Place of Reeds

Caitlin Davies was in her twenties and studying in America when she met and fell in love with the enigmatic Ron. When Ron returns to his home in Botswana, Caitlin secures a teaching job in his village and the two begin their life together. Eager to absorb all that Setswanan culture has to offer, Caitlin endures the privations of poverty and the rigidity of the matriarchal family structure; she makes her home in Africa - it is the place where she lives, the place where she will raise her family. But the Botswana of the nineties is changing. Aids and urbanization have taken their toll, violence is on the increase. When Caitlin is raped and stabbed, with her child in her arms, the family closes rank and she is ostracized by the very people she had grown to love; blamed for - and shamed by - a terrible act of violence visited upon her. This is a story about the clash of cultures, about the inflexibility of beliefs and traditions. It is a story about women; about Caitlin and her daughter Ruby, and about Eliah and Madintwa - Ron's formidable mother and grandmother. But most of all it is a story about one woman's courage, resiliance - and ultimately survival.