Ania was still feeling uncomfortable and she was not sorry to move on the next day. Not only was she dirty from head to toe, but she felt there was nothing more she wanted to know about this village, with its scattered dwellings and battered population. She found the formalities of farewell, over tea, crowded into the headman's kitchen, all rather tedious. Dr. Dylagowa was looking impatiently at her watch. The Professor noticed this.
Every village is different.
This is not a good time for sustained conversation, because the people have too much work to do. Ania couldn't help feeling that the Professor was only concerned with the headman's potential usefulness for some further research project, and was repelled by this realisation. Fieldworkers were basically only interested in extracting the data they needed for their projects. They, the visitors, could offer nothing in return. These peasants would be able to make no more use of a scholarly article or a book than the visitors would have been able to make of the ducks they had been offered after the potato harvest.