and would be suitable for her wedding. There was talk of a date now, and she must be thinking about her bridal outfit. These shoes would go well with a white dress, but especially appealing to Mma Makutsi would be the buttons, each of which had a single mock diamond, winking even now in reflected light like little beacons. She would tell her about them; perhaps she would even suggest that they visit the shop