Picture this scenario: It is lunch time, a young man of Chinese origin moves towards a small group of young locals who have been working on the reservoir construction site. The Chinese, who happens to be their supervisor, cannot utter a single Setswana work, let alone a single word in English. The Chinese makes hand gestures towards the young men, moving one of his hands from the other towards his mouth, and this, I was told, is a sign that it is time for lunch.
But, before they can go, he makes another gesture, this time touching his wrist before flashing his fingers towards the sky. The young men now look at him puzzled, seemingly not understanding the last gesture. For the next 10 minutes they are wondering what he might be saying and this makes the supervisor annoyed as he keeps flashing. Finally one of the young men grasps that he means they should knock off after lunch and come for the night shift, hence the flashing of the hands was signaling lights switching on. "Rona rra re bona one a! (These are the problems we are facing)," they tell The Monitor. Actually this is what they have to endure almost on a daily basis. The language barrier is really creating a problem that will in turn hinder the smooth progress of construction work at the site. One can only imagine what happens when the supervisor gives instructions of the day using sign language when the locals struggle to understand only one instruction. To make matters worse, no one from these people has been trained in sign language, let alone the supervisor. Now with Chinese companies carrying out more construction work than any other company for the government countrywide (about P20 billion worth), this should be expected to be a widespread problem that is a cause for concern. Asked how they take instructions from their supervisor, the locals say most of the times they work by assumption as they try to interpret his sign language signals.
