The Two O’clock Blues

I usually divide my fieldwork day into two parts, morning and afternoon. In the morning, I work with one team, and then in the afternoon I check the work with another team. This set-up, when possible, gives me confidence in my results, and also allows me to get a feeling for variation, since the different teams will produce slightly different utterances.

The morning session typically runs from 8am to 11:30am. The afternoon session runs from 2pm to 5pm. In the middle of each session, we have a long break with tea and cookies to allow the consultants time to rest.

In rural Botswana, the afternoon session sometimes poses a problem. Many of my consultants are basically functioning alcoholics. They drink the traditional beer called bojalwa. It is made locally, by a process of fermenting sorghum meal. They start to drink during the day, without even eating any food first. The bojalwa itself is a source of calories and nutrition.

By the time 2:00pm arrives, the sun is blazing hot and sometimes the consultants are in a drunken stupor. And the problem for linguistic fieldwork is that they have a hard time answering questions, not being able to process even simple questions. 

My usual way of combatting this problem is to give a little speech to any potential consultant. I briefly go over the kind of work we are doing and why it is important. Then I stress that it is not possible for somebody who is drunk to do the relevant work. I try to say this in several different ways. I try to make them aware of the main rule of the workspace: no drinking of bojalwa before work. In spite of these efforts, there are many consultants who continue to arrive drunk to some level or another.

On July 8th, 2022, while working in a remote village in Botswana, my consultants arrived in such a state. The man and the woman are relatively young, in their forties, with quiet friendly personalities. That day was only their second day of work. Their first day of work went really well. They are highly competent speakers, and reflective consultants. They took their time for each question and answered it seriously. But on this particular day, they came about half an hour late, walking quickly, apparently coming from their drinking spot. As soon as we started to work, it became clear that both of them were very drunk. They smelled of traditional beer, their eyes were droopy, they lacked concentration, and they could barely grasp the questions I was asking (e.g., How do you say ‘I see him’ in your language?). They seemed to be in a different place all together.

I have encountered this kind of situation many times during my work in Botswana, which started in 1996. Every time I do work in a rural village, the same problem comes up to some degree or the other. Will the consultants arrive drunk or not? Of course, if I bring the consultants to Gaborone, the capital city, I can work with them in my house there and I can control their drinking. That is one reason why I sometimes prefer to work in Gaborone, instead of in the village.

But working in the village offers many intangible benefits that I won’t give up. People stop by to chat, and I learn various phrases of their language and of Setswana in this way. People spontaneously tell us about their lives and activities, such as gathering Devil’s Claw for profit. At night, we sit around the fire and talk about the day’s activities and discoveries. Rural life is peaceful, and in the night one can actually see the milky way galaxy spread across the sky.

Since 1996, I have only met a handful of consultants that did not drink. The result is always striking. The non-drinkers look much healthier. They are more in control of the little wealth they have. Their children are more successful. But the non-drinkers are a clear minority, amongst both men and women.

What is the reason for such a high level of alcoholism in the rural villages? I cannot give a well-informed answer. But it is probably partly related to the lack of employment possibilities. There are no well-paying jobs for the villagers in the village. It is difficult for children raised in the village to leave it, since they usually fail out of school at an early age. A significant fraction of the young girls become pregnant at an early age, cutting short any attempt at going to school. And then the children of those children face the same obstacles as their parents. But these issues are the topic of a separate blog post.

On this particular occasion, working with my drunken consultants, I lost my cool for the first time ever. I told the consultants that I could not work with them if they are drunk. I told them the session (which lasted only about half an hour) was now over, and they could leave. I added dramatically that I would only pay them for half of the session. I made sure they understood this point. I was disappointed with them, and I had raised my voice (without however shouting or insulting them).

The consultants were shocked. I imagine that nobody in their lives had ever been upset with their drunkenness. For them, it was unexpected. They had not understood the rules of the work place. They had never faced rules like this before. They left the compound with sad faces, distraught over what had happened.

Immediately after they left, I regretted my actions. I felt like I had overreacted. I had never reacted in that way before during fieldwork in Botswana or any other country. I don’t know why with this particular couple, who are calm and humble, I reacted in that way. The best course of action for me at that time would have been to call for a tea break. Then I could have cooled down, and they could have had some Five Roses tea, which would have cleared them up a bit mentally. After the break, we all could have reconvened and focused on some simple tasks, like getting more recordings of vocabulary items. Then, at the end of the session, I could have given them another talk about the importance of arriving sober. Eventually such little reminders would have an effect as the consultants learned the rules.

But I did none of these things, and I felt deeply guilty. 

In the relationship between linguist and consultant, the linguist has all the power. I have money, which while modest for American standards, is basically unimaginable for them. I pay them. I have a 4x4 vehicle, a solar panel, computers, a radio, a cellphone, gas for the stove, firewood, nice clean clothing with no rips and tears, plenty of food and my health. I speak English and am highly educated. The couple in question is dirt poor, and completely illiterate, never having been to school. 

But instead of managing a delicate situation in a thoughtful, I raised my voice and sent them away, docking their pay.

Soon after the couple left, the chief of the village arrived. His visit was not related to me sending away the couple, he merely wanted to say hello. I had been avoiding the chief. In my previous visit to the village in 2019, he had tried extorting from me a large sum of money. Because of that, I became wary of him, and wanted to reduce my interactions with him as much as possible. So I had not yet visited his compound to say hello. But once again this is the topic of another blog post.

The chief was completely drunk, to the point where he was shouting. He was a different kind of drunk than the consultants, wild and combustible. He was telling us that he was the chief of the village, mixing Setswana and the local language. He started to tell us about how he worked in the mines in Botswana, and about how old he was. He repeated several times that he was monna mogolo (old man) and that he was chief of the village. He has asthma so he took out his asthma spray and inhaled it several times. Then he took tobacco and snorted it into his nose, spreading tobacco all over our work table and books. He was speaking so loudly, spittle landed all over our arms as my team and I listened.

I said to myself, yes, I deserve this. My negative actions had brought this about in some way that I will never understand. In the eyes of God, I had sinned, and this was my punishment. I had thrown out that young couple because of drinking, and now the chief had descended upon me completely drunk, occupying my office. I knew this was my penance, and I embraced it. I said nothing as the chief went on and on. 

Eventually, after an hour or so, the chief left, and the office was quite again. But I thought all night about the incident with the couple and how I should have reacted differently. Several members of my team were supportive. Some were saying, “But now that you have thrown them out, in the future, they will come sober. You did the right thing. You needed to draw a line somewhere. Don’t feel bad about it. It will work out.”

But I still felt bad. I did not want to introduce a tension between me and my consultants. I preferred to talk calmly and to work out problems, even tricky ones like drinking and alcoholism.

The next morning the couple came back. They wanted to talk. They looked remorseful and sad. I immediately apologized for raising my voice and sending them away. As a feeble excuse, I said I had been feeling tired. I told them that I would not cut their pay for that day, and that I appreciated their work. On their first day they had done a very good job with the language work. I said that I wanted to continue working with them. Then I went over the rules about drinking again. If they come in the afternoon to work, then they cannot be drunk. They cannot drink bojalwa before coming to work. That is the only rule.

After I finished speaking, they said thank you. They left happy, and my spirit was relieved of its burden. I had worked out a sticky problem with my consultants. I felt that this was sure to be positive for my future work in the village.