Tears of the Giraffe

c Pearson Education Limited 2008

Tears of the Giraffe - Teacher’s notes of 3

Teacher’s notes

LEVEL 4

PENGUIN READERS

Teacher Support Programme

About the author

Alexander McCall Smith was born in 1948 in Rhodesia
– now Zimbabwe – and educated both there and in
Scotland. After he graduated, he taught law at the
Universities of Edinburgh and Botswana. His love for
Africa and the Africans led him to write many stories
about them, both for adults and children. For many years,
McCall Smith found the time to alternate his lecturing
with his writing. In 2004, however, he decided to
interrupt his teaching career for a while to devote himself
fully to his literary production.

A multi-talented writer, McCall Smith has published over
sixty books that range from academic writing on law to
collections of short stories, mystery stories and children’s
books. Tears of the Giraffe is the second book in The No.1
Ladies’ Detective Agency series, a popular collection of nine
books. Besides his books about Mma Ramotswe, he has
written others series, such as 44 Scotland Street and The
Sunday Philosophy Club.

At present McCall Smith lives in Scotland with his wife
and two daughters, and he plays the bassoon in The Really
Terrible Orchestra that he himself co-founded.

Summary

Chapters 1–2: Mma Ramotswe runs The No.1 Ladies’
Detective Agency in Gaborone, Botswana, and is about to
marry a mechanic, Mr KLB Maketoni. She visits his house
and meets his unkind maid, and then goes to her agency,
where she is visited by Mrs Curtin, an American woman
whose son disappeared ten years before, while living in a
commune in a nearby farm with a South African woman,
a German man, and some local families. Mrs Curtin wants
to know what happened to him.

Chapters 3–4: Mr Matekoni feels his community is
changing; young people are not responsible; there are
more unwanted children; there are more orphans due to
the spread of the disease (HIV/AIDS). As he does every
month, he visits an orphan farm run by Mma Potokwane,
where he meets a girl in a wheelchair. Mma Ramotswe,
in the meantime, goes to Silokwolela to try to find out
something about Michael Curtin. She visits the remains of
the farm and finds a yellowing newspaper cutting pinned
to the wall of the ruined house where Michael used to live.

Chapters 5–6: Mma Ramotswe returns from the farm
feeling certain that Michael’s dead body is there. But
she needs to find out what has happened. Her secretary,
Mma Makutsi, finds the phone number of one of the
people in the photograph, Dr Ranta, and Mma Ramotswe
promotes her to assistant detective. In the meantime,
Mma Potokwane presses Mr Matekoni into adopting the
girl in the wheelchair and her brother. Their mother had
died while she was still breastfeeding her baby boy and, in
the Barsawa tradition, the baby had been buried with his
mother as there wasn’t enough food to feed him. The girl
had rescued her brother and escaped. They had then been
picked up by a nurse who later had to leave town. In spite
of hospital treatment, the girl’s bones became damaged by
TB and she can no longer walk.

Chapters 7–8: Mma Makutsi’s first client is Mr Badule,
who suspects that his wife is getting the money to pay
for their son’s private school from another man. When
she finds that the man’s suspicions are right and that,
furthermore, the other man – whose rich legal wife knows
nothing about his affair – is the father of Mr Badule’s
son, she wonders whether she should tell the truth to her
client or not, as she does not want people to suffer. In the
meantime, Mr Matekoni takes the children shopping and
meets Mma Ramotswe, who looks at the scene in surprise.

Chapters 9–10: Florence Peko, Mr Maketoni’s maid,
wants to prevent his marriage to Mma Ramotswe. She
asks an old boyfriend to get her a gun, which he does,
and asks Paul Monosopati to put it in Mma Ramotswe’s
house, so that the police find it there. But he betrays her
and the police find her with the gun and she is arrested.
In the meantime, Mr Maketoni tells Mma Ramotswe that
he has adopted the children Motholeli and Puso. She is
upset for a moment but soon realises what a good man
Mr Maketoni is and feels happy to have a family. They all
go home for their first lunch together.

Alexander McCall Smith

Tears of the Giraffe

c Pearson Education Limited 2008

Tears of the Giraffe - Teacher’s notes 2 of 3

Teacher’s notes

LEVEL 4

PENGUIN READERS

Teacher Support Programme

Chapters 11–12: Mma Ramotswe tells Mma Makutsi
that a detective can’t lie to a client and that all that is
needed for everybody to be happy is that Mr Badule, their
client, accepts the truth. Then she goes to the university
to speak to Dr Ranta. There she finds out that he has
shown examination questions to a student in order to
have sex with her and blackmails him into telling her the
truth about Michael. They agree to meet at his house the
following evening. Mr Matekoni is pleased to find out that
Motholeli is interested in mechanics.

Chapters 13–14: Dr Ranta tells Mma Ramotswe that
he was having an affair with Michael’s South African girl
friend, Carla, and, one evening, after having seen them
together, Michael had run away and broken his neck when
he fell into a ditch. Dr Ranta had hidden the body in
an anthill for fear of being accused of murder and Carla
had left the country and later had Michael’s baby. Mma
Ramotswe finds Carla and brings her to her office, where
she meets Mrs Curtin who is very happy to find she has a
grandson.

Background and themes

Alexander McCall Smith lived in Africa for several years
of his life, during which he developed an understanding
of its society and deep love for its culture and people,
which he reflects in his writing. Mma Ramotswe and
the characters that accompany her adventures, who are
mostly based on real people, are an attempt to show
‘the good sense of humour’ and ‘strong sense of human
values’ that characterise sub-Saharan African cultures, as
McCall Smith has said in an interview. Mma Ramotswe
is concerned with helping people to solve their problems
and, as she works on her cases, sheds light on African
people and culture.

The place of women: Mma Ramotswe and her secretary,
Mma Makutsi have chosen to work in a field where
men have always predominated. The place of women in
society is also brought to the surface in the behaviour of
Dr Ranta, a Casanova university teacher. More traditional
women are also present as Mma Ramotswe interacts with
them in search of information.

Changes in African society: JLB Maketoni’s observations
of his young assistants and Mma Ramotswe’s contestation
with the South African woman clearly show how African
society is undergoing changes that place it in line with the
rest of the western world.

Problems in African society: In its depiction of African
society and culture, the novel points at two problems in
particular: HIV/AIDS (which is called ‘the disease’ in the
book) and its devastating effects, and unemployment,
depicted as one of the main problems that young people
face.

Human values and the need to be good, help others and
value people’s lives and needs are other important themes
in the book, often mentioned in Mr Maketoni and Mma
Ramotswe’s conversations and thoughts.

Truth and lies are also touched on in the novel; Mma
Ramotswe considers that telling her clients the truth is a
must but uses lies to soften the effects the truth has.

Discussion activities

Chapters 1–2
After reading

1 Read carefully and pair work: Tell students: Read

carefully what the Introduction says about the characters
(page vii). What does Mma Ramotswe do in these
chapters that shows her understanding, respect and
interest for other people? Pairs share their answers.

2 Write: Tell students to imagine that Michael, when

he decided to stay in Africa, wrote a letter to a friend
back in America. What did he tell him/her about his
life on the farm? Groups share their letters and find
what all letters have in common and whether this
information is stated clearly or just suggested in the
book.

Chapters 3–4
Before reading

3 Guess: Tell students: Mma Ramotswe must start

looking for the American boy now. Where do you think
she will start? Where would you start?

After reading

4 Role play: Tell students: Imagine Mma Ramotswe and

Mr JLB Matekoni had dinner together and told each
other what they had done during the day and how they
felt in the places they visited. Students role play their
conversation.

5 Research: Tell students: On page 13 McCall Smith

mentions an illness that is killing many Africans. Go
back to the Introduction, page vi. What illness is this?
In groups, students search the Internet and find
information about HIV/AIDS and the situation in
Africa.

Chapters 5–6
Before reading

6 Guess: Ask students: Why do you think Mma

Ramotswe feels that she is about to understand what
has happened? Do you think the newspaper cutting has
given her an idea?

Tears of the Giraffe

c Pearson Education Limited 2008

Tears of the Giraffe - Teacher’s notes 3 of 3

Teacher’s notes

LEVEL 4

PENGUIN READERS

Teacher Support Programme

After reading

7 Write: Tell students they are journalists working for a

magazine. They write articles about amazing people.
Ask them to write an article about the girl in the
wheelchair.

8 Discuss: Mma Makutsi thinks that beautiful women

get secretarial jobs more easily than others. Ask
students if they think physical appearance affects job
opportunities in the world today. Ask them how the
accepted ideas as to what constitutes beauty affect
people who don’t come up to these standards. What
can be done to reduce discrimination?

9 Artwork: Tell students: JLB Maketoni says that ‘engines

feel pain’ (page 19); Mma Ramotswe says that ‘she found
a feeling’ (page 25). Students discuss what they mean
and in pairs make a drawing that shows what they
meant.

Chapters 7–8
Before reading

10 Guess: Tell students: In these chapters people face new

situations. How do you think the following people will
feel? Mr JLB Maketoni, suddenly turned into a father;
Mma Makutsi, now an assistant detective solving her
first case; the children, having moved to a new house.

After reading

11 Debate: Tell students: Mma Makutsi wonders whether

she should tell the truth to her client because she does not
want people to suffer. Divide the class into two groups.
Each defends one of these positions: A: It is better not
to say what we know about other people if this will
hurt them; B: We must always tell people what we
know about them and let them decide what to do.

12 Discuss: Tell students: In different ways, both Mr

Badule’s son and the girl in the wheelchair and her little
brother have a foster father, and both fathers are good
men. Do you think the children’s feelings for their fathers
are the same or different? Why?

13 Role play: In pairs, students take the roles of the girl

in the wheelchair and her brother. They role play
their private conversation after the shopping trip.

Chapters 9–10
Before reading

14 Guess: Tell students: In these chapters someone will try

to get someone else into trouble with the police. Who do
you think they are? Why?

After reading

15 Write: Tell students: The local newspaper publishes a

piece of news under the headline: ‘Maid arrested for
carrying gun in shopping bag’. The information in the
article is based on the maid’s statement to the police.
Write the article.

16 Pair work: Divide the class into two groups and

then into pairs. The pairs in one group take the roles
of Mma Ramotswe and Puso and role play their
conversation in the car. The other half takes the roles
of JLB Maketoni and Motholeli and role play their
conversation in the van. The pairs then change and
one half of the class role plays a conversation between
the two children and the other half between the two
adults. In this second role play they tell each other
about their conversations on the way home.

Chapters 11–12
Before reading

17 Guess: Tell students: In these chapters someone

will blackmail someone else. Who do you think will
blackmail whom? What makes you think so?

After reading

18 Discuss: Students discuss whether they agree with

Mma Ramotswe’s idea that Mr Badule must be told
the truth and that the whole problem goes away if he
accepts it. Then they compare this to their ideas as
expressed in activity 12.

19 Artwork: In groups. Students draw a sequence of four

faces showing how Mr Ranta’s expression changes
during his conversation with Mma Ramotswe. Then
groups exchange their pictures, try to put them in
order and explain why they think the order they
choose is the correct one.

20 Role play: In groups of three, students take the roles

of JLB Maketoni, Motholeli and Puso 20 years later.
They speak about what each felt on that first visit to
the garage.

Chapters 13–14
Before reading

21 Guess: Ask students: Do you think it is safe for Mma

Ramotswe to go to Mr Ranta’s house in the evening?
Why?

After reading

22 Research: Students search the Internet for

information about apartheid. They prepare brief
presentations for the class.

23 Pair work and role play: In pairs, students discuss

what is wrong with Mma Makutsi’s solution to Mr
Badule’s problem. Then they role play the
conversation Mma Ramotswe had with Mma
Makutsi.

24 Artwork: Students make the drawing of the giraffe

and its tears on the basket as they imagine it. They
share their drawings and discuss other possible reasons
why the giraffe gives its tears to women.

Vocabulary activities

For the Word List and vocabulary activities, go to
www.penguinreaders.com.