12
Is she a paragon of virtue, some sort of saint? Certainly not. Mma Ramotswe is very human and has her weaknesses. This humanity, I think, is why people respond warmly to her. They see that she, like the rest of us, has those temptations that she finds very difficult to resist.
One of these is cake. She very much enjoys the fruit cake served by the matron of the Orphan Farm, Mma Silvia Potokwani. And as a result of this sort of enthusiasm, she is what she calls traditionally built. This means that she is pretty fat, but she believes that a better way of describing it is traditionally built.
I am often thanked by people for inventing the term traditionally built. The people who give me thanks for this are often traditionally built themselves.