CHAPTER SIX: Literacy in Bweyale 6.1 Introduction
6.4 Livelihood and community literacy practices
6.4.1 Common literacy practices in livelihood activities
6.4.1.1 Advertising
By advertising or adverts, their other meanings notwithstanding, I am referring to signs, signboards, signposts, notices and any written information put up in the public domain for the purpose of drawing public attention to goods and services. I include them all, whether they are handwritten or printed showing directions, identifying, naming, guiding, printed on wood, cloth, brick walls or any material on which a piece of written information can be displayed, and no matter where they are displayed on newspapers, shop walls, road junctions or on trees. These adverts, whether they are read by their intended targets or not, are evidence of literacy use in the community, and it is for that reason that I present, analyse, and discuss them in this section.
Commercial activities are a key area where literacy is evidently used in rural community life. One of the most visible evidences of literacy use in commercial livelihood activities is where the traders or sellers of products and services put up public notices to market their products or services. This involves printing and displaying information on signboards that are posted by those selling their product or services in strategic public places like shop fronts or road junctions. Although trade is as old as humanity, the use of reading and writing in marketing a product or produce is only as old as when writing was introduced to Uganda. Traders also use literacy to market their products. The traders use signboards on which they generally write information such as the names of their business, what they sell, the prices, and the location or address of the shop or business activities.
From my observation, photographs, interviews and analysis of the data collected during my fieldwork, I identified three important groups of literacy-related activities associated with putting up signboards. The first involves the entrepreneur deciding what should be written or painted on the signboard, the language to be used, and where is should be posted. The second involves the painter, who paints or prints the signboard. The third is the customer to whom the signboard is addressed. This may involve some other forms of writing for example the entrepreneur drafting what they think can attract customers and help to identify their business. The draft is then given to a sign writer to print on a signboard in ways that should be attractive to the customers. In both the drafting and
painting, the customer is the focus. These activities constitute the practice of writing signboards. Although the adverts are written to attract, how customer respond to them is a different matter and does not disqualify or contradict the practice of using signboards as a literacy activity in which people engage as part of their livelihood activities.
Different livelihood practices use advertising differently, for example, people with permanent locations for their livelihood activities like bars, restaurant, and shops print their adverts on wooden signboards that are fixed on trees, or painted/mounted on the walls of the business premises or in busy locations in the trading centre. Those who do not have permanent locations like the Bodaboda riders, itinerant traders, and market sellers depend on one general signboard that identifies a place as designated for a particular commercial activity, or paint them on their bicycles or motorcycle as the Bodaboda riders do. There are also some adverts that are not permanent. For example, adverts written and posted on trees and those written on chalkboards are temporary because they communicate time-bounded messages.
Whichever style is used, literacy has a clear role in advertising commercial livelihood activities, and this is to inform the public about the availability of a particular service or product in a particular location. In this case, literacy has a very important and direct role in people’s economic activities. It helps them to market their products and earn more money from increased sales. The value of literacy being exploited in signboard
advertising is its ability to communicate to whoever is able to read and understand it. This use is functional, just in the sense of UNESCO functional literacy defined as literacy for accomplishing a particular function or purpose like advertising (see Holme, 2004; Levine, 1986; Thomas, 2001). Figure 16 below shows photos of three different examples of public commercial writing in Bweyale trading centre.
Figure 16: Three adverts for a photo studio, a phone dealer, and milk seller.
Those who provide services that vary from time to time like video entertainment and food in restaurants use chalkboards to advertise their services. They use chalkboards because it
is easy to change the advert to match with what is on offer at a particular time. Figure 17 below shows a chalkboard advertising a video show.
Figure 17: Chalkboard announcing the next film show and schoolchildren reading it.
In the above display, some writing like the name of the enterprise, “Big Sound Enterprise” written on top of the chalkboard does not change. A section of the board is designed to display the video cover of the films showing during the day. Therefore, two different types of writing are displayed on the board: those that are printed on the cover of the video tapes, and those that are handwritten with chalk on the chalkboard. All the written information displayed on the chalkboard is in English but the talks around the text were in Acholi (see Field notes below). This creates a mixed language literacy event that is more complex because of the involvement of two different languages involved in making sense of the information being communicated on the chalkboard.
This chalkboard is one of the adverts that I noticed people reading regularly. Most of the people who came to read the chalkboard were young males.
The different people paying attention to the board spent different amounts of times. Some took a short time while other would take a longer time. Schoolchildren took the longest time and they would even make comments excitedly about what they were reading, (Field observation note: Tuesday, 8th February 2005).
To explain these different behaviours I needed to interview the people reading the chalkboard. However, I thought this would be disruptive so decided to learn as much as possible from their actions. By paying attention to their actions, I was able to notice that schoolchildren usually came in groups of over three people to read what is on the chalkboard and discuss it amongst themselves. They were also interested in the pictures that were on the displayed cover of the film covers and moved closer to the display to take a good look (See Figure 17 above). This could explain why they were spending more time than the older people who came alone to read what is on the board. Older people, including Bodaboda riders, took a shorter time than the schoolchildren, to look at the
display and moved on after taking only a glance. I did not stop them to ask them what they could have read when they looked at the information on the chalkboard.
Between the two types of adverts, the permanent signboards and the chalkboards bearing time-bound information, it was only the information that was written on the chalkboards that was noticeably read by people, while very little attention was given to the more permanent signboards. This could be because the chalkboard advertising always has new information that needs to be consulted if a person is to know what is on offer and at a particular time. Chalkboards advertising football shows attracted the most attention, and generated a lot of discussion including arguments and betting which team would win the game.
The ever-changing notices for entertainment and menus in restaurants make writing and reading their notices very important for both the clients and the service providers. On the other hand, signboards containing unchanging information tend to attract less attention from the local people. The signboards are used to advertise specialised shops (Figure 17 above) whose services or products are the same all the time. For that reason, they do not need to keep changing the information they have displayed on the chalkboards.
Literacy is used to identify commercial spaces like a market, for example Bweyale Main Market (see Figure 18 below). In this market, anybody is allowed to sell his or her produce or products on payment of a small fee to the local authorities.
Figure 18: A signboard identifying Bweyale main market.
Writing commercial adverts on signboards is a specialized skill all over the world.
Therefore, the people who need to put up signboards often hire the service of sign writers regardless of their literacy status. The role of the person ordering the signboard is to supply the words or information to be written and this is very much like the use of scribes in ancient Greece reported by Thomas (2001). Two concepts: literacy mediation and social networks in the social practices theory of literacy explain such literacy practices. In this case, the sign writer is a literacy mediator whose skill is available in a community
network of social interdependency. In this network both literate and non-literate people use the services of the sign writer e.g. a literate person going to a lawyer in the
community to explain a legal document (See Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Barton &
Padmore, 1991; Baynham, 1995). Figure 19 below shows a sign writer at work.
Figure 19: A signwriter working on a signboard of a secondary school.
Although the target audiences for these adverts are not English speaking, but largely a Luo and Kiswahili speaking community, and English is not the dominant language of communication, most commercial signboards in Bweyale trading centre are written in English.
Although advertising is seen by traders and people generally, as a practice associated with the use of English, the signboards announcing the services of traditional healers and medicine were written in Kiswahili or Luo, the dominant languages in the community. On the advertising boards shown below, one of the signboards (Figure 20) is written in Kiswahili and the other (Figure 21) is written in Luo. The translations of the signboards are provided below each:
Figure 20: A Kiswahili signboard advertising the services of a traditional healer.
CLINIC
DR HAJI YAHAYA.
CURES THE FOLLOWING SICKNESSES
ASTHMA, EPILEPSY, WHOOPING COUGH, GONORRHOEA, TB,
BUSINESS, COURT CASE, OEDEMA OF THE LEGS, THIEVES, MENINGITIS, PROTECTION OF THE HOMESTEAD
POST OFFICE BOX 447 TANGA TANZANIA TEL: 078332032 Many interesting observations can be made about this signboard. Firstly, although the list on the signboards refers to sicknesses, some items are not sicknesses. These are business, court case, thieves, and protection of homestead. These are social problems. This means the literal meaning and accuracy of the information on the board is not the important point. Instead, it is the entire signboard: the language used, the enormousness of the board and its colour, which are the important features that give meaning to the message
publicised on it.
Secondly, although the signboard is written in Kiswahili, there are English medical words like CLINIC, DR, and TB. These words play the role of appealing to the local and modern ideas of where people seek medical services and give the service of the healer some status in a modern society. This is in spite of the fact that they deal with more problems than medical conditions.
As discussed later in this chapter, the use of local languages is based on the local perception and history of traditional medicine and divining. An indigenous African language is seen as the best medium for conveying information about practices that are rooted in African history and tradition (see Herbert & Robinson, 2001 for related arguments). While the writers are appealing to African tradition using local languages to sell their products and services, they at the same time tap into modern ideas of medical practice to drive their point home.
In Figure 20, a Tanzanian address is provided, with a Ugandan telephone number and an arrow directing people to a local location in the trading centre. According to mainstream logic45, this is a contradictory and confusing message. It is illogical because the author provides a postal address based in another country when he or she is only 100m away from the signboard and an arrow on the same signboard is showing the direction to his/her place. However, logic is not the basis of this communication. The Tanzanian address is not for the purpose of enabling clients to contact the healer in Tanzania but to inform them that this particular healer and diviner comes from Tanzania, the home of very powerful diviners and traditional medicine from the bottom of the Indian ocean.
Therefore, the message is playing to the local myth and discourse about quality,
45 By mainstream logic/rationality, I mean the way of thinking and reasoning of people who have been to school or are of middle-class background. These are the types of thinking acquired from school.
traditional medicine and effective divine powers46. This local discourse has it that diviners and traditional medicine from Tanzania are much more powerful than local
erful diviner and healers from far off Tanzania, just like the one in Figure 20 above.
discourse.
Following in Figure 21 is a similar signboard written in Luo, which is based on the local discourse of a pow
Figure 21: A the services of a traditional healer.
GU
, M WATER AND Y SICKNESSES. SO COME AND LET HIM HELP hese two signboards are written in Kiswahili and Luo while all the
ge and not the language of th Europeans, who know nothing about
in
message to appear illogical to readers who may not be part of the discourse practices of
Luo signboard, advertising DR MULUNGU LUN FROM TANZANIA
A TRADITIONAL DIVINER WITH TRADITIONAL MEDICINE HE IS ABLE TO SEE YOUR PROBLEM FRO
MIRROR WITHOUT YOU SAYING IT.
HE CURES MAN YOU.
I asked my guide, Alex, why t others are in English.
These signboards are dealing with traditional things, and the right language for that is
our traditional langua e
traditional medicine
(Conversation with Bakayeka in English on 19th February 2005).
By implication, Bakayeka was saying that the other activities that are being advertised English are of European or foreign origin. On the two signboards, Figure 20 and 21, literacy is contextualised by the practice for which they are being used, thus making the
46 I obtained this information through listening and participation in informal conversation about traditional healers with the community members. This community is awash with stories of people who have become rich after getting medicine from the bottom of the sea with a lot of evil powers. Since I seemed to have emerged from nowhere and started getting very friendly with the local people, buying drinks for anybody and driving a big car, I became the target of a rumour of a person who got his wealth from under the sea with mischief in his mind. One of my guides had politely advised me to stop using my car anywhere near his village. When I asked him why, he just repeated his position in affirmative terms that I should not use my car if I want to continue working with him. It was one of my relatives who eventually told me the whole story. I got the message and parked the vehicle at a police station, choosing to use a bicycle instead.
using traditional medicine from traditional diviners, or belong to mainstream/middle class ways of thinking.
Not all traditional healers use the local languages. Some use English to appeal to a different consciousness of modern traditional medicinal practices. This discourse elicits the use of English but against a background and medium that is seen as traditional. In this way again the entire set-up that includes texts is used to communicate a message that appeals to a particular group of people who can make sense of it (see Figure 22 below).
Figure 22: Traditional healer advertising in English.
The above advert says:
DR. HAJI SALONGO
EAST AFRICAN NATIONAL TRADITIONAL MEDICINEL REASER Unlike in Figures 20 and 21 above, in this advert English is used. A critical examination of the advert reveals the use of non-standard concepts, spelling and English. For example, East Africa is not a Nation but a region. Therefore, the word National is used in a non- standard way. Again, according to mainstream thinking the information on this advert is misleading, because the activity that goes on in the hut pictured is not research but healing with local medicine and divination. The traditional healer is simply trying to package his information with both modern and traditional ideas of medical practices. The round thatched hut and papyrus reed fencing and shade relates to tradition, and the use of English and the title “DR” Haji Salongo and “medicinal researcher” relate to modern ideas of medical and health practices. The writing says nothing about his services. As in Figures 20 and 21 above, the message communicated is not based on what is actually written, but the entire set-up is used to communicate the intended information of what goes on inside the hut. This message was very clear even to me and I understood it as,
“Here lives a powerful traditional healer and diviner who can cure sickness and solve social problems using traditional medicine and divination.” I was able to make sense of
the information because I am familiar with them since I have been seeing very many such messages in Bweyale and other places like Gulu and Kampala.
As shown above, the way literacy is used in advertising among the traditional healers is based on similar discourses but different presentations. Notably they do not all base their information on the literal meaning and function of the words but play on the local people’s imagination of traditional healers. Literacy is only part of the configuration used to communicate very specific information to an understanding public. This, in my view, confirms the social practices theory of literacy since the words that are used on the adverts have different meanings and they are based on a different logic altogether. The messages are very meaningful when read in the contexts within which they have been posted. It is contrary to the fundamental arguments advanced by Havelock (cited in Grabill, 2001) that literacy is an objective representation of reality because words have meaning, which are independent of contexts. Outside of its context, the traditional healers’ adverts are meaningless
On the other hand, although the signboards are put up to guide or inform the public about the availability of goods and services, from my careful observations of some of them, I noticed that, with the exceptions of the ones written on chalkboards, the signboards do not attract much attention from the local people. Instead, people use other significant features in the community, like a big tree or a bigger building, to locate some shops. For example, when I asked how I could locate the home of the traditional healer whose signboard was so well displayed in the trading centre, I was shown a huge tree that was about 100m away from the main road as the position where his home was located. On another
occasion, and although not related to livelihoods, I asked for directions to the office of the Local Council 1 (LC 1), my guide directed me to, “Go opposite the petrol station,”
without referring to the signpost that I later discovered was placed right in front of the LC office. It could even be seen from where I was asking for directions to this office. Instead, a significant physical landmark in terms of visibility, ‘The petrol station,’ was used to identify a rather obscure and difficult to notice place, the office of the LC Chairperson.
It is also possible that the location of most business places and other commercial establishments identified by the signboards was already internalised by the local people, thus rendering the signboards less important for locating the place or directing people to the place, or giving information about goods and services. During an interview, I asked Jane if she uses the many signboards in the trading centre to find directions to the different shops and other commercial establishments when she goes to the trading centre.