Lee Fraser
How To Be a Field Linguist
Study for years. Research transport, insurance, medical,
visas, weather, for months. Receive going-away gifts
like stuffed toy versions of your national icon,
waterproof notebooks, pens that can write in space.
Judge other expats on the plane: pierced men in shorts,
women whose hair and thighs aren’t tucked away.
Clearly learned less local etiquette for their holiday
week than you did for your two-year assignment.
Encounter city stint dissonance: you prepped for
fire-lighting, stream bathing, malaria prophylaxis,
phonemes, syllable boundaries, minimal pairs, not
fraudsters, uncovered skin boils, mortifying potholes.
Travel to your village: six-seater plane, eight-seater
15-seated van, back of truck, now we’re talking.
Be heartily received. Discover boils walking past
in the village too. Find you love super-sweet milky tea.
Learn how dental deficits, chicken noise and
dictaphone flies skew data. Lament hard pencils on
limp paper, soft pencils on high-use paper beneath
sunscreen arms. Mouldy line-faded clothes. Lice. Ants.
Wrestle antipassives, allophones, aspect, adjectives,
absolutives, all so clear in textbooks and whiteboards
four flights from here. Regret regifting the toy. Wish
the space pen was a thermometer. Find you dislike this tea
until it dawns that your neighbours have saved your skin,
assignment, life, a dozen times; stammer like the preschooler
that you are, Thank you; you are so good, and clever,
and slow with me. Have another cup of tea together.