CHAPTER SIX: Literacy in Bweyale 6.1 Introduction
6.4 Livelihood and community literacy practices
6.4.2 Specific literacy practices in different livelihood activities
6.4.2.1 Literacy in bars, restaurants, and lodges
Government’s tax obligations. This shows that if the activities are similar across different livelihood activities, then the literacy practices related to those activities will also be similar. That is, the specific activities shape the literacy practices related to them.
• transactions between waiters and customers;
• debtors (regular customers who have not paid for their orders);
• guests who have booked the rooms;
• expenditure/costs incurred during the day (for example money used to buy ingredients for cooking food);
• supplies received during the day
With the exception of suppliers’ records that are designed by the suppliers themselves, and the pre-printed receipt books bought from stationary shops, all the other records are designed by the owners or managers of those commercial establishments based on their understanding of their business operations, and how it is monitored and controlled. In other words, the activity that goes on in the organisation determines how the records used within it are designed. I noticed this in one of my field observation notes:
I enter a restaurant, which also provides bar and lodging services to travellers, to have breakfast. Kabatoro, the owner of this business establishment, is sitting on one of the reception tables busy drawing lines in a counter notebook and on some large sheets of plain Manila paper. As a regular customer, I decide to go and greet her and engage her in some informal conversation as usual. She knows I am doing some studies about reading and writing. Therefore, I ask her, “What are you working on so seriously this morning?” She laughs shyly and tells me, “We prepare them here (the record books/cards) in our own way, (repeats) our way.” I am looking at what she is drawing and noting that she is drawing columns in a counter notebook and labelling each column with the names of different brands of drinks in her bar and restaurant. She explains to me that the books will be used to enter the number of drinks or plates of food sold during the day.
(Field notes: Friday 18th March 2005).
When I asked her how the workers learn how to use the recording format she was designing, she informed me that she always holds meetings during which she explains in the local language how her workers should use the different record books she has
designed in English. They also hold meetings during which they review their records. She added, “I am telling you, I try to do these things (gesturing to her records) but dealing with people who do this… (She presses her thumb downward, which is a commonly used sign for representing people who are not able to read and write or have never been to school)… they just cannot understand anything you tell them” (18th March 2005 conversation with Kabatoro). She was referring to two of her female workers who were not able to read and write.
On a different note, a lot can be read from the gesture. The gesture shows the negative attitude many literate people have towards non-literate people. They are presented as
people who cannot comprehend explanations/instructions. This reveals peoples’
perception of literacy as something that improves peoples’ comprehension. This closely relates to the perception of literacy as something that leads to positive cognitive development in individuals (Goody & Watt, 1968). Underlying this perception is the conflation of the effect of literacy on cognition. This perception was disproved by Scribner and Cole (1981) who found that it was schooling that was responsible for developing people’s ability to comprehend and approach cognitive tasks in school related ways of thinking.
On another day, I talked with Peter, the manager of Kabatoro’s restaurant, bar and lodge.
I asked him how they use the records that are designed by their employer, and how many types of records they keep in their day-to-day operations. He confirmed that when the recording systems are developed, they hold meetings during which the workers are taught how to enter information about their sales, income, and expenditure as soon as they are transacted. He added that there are many reasons why they keep records. Some of the most important reasons are to help them monitor the progress of the business, to know how much they have sold, how much they have spent, and what is left as closing stock at the end of the day. To obtain this information, they record most of their transactions.
Peter explained that:
Food and drinks are the most difficult items to deal with in a bar and restaurant business because there are usually many workers and customers involved in the process. Food is difficult because if you are not careful, you can make losses without even knowing it my friend. For example, some costs such as the amount of ingredients used to prepare a particular food may not be easy to determine because not everything is used. Therefore, by keeping detailed records of all the expenditure that went into food preparation we are able to find out if we are losing or gaining from the sale of food.
(Interview conducted with Peter in English on Tuesday 22nd March 2005).
On the same day, I interviewed Lamaro, a counter waiter/receptionist in another bar and restaurant, who explained to me that drinks are difficult to deal with because of the many workers, customers, and bottles involved:
If you are not careful, you can be cheated by either the workers or the customers. The workers may pocket some money or the customer may leave without paying for some drinks especially when they are getting drunk. In that case, we keep the records of the drinks according to the different brands served by each waiter and their group of customers. This is ticked off after receiving payments. If there is a shortage, the waiter will be asked to explain or she will be made to pay for that shortage
(Interview conducted with Lamaro on 22nd March 2005).
An old record book I collected from a bar managed by Awor provides an insight into the literacy practices involved in selling drinks (beer, liquor, and soft drinks) (see Figure 24 for an example of a self-made bar record book). The page contains sales records of four
days the 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th of April 2006. On this page, the names of the customer, if known to the seller, or their identification markers given by the seller if they don’t know the customer by name; for example, “Out,” meaning the customer sitting outside the bar, are written on each row of this table of sales records. The heading of each column is labelled with the names of the different brands of beer. For example, Ug/W stands for Uganda Waragi. The last two columns are labelled Cash and balance. That is where Awor records her debtors.
Figure 24: One page of a bar record book.
Every time a customer makes an order, the numbers of beer bottles ordered are entered into the record book under their name or an identification marker assigned to them by Awor, for example, 2 under the column of Bell means the person has ordered two bottles of Bell beer. The next order is added to the old one with a plus sign like this ‘2+1’. This goes on until the customer pays for his or her orders. When payment is made, the number of beers paid for is ticked off. For example, if the customer pays for only two bottles of beer, the number 2 will be ticked off and this goes on until the end of the transaction. The transaction record for each customer is kept in one row depending on the type of drinks
he or she is ordering. A careful study of the record book shows that the ‘Cash’ columns were not being used, while the ‘Balance’ columns are used to record customers’ debts.
The reason for this could be that the seller is more concerned with orders that have not been paid for.
The practice of handling customers’ payments differs from one bar/restaurant to the other.
Some bars and restaurants issue receipts that also serve as invoices to inform customers of the money they must pay. This practice is common in bars and restaurants with organised management. Bars and restaurants serving largely more regular and known customers (patrons) tend to inform their patrons of what they are expected to pay orally, unless the customer specifically asks for an invoice. Customers who ask for receipts/invoices especially in bars are those who are suspicious of the waiters and would like to confirm, by studying the receipt carefully, if what they are being asked to pay for is what they actually ordered. If they have doubts, they will call the waiter to come and explain the difference. This behaviour shows that literacy is often involved when there is little trust between the people involved in a transaction. With higher levels of trust, the use of reading and writing is limited. A similar practice of using written records to prevent fraud was noted in ancient Greece (Thomas, 2001).
Most of the receipt books I saw, even for the better-managed bars/restaurants, were not written with a carbon copy. This suggests that receipts are only used as invoices for informing customers of their bills. The customers, on the other hand, leave the receipts on the table or throw away the receipt after confirming and paying their bills. For the sellers and customers, the receipt loses value as soon as the transaction is completed. This suggests that literacy is used to reinforce memory in what should have been an oral transaction. The bar/restaurant sellers do not use the receipts to monitor their sales.
Instead, they use other records. The customers too, do not need the receipts to account for their use of money. There is no big difference between the bars/restaurants in relation to using receipts. When I asked Lamaro why they do not keep a carbon copy of the receipts they give out, she gave me a look of surprise and instead asked me, “What for?” I said,
“To determine how much has been sold and earned during the day,”(conversation with Lamaro 22 March 2005) upon which she showed me another record book, with pages similar to the one shown in Figure 24 above, but, instead of the names of customers she had the names of the waiters. When I asked her to give me one of her old record books, she advised me to talk to Opige the manager. Opige informed me that they do not keep old or used up record books once they are filled and all the debts in them paid up or transferred to a new book. Here again the written records are temporary. Opige said,
“Once the day’s business is complete and closing stock and income for the day assessed, the record of that day ceases to be important, and we will only continue to use the record book if it still has some unused pages”. (Conversation with Opige in Luo on 9th July 2005).
Even before all the pages of the record book are used up, some pages are torn off for other purposes like writing down telephone numbers or making other calculations. The records are therefore used to keep track of complicated transactions for as long as such
transactions will last. Once the transaction is complete, the record loses its value. The role of literacy in that case is simply to aid memory in the context of a complex business transaction.
To dispense with these complicated transactions, some bar owners ask for payment up front by displaying one written notice to that effect and positioning it in a visible place in their shops like on a counter (see Figure 25 below).
Figure 25: Notice to customers in a bar.
In this bar, all transactions are in cash. Counting the money and identifying the beer brand47 may be the literacy involved in transaction of selling drinks. There are no receipts or short-term record keeping in use. In cash transactions, there is no extended time between orders and payment to be bridged by a written record. However, regular patrons who are known to the seller and owner of the business as people of integrity are exempted from such conditions of payment. This suggests that mutual trust, personal knowledge, and easy contact, reduce the need for using records to keep track of transactions. It also suggests that a closely-knit community with a high sense of interpersonal trust could exhibit limited use of reading and writing as the community depends on their mutual trust to settle deals between them.
47 Drinks are branded differently using different colors and symbols. These can also be used to identify a brand without having to read the name of the beer. I did not establish which method was used by waiters in bars.
While records are generally used to control and monitor transactions, the profitability and sales of the day are determined by using other procedures, as Peter explains:
Before the start of the day, we confirm the number of bottles, and other stock in the morning. We do this by counting all the bottles of drinks according to the different brands and record them. During the day, every brand sold is recorded separately: Pepsi, Coca- Cola, Nile or Bell Beers and so on. In the evening, we again count the number of bottles not sold and subtract that from the opening stock to determine the amount of stock sold during that day. We then use that information to determine how much money we should be having from the day’s sales after subtracting the day’s expenditure from total sales.
That will give us the earning of the day, which we then confirm by counting the money in the till. If there is some difference between our calculation and the actual money in the till, we go back to the record books to find out where the shortage could be coming from and sorting it out with the workers. This process involves many written calculations at the close of each business day.
(Interview with Peter conducted in English on 22nd March 2005).
A close study of the record books shows that such calculations are done on the back of the record book or any available free page. The driving force behind this is control and accountability, and once that has been done, the record loses value. The use of reading and writing is to complement memory due to the very complex nature of trade or business transactions.
In addition to the records used for controlling the sales of drinks and food, many other records such as the guest register listing the guests booked into the lodges are also kept.
Like those used for selling food and drinks, the visitors’ register is also designed with columns and rows. The visitors sign in their names and enter their personal details in a row against their names under columns headed: occupation, number of days they will be spending in the lodge, room number, the place they are coming from, and their destination after checking out of the lodge. All these are written in English. Those who are not able to read and write or are not interested in writing are assisted by the receptionist. This visitor’s register is normally kept at the reception desk. This book, according to Peter, is useful for both security purposes and knowing how many guests are booked into the lodges. The owner or manager of the lodge can use the register to conduct a spot check to ensure that all the rooms occupied have been reported accurately for purposes of
accountability and minimising fraud by workers who do not report all the guests booked in the lodge in order to pocket some money. Once again, trust and the need to monitor and control staff are the primary motivations for keeping records, hence the use of literacy.
In conclusion, literacy in bars, restaurants and lodges plays a role in capturing and holding information relating to the transactions between the staff, customers, and
management. The flow of transactions between these three is a very complex process that is difficult to retain mentally. For that reason, literacy is integrated into selling and buying
activities that occur in bars, restaurants and lodges. Once the transactions are complete, the written information generated during this process becomes irrelevant. Therefore, the functional value of literacy is high, while its archival or long-term value seems to be low.
Most of the records generated only retain their usefulness for the duration of the transaction.