During the past forty years anthropologists have increasingly turned to a style of fieldwork based on repeated visits to the same people. This has engaged them with changes in the way they think and respond to people both as they themselves age and they see different age cohorts of men and women mature in radically changing worlds. The experience of studying the Gwembe Tonga over time is analyzed as it relates to problems of fieldwork and understanding the meaning of changes that progressively link people to international economic and political forces.