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‘ They Were Far Family ’ Circulating Children and the Limits of Kinship

‘My aunt wanted somebody to go and stay with her in the city, one of the girls, so that she could take her for schooling, pay for each and every thing...’ Lesedi trailed off, looking wistful and laughing at herself a little. ‘It’s a kind of funny story,’ she started over, and then hesitated, laughing uneasily again. Lesedi and I sat in the University of Botswana library, where I had found her studying for her exams. After updating me on her cousin Tumi’s condition – Tumi had finally been allowed to leave the hospital and return to their shared house – Lesedi had fallen to reminiscing about their childhood. Her usually bright, direct gaze had taken on a contemplative, inward-looking quality. Lesedi and Tumi had grown up in the same yard, with their mothers’ mother, Tumi’s mother, and three other children of their mothers’ siblings. Lesedi’s mother was still alive then, moving back and forth across the nearby borders with Zimbabwe and South Africa to buy and resell clothes. She wasn’t home often, although she visited from time to time. Her older sister stayed in a nearby city. ‘Tumi’s mother was not working,’ Lesedi explained. ‘Well, my mother was also not working at the time, not really’ – income from itinerant selling was hardly reliable – ‘so it wasn’t just about that,’ she said, piecing the situation together with some caution and uncertainty. ‘My aunt in the city was the first person at home to work, and help my grandmother,’ she explained, having settled on a way of framing the tale. ‘My uncles were all working, but they were married and looking after their wives. My aunt wanted one of us to go and stay with her, because