These are notes from the talk, The Language of Tkubbo: Some Old Personal Reminiscences, given to the Southern Lexicographic Society by Professor Hilary Wattle. Most of the talk was of a technical nature but her assistant, Dr. Benny Walst, has prepared this excerpt.
We first arrived in Tkubbo because I needed a hat. I had left my sun helmet at our last camp. It was just getting into the hot, dry part of the year. The village of Tkubbo was not on our map, but there was a hand-lettered sign pointing off the main road. We bumped along a dirt cattle track, splashed across a stream, rose up a long, gentle, dusty slope and soon came to the remains of what must have once been a settlement of some thousand people.
Now it looked rather ramshackle.
We also needed petrol for our Land Rover.
We had several extra canisters but it is best practice in this part of the world to keep them all topped up. Across from the main square there was a gas station. A fairly long queue of cars had formed behind a single, ancient, gas pump.
An old man was labouriously taking care of each customer. We joined the lineup. I left Benny with the Land Rover and went off on foot to find a hat.
The first building I came to was the Anglican Mission Tkubbo Parish School.
It was a low mud brick building, faded turquoise paint peeling from the window frames. The school yard was bare earth. Several children, each armed with a stick, were chasing a ball through a dust cloud.
Two girls standing near the road in the school yard were having some sort of squabble. It looked like the large child had the small child’s ball.
“Is.”
“Is too.”
“Is!”
“Is too!”
A teacher came by and stood over them. “My, my,” she said sarcastically and snatched the ball from the large child. One of them then started wailing something about her underwear. I hurried along.
Most of the buildings looked boarded up, but there was a general merchandise store that was open. I went in looking for a hat. There were a clerk and a woman talking. The woman was trying on a chemise over her clothes.
“Is underwear?” she asked.
“Is,” the clerk replied.
“Is too?” said the customer holding up a smaller chemise.
“Is,” said clerk.
“Is too tight,” said the customer.
I was idly looking up at some birds flying through holes in the ceiling when I realised the clerk and customer were speaking English. This was surprising, as they both looked like local folk, and we were squarely in the Setswana part of Africa. Children are often taught English, but once they are out of school they usually revert to the local language.
Perhaps the Anglican mission school I saw earlier was more effective at teaching English than is usual with church schools.
