Twenty Chickens for a Saddle

Twenty Chickens for a Saddle is a 2008 memoir by British writer Robyn Scott about her early years growing up in Botswana.

Robyn, the eldest of the three children in her family, is seven years old at the time when her parents decide, seemingly on a whim, to uproot their entire family from their cozy home in New Zealand to relocate to Botswana. Robyn has two siblings, her brother, Damien, who is five at the time of the move, and sister, Lulu, who is just three years old. Her mother refers to the move to Africa as her “big experiment.” Both of Robyn’s parents are ex-pats, and both sets of her grandparents have lived there as well.

The first scene in the book takes place just after her family’s arrival in Botswana. It is dusk, and Robyn is watching her Grandpa Ivor place droplets of wine on his face and around his mouth in order to attract giant moths. The children watch in fascination and amusement as a moth lands directly on his cheek, followed by another on the opposite side.



The book goes on to deliver vivid descriptions and anecdotes of the Scotts’ fifteen years living in Botswana. They spend the first six years in Selebi, a former mining town. Grandpa Ivor and Granny Betty are the only residents before the arrival of their children and grandchildren. Robyn’s family decides to take up residence directly across the yard, using an old cowshed that still stinks of the animals.

After living in Selebi, the most colorful time in Robyn’s life, the Scott family moves to a 2000-acre farm. The farm is the product of her father’s fantasy. A doctor, he loves the idea of living in a remote part of Africa. He spends his time flying to private clinics in even more remote villages all over the continent. Robyn spends her teenage years attending boarding school in Zimbabwe.

Robyn feels a bit out of sorts within her family. She is acutely aware that she is not as quirky as the rest of them. When she is younger, she and her siblings are homeschooled by their mother, whose lessons are, for the most part, improvised. Robyn’s mother, a vegetarian and self-proclaimed hippie, is determined to see the good in every situation and person. This relentless positivity sometimes translates into a naivety, which Robyn does not extensively explore within the book, but it is clear that her parents are not conventional by any means.



Robyn recalls how, when her brother was nine years old, her parents allowed him to play with blasting caps from an old mine dump. They explode in his face, and he narrowly avoids losing both his eyes. She also remembers being a teenager and her father leaving her alone with an angle grinder. Her parents were free-spirited and full of life, caring not to impose rules and restrictions upon their own offspring, but to inspire joy and wonder.

Although Robyn certainly seems concerned at times with the lack of responsibility demonstrated by her parents in caring for their children; ultimately, she understands that to them, life is an adventure, and they are unwilling to take that away from their children. It seems as though their own enthusiasm is contagious, as Robyn depicts her siblings’ own unbounded curiosity, something clearly nurtured in them by their parents. They also display an incredible knowledge on a vast array of topics. During their homeschooling, their mother is often persuaded to allow them to stray from her vague lesson plans in order to pursue their own creativity.

Although their education was at times haphazard and disorganized, lacking the structure of a more formal system, the Scott children have the benefit of a wealth of life experience, which can be more valuable than a classroom education. They draw on their own lived experiences and travels, as well as the stories passed down to them from their parents and grandparents. Grandpa Ivor tells them tales of his career as a commercial pilot, and their father regales them with stories from the clinics he visits. Robyn recalls that, from a very young age, her parents spoke to her and her siblings as though they were adults.



The book also succeeds in painting a vivid portrait of Botswana in all its beauty. Although the people are kind, the land itself can be harsh and unforgiving. It is not an easy way of life, but a peaceful one, full of the riches of the earth. Robyn comments on the interesting wildlife with which she and her siblings are so fascinated, but at the same time, which has the power to kill them. She also alludes to racist attitudes that pervade the country in the 1980s-1990s, and the AIDS epidemic, which is made worse by traditional cultures and beliefs that prevent people from seeking treatment and attempting to control the outbreak.