So you want to do fieldwork...
Yeah, me too. Sometimes. And there’s a million books out
there on how to go about it from people far more experienced than I (total
field time logged as of this writing: 7 months). While I certainly haven’t read
all of them – I think I’ve read a total of three, so far, which by my
calculation is roughly 0.000004% of the total, though I like to think they’re
the good ones – one thing they tend to have in common is that they tell you how
to do field linguistics: how to work with speakers, how to look at your data,
what recording equipment and software to use, how to write grants and be
ethical and preserve your data and use best practices. What they tend not to
cover, or to cover less, is you, and the fact that you’re going to live in a
strange place for an extended period of time and ask people dumb questions
about everyday things. (Bowern 2015 has a good couple of pages on it, actually.)
The reality in most cases is that you’re moving to a foreign country, where
things are different and hard and hopefully wonderful as well, and while you’re
there you happen to be trying to figure out what on earth is going on with this
language some people speak. (Or possibly figuring out what on earth is going on
with some bird or rock formation or something else entirely; hopefully this
post will be relevant to you to. The concept’s the same, anyway.) So, with the
understanding that my experience is limited and probably totally
location-specific, here’s what I have to add on the topic.
I. Physical health
1) Pack antibiotics.
That’s my most important piece of advice, so if you’re
pressed for time you can stop reading now. Seriously. I had four long trips to
Indonesia in grad school, and every time the travel clinic at Yale sent me over
with a few courses of antibiotics, and every time I’ve finished them. And I
don’t take those things unless I really have to. And don’t say ‘oh, but I’ll
avoid the street food and peel all my fruit and be just fine’, because a) I’ve
eaten plenty of delicious, delicious street food and been fine, b) I’ve eaten
nothing but tourist-friendly sterile whatever and gotten horribly ill, and c)
where exactly do you plan to get your thrice-boiled, fresh-off-the-burner meals
when you’re out living in a village and pooping in the river, anyway? (No, I
haven’t had to do that – yet – but I certainly know people/linguists who have.)
Also everything you touch will be covered with germs, and you can only break
out the hand sanitizer so many times a day.
My situation out here is that my landlady cooks and leaves
the food out on the table with a plastic cover to keep the flies off, and when
you’re hungry you come eat it. Usually things get finished within 24 hours –
there’s between 6 and 10 people living in the house most of the time – and if
not they’re usually tossed by the end of the second day, but 2-day-old room-temp
smoked fish is certainly a dinner possibility. (Yes, there’s a refrigerator,
but it barely gets used and it’s kind of gross in there.) And there’s dogs in
the kitchen (puppies!), and ants in the sugar, and cicaks (little house
lizards) everywhere. Sometimes if she hasn’t had time to cook yet and there’s
no leftovers, Ibu will go and buy nasi kuning from a stall out on the road and
bring it back wrapped in paper for breakfast. (Nasi kuning, yellow coconut rice
with sambal, carrots, lightly pickled cucumbers, fried onion slivers, and
usually some fried noodles and either a piece of meat or a deep-fried
hardboiled egg on top, is one of the most delicious breakfasts I know.)
Drinking water comes out of a bottle. So I eat what’s there, and usually I’m
fine, and once in a while I get sick, and when I do I’m glad to have the drugs.
Also I suggest bringing two kinds, at least your first time out, since
different things work better in different places, and for different people. My
first summer when I discovered that Cipro gives me hives and a seriously runny
nose I was pretty thrilled to have a bottle of azithromycin as backup.
2) When I wrote the first draft of this post a few years ago
(!!!) I put down that you should be a walking pharmacy. I actually don’t think
that’s true anymore. There’s a few things I definitely bring with me, but it
turns out you can get all sorts of stuff at the corner Apotek in Indonesia,
usually for a fraction of the price you’d pay in the US. That includes things
that here you’d normally need a prescription for. Malaria meds, for instance: I
still bring my prophylactic Malarone with me, but for about $3 I bought a
treatment course of meds at the supermarket to bring back to the US with me,
after hearing another linguist talk about the time he came down with it in the
States after coming home from a field trip, and while he knew exactly what he
had, the doctors here wouldn’t treat him until they had a confirmed diagnosis,
which took days and days. So now I’ve got some Indonesian Primoquine in my
drawer in Philadelphia, just in case. (I’ll replace it next time I go over,
since expired stuff is no good.)
That said, I do bring some things with me. Serious
antibiotic ointment: check. Everybody says that little cuts and scrapes can get
badly infected in the tropics. I haven’t had that happened, but back in Java a
few summers ago I slipped on a muddy hill while hiking (full post here) and
sliced my right ankle and elbow open on a sharp rock. I wiped it of with some
water and an alcohol wipe (always carry a few of those in your bag), then
finished the hike out through ankle-deep mud. I had rather a cleaning job when
we got to the end. Then the next day one of the Indonesian students felt bad
for me limping along and gave me a ride home from school. I swung my leg down
on the right to get off, and on the way down pressed my shin against the
tailpipe, which after the drive was searing hot. Apparently it’s so obvious and
important that you never dismount a motorbike on the right side that nobody
thought to tell us. So here I was with a deep cut and a big open burn wound on
the same leg. My host family gave me a tube of antibiotic cream containing
placenta extract to keep it from scarring, which in all honesty grossed me the
hell out. Not that I didn’t use it anyway. (Lesson #3: you can get some
weird-ass drugs abroad.) This was a situation in which my prescription-strength
antibiotic ointment came in handy.
Secondarily: pain killer of your choice, a few sizes of band-aids,
antihistamines (off-brand zyrtec for during the day, benadryl for an allergic
reaction or if I can’t sleep), cortisone cream for bug bites, antifungal cream
(you never know what you’re gonna step in), tweezers, a thermometer (it’s good
to know when you really do have a fever), lots of Dramamine, and alcohol wipes
or wet-naps. Liquid hand sanitizer lives in my bag, since there’s no sink in
the university bathrooms. (Like I said about bringing antibiotics…) And of course malaria pills, of course. I talked
to one linguist out here who doesn’t bother, and she’s gotten malaria twice,
though pretty mildly both times. I go for daily malarone, since it doesn’t
cause nervous breakdowns, won’t kill you if you go diving, and has relatively
mild side effects – mostly mild achiness, malaise, and a general feeling of
blah, though it can be hard to blame that necessarily on the drugs. The
downside is the pricetag - $750 for my 4-month supply on one trip – but that’s
what grants are for.
If you’re somewhere more remote, or where the selection isn’t
as good, then my walking pharmacy advice may still hold. At various times I’ve
been happy to have access to cough medicine, antacids, and larger bandages.
Know your site, and what can be gotten there, and prep accordingly.
And while we’re on the subject of drugs, get every
vaccination your grant/insurance/university will pay for. I got vaccinated for
hepatitis A, B, and C, tetanus, Japanese encephalitis, swine flu, regular flu,
typhoid, and rabies, so now it’s no biggie if I go to Bali and get bit by a
monkey, or more likely by one of the less-friendly semi-stray dogs around town.
And I actually know someone who got typhoid. So get your shots.
3) Mosquitoes are responsible for half the deaths in human
history. Kill them.
Seriously. I read that in the New Yorker, so it must be
true. In this part of the world they carry malaria, dengue, chikungunye,
encephalitis, and a handful of other viruses and parasites that’ll
kill/maim/blind you, plus mosquito bites are awful. I’m also one of the lucky
ones who a) seems to be totally irresistible to the little beasts and b) reacts
emphatically to a bite. I’d never packed a mosquito net before semester-long
trip, and I realize now that was dumb. I get roughly half the bites as before,
and nothing’s buzzing in my ear as I’m trying to fall asleep. Clearly I’m not
the first, since there’s a hook in the ceiling of my room right above the bed.
Also: chemicals, specifically neurotoxins. The local mosquito repellents here are
cigarette smoke (thanks but no), and kayu putih (eucalyptus) oil, which makes
you smell like a giant cough drop and doesn’t work so well anyway. (It’s also
billed as an aid for colds, flatulence, and nausea, make of that what you
will.) Before I left I sprayed the net
and some of my clothes with permetherin to keep the bugs away. Day to day I’m
alternating between DEET, picaridin, and IR3535, mostly just in the evenings
when the bugs are the worst. I can’t really say which works best, but the picaridin
smells the worst when you spray it, and the IR3535 has spf 30. Not that they’re
foolproof – I’ve gone outside in Laos doused in DEET and been immediately
swarmed by mosquitoes. But it helps. Sunscreen is also recommended.
4) BYO deodorant and tampons
It can be difficult to impossible to find these, depending
on local mores and the number of expats around. If nothing else, fieldwork (in
tropical climes) will teach you great forbearance when it comes to BO.
5) Umbrellas are for sunny days.
And long boat trips. Think of them as portable shade, or the
only thing standing between you and both severe sunburn and massive heatstroke
when your motorboat breaks down out on the water at midday. Hands free light, in the form of a
headlamp, is also wonderfully useful. Bring extra batteries.
6) Don’t bring…
Shampoo, lotion, soap, conditioner, q-tips, toothpaste,
mouthwash. At least in Manokwari, I can get all of that cheaper here, and
mostly the same brands I use at home. I’m close enough to the weight limit for
my luggage as is without dragging big bottles of shampoo around. (Also v.
useful: a portable luggage scale.) Though no promises for wherever you’re
going, or if you use something more esoteric than Herbal Essences or Dove.
II. Sanity
Staying happy/sane is up there with not catching malaria. If
you’re miserable, your work will be crap, and also you’ll be miserable. Try to
avoid that.
7) Pack a loaded Kindle and ipod.
This would be #2 on the importance scale. My first trip I
packed a stack of paperbacks, which weighed down my luggage and ran out in the
middle of my stay. Here I was with two weeks left in Manokwari and two more
around Southeast Asia, and no English language bookstores within a thousand
miles, milking the last hundred pages of my spy novel for all they’re worth.
Luckily a British linguist, to whom I will be forever grateful, had moved in
next door and was willing to trade my John le Carre for Game of Thrones, which
she’d just finished. So I went home, finished my book in under an hour, and exchanged
it for that doorstop, which held me over until the Surabaya airport, where I
bought the sequel (which held me over until the next airport and book three).
The following year I asked for a Kindle for Christmas, packed it full of
cheap/free/out of print/on sale/daily deal books and a subscription to the New
Yorker, and can not only keep up with my magazine but download more books
whenever I get low. No, the 3G whispernet whatever doesn’t work, but when I go
online I can download them to my laptop and transfer them over via usb. And my
whole library weighs about a pound instead of five or ten for a semester’s
worth of reading material. The battery life’s pretty exceptional, though if
internet’s going to be a problem you’ll want to make sure you put on all the
books you’ll need in advance, and sorry about the magazines. And you’ll need
far more books than usual; thanks to a lack of Facebook and an inability to do
anything at all intellectually taxing after an afternoon of elicitation I tear
through books at unprecedented speed, getting (re)acquainted with Agatha Christie
and Sherlock Holmes and the short stories of George RR Martin. A
battery-powered reading light is a must, both to read after dark and as an
emergency flashlight if you have to get up in the middle of the night and have
a terror of running into a spider before you make it to the light switch. Bring
a few cheap, light paperbacks as well that you can take places where expensive
electronics are a bad idea, like the beach, and leave behind when you’re done.
The ipod I’ve found less necessary with sufficient reading
material, but it kept me sane when I was stuck in the house in muddy, drizzly
Bintuni with no electricity and nothing to do but wait. And I like to listen to
podcasts on my way in to the university in the mornings.
7) The little things make all the difference.
You’re going to a strange place. You’ll have culture shock.
You’ll miss people and things and have strange overpowering cravings for
macaroni and cheese. (One month into my second fieldtrip and I already knew
that the moment I got on the shuttle home from the airport I’d be calling up
Modern Apizza and ordering a small pepperoni for takeout.) This bullet point
breaks down into two main points. One: bring things from home that will help
keep you happy. For me, that meant pictures of family and friends to tape to my
wardrobe, three bars of Lindt 85% dark chocolate, a tube of vanilla-chai lip
balm, three colors of nail polish, and as many Twinings Earl Grey and English
Breakfast teabags as I could fit in a ziplock baggie. Any of the above can be a
nice pick-me-up over the course of a day, though I rationed the chocolate and
tea. No, I don’t share. Last year in Cambodia I spent a dollar on a
bamboo folding fan, and it’s probably the best dollar I’ve ever spent – it’s
amazing what a little breeze can do in the heat. Long linen skirts are your
friend; jeans are not. And if you’re somewhere with crocodile-free beaches,
bring a snorkel.
Two: treat yourself while you’re in the field. On a small
scale, I go to the supermarket roughly weekly to pick up a few things even
though I get three meals a day served at home. I don’t get a lot of fresh fruit
in the field – the bananas tend to be fried and the papayas soaked in sugar
syrup as part of es buah – so I’ll get a bag of apples or oranges, and maybe a
starfruit or a dragonfruit if they’ve got them. And I’m lucky that the
supermarket has a pretty good selection, so I can get a pack of cheese bread,
some crackers, coconut cookies, and a packet of Javanese ginger-honey drink. When
my good tea runs out I can pay an exorbitant amount ($5.50) for a box of
Twinings darjeeling.
Occasionally, I’m told, they might even carry Nutella. I keep myself in toilet
paper, since that’s one local custom I haven’t gotten used to. And now and
again if I pass a stand I’ll spend a dollar and get a bag of fried bananas and
sambal for the office, since those really are delicious.
Also: people may think you’re nuts for walking anywhere. Do
it anyway, and buy an avocado or a wicker plate from the lady at the side of
the road. Splurge on a motorcycle taxi downtown ($0.80) and hit up the Papuan
souvenir shop or the market. Go to the beach. Everyone else gets a fall break,
so I booked myself a week of diving out in Raja Ampat in early November, by
which point lord knows I needed it. One night a monthe or two into my long trip
I went out for drinks (chocolate avocado shake for her, soursop juice for me)
with F, a German researcher in town to renew her visa, and it felt absolutely
luxurious. We got mani-pedis and creambaths. These things are worth it.
8) Make friends with your host family. They’ll take you to
the beach.
Rather than holing up in your room working, come out and
watch tv and chat. Play with the baby. In addition to the beach, they’ll drive
you to the tailor, give you cassowary claws and bootleg movies, take you to try
coto makassar, and teach you how to use the gas rings when you want to make
spaghetti. Share the spaghetti. My landlady and I bonded over cooking – I hang
around the kitchen asking questions and end up with her recipes, and she gets
an appreciative audience. Always pay your rent on time.
9) If at all possible, live in a house with a baby.
Preferably one aged between 6 months and a year. You’re new
and different and they will be captivated by you, and it’s hard not to smile
when there’s a chubby little face beaming at you every time you walk in the
room. And since they’re not yours, you never need to worry about changing
diapers.
10) Go somewhere where you like the food.
There are probably thousands of undocumented languages (birds/geological
formations/storytelling traditions/etc) in the world; surely you can find one
with the features you’re interested in in a place you’ll like to be. I came to
Manokwari because as a kid at sleepaway camp I read a book about sailing
through the Pacific, and I like islands, and just before I started grad school
I came across an Indonesian/Malay cookbook and liked it, and Yale happens to
teach Indonesian. The linguist I asked for advice on picking a fieldsite said
Manokwari’s a great place with lots of languages, pretty beaches, and sure you
can get a visa. I liked the name Wandamen and it had dual and trial pronouns
and infixation and not too much written about it, and Ibu Marice, my main
language consultant, had a son who was finishing his senior thesis on the
language when I arrived. So: a long string of coincidences, and I liked the
food. If you hate the cold don’t go to Alaska,
if you hate yams and papeda don’t go to the Papuan highlands, and if you don’t
like rice stay the hell out of Asia. No need
to make things any harder on yourself than they’re going to be anyway. If you
can find a landlady who’s an excellent cook (like mine), that helps too.
11) For god’s sake, don’t work all the time.
It’s been said before, and I’ll say it again. Yes, you’ve
got a ton of data and it’s accumulating faster than you could ever process it
even with your student assistant helping. I don’t care, take a break, have a
life, go for a run (if you’re in a climate where it won’t give you heatstroke),
everything from the paragraph above about going to the beach. Actually that’s
not just advice for fieldwork, that’s advice for grad school. Also life.
12) You will live without internet.
For the first week it’s tough, and after that it’s
refreshing. There’s a lot of pressure off when you’ve got a vacation message up
saying you’ve got limited internet access and you might not reply to emails for
a while. Usually I go online when I get to the university in the mornings, when
the connection seems to be fastest, and that’s it for the day. For weekends and
anything pressing later on I’ve got a usb modem with a cell phone sim card in
it, which may or may not be able to connect at any given moment, and might be
going at 3 or 300 kbits/second (usually 30-70, with dips down towards zero),
and in any case I only get 300MB of data for 2 weeks for $5 (or 1.3 gigs per
month for $14 if I ever find somewhere that’s not out of that package). Have
you ever looked to see how much data you use in a month? Suffice it to say I’m
not uploading photos on that card. But it means I can keep in touch outside of
university business hours, even if it does sometimes crap out on me in the
middle of an email. And if that happens, well, more time to go read a book.
13) Sometimes it will suck.
Either because of the weather, or because you’re sick, or
because sometimes it just does. Take a break, eat some chocolate, call home,
rant on your blog, take the day off, spend the afternoon listening to your
favorite band from high school on your ipod, plan a vacation, go to the spa, go
to the beach. It will get better, and even if it doesn’t, you will go home.
III. Work
I don’t have much to add here, since like I said above it’s
been covered a million times and anyway this post is about linguists, not
linguistics. But these I think bear mentioning.
14) Come prepared to your sessions, but not too prepared.
If you have nothing, it’s a waste of everybody’s time. If
you stick unswervingly to the script, you’ll miss the best stuff. 90% of the
interesting bits I’ve come up with on this trip appeared by chance when I was
asking about something else, or because Ibu went off topic, or when we were
just chatting. Invite serendipity, and pay attention so you’ll know when it
shows up.
15) Laugh.
You are ridiculous. You probably look ridiculous, so have
ridiculous habits, and you most definitely ask ridiculous questions, either on
purpose (recent gems from my work include asking for translations of ‘I bit the
dog’, ‘I open my wings’, and ‘I want to turn into a frog’), because you’re
trying something out (‘Can you put this prefix here?’), or because you thought
something was a valid construction and it wasn’t. If you take yourself too
seriously you’re a goner. Embrace it, ask about turning into a frog, have a
good laugh, and move on to sentences about the dog biting you instead of vice
versa. Plus if your consultant’s enjoying herself you’ll a) get more data out
of her and b) maybe even get invited out to her home village, which will be be
a data bonanza. Take opportunities. Say yes to things. It’s an adventure - enjoy
yourself.
