[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think it’s been used widely. People could request it. They did, actually, a whole series. Our was the Toys in Space I, and I think they did several others, but I think that’s in the NASA educational armamentarium that schools could request. I think they did a narrated version and had a study guide that went with it, just one of those fun things that NASA did for education and continues to do for education that connect kids to space.\n\n Our flight ended up being very complex in many different ways, and we had a lot of things going on, and so the toys was kind of a respite from the stressful stuff. It was just the playing-around stuff, and we had a lot of fun doing it.

[Assistant] You mentioned the complexity of the time period, and I don’t know if you recall this moment, but I was reading through an article that talked about how Dave [David C.] Hilmers, the CapCom [Capsule Communicator], congratulated you on your sewing ability. Apparently Sally [K.] Ride was there, and she jumped in and said, “Well, she didn’t get that sewing ability as a homemaker; she got those skills as a surgeon.”

[User] I think the quote, or at least what I heard, because I obviously wasn’t there, Dave said something about, “You’re a good seamstress,” and Sally said, “No, she’s a good surgeon,” something along those lines, which I appreciated very much, but I would have taken the kudos as a seamstress, too, because I’ve done that in my lifetime. But that was very nicely put by Dr. Ride.

[Assistant] I was just curious what you had thought of it at the time. I thought it was very interesting.

[User] I didn’t hear about it till I got back. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You were too busy making the flyswatter.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think the quote, or at least what I heard, because I obviously wasn’t there, Dave said something about, “You’re a good seamstress,” and Sally said, “No, she’s a good surgeon,” something along those lines, which I appreciated very much, but I would have taken the kudos as a seamstress, too, because I’ve done that in my lifetime. But that was very nicely put by Dr. Ride.

[Assistant] I was just curious what you had thought of it at the time. I thought it was very interesting.

[User] I didn’t hear about it till I got back. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You were too busy making the flyswatter.

[User] But I told her I appreciated it.

[Assistant] I thought I’d ask you about the Astronaut Science Support Group that you formed with Jeff Hoffman and Bonnie [J.] Dunbar and Jerry [L.] Ross, some of those folks after Challenger [STS-51L].


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, and I’m sure I have guilt feelings about the times when I didn’t have enough time to spend with my kids and I didn’t get to see some of things they were doing, or I wish I’d been there for some of those things, but it turned out just fine and they don’t remember those things anyway.

[Assistant] I do want to ask you about the role you played in the NASA Aerospace Medical Advisory Committee. Can you tell us about that group?

[User] Oh, you have dug deep.

[Assistant] Try to.

[User] I was assigned at one point to the Aerospace Advisory Committee. I wasn’t quite sure what my role was, but I felt like it was like being part of the Science Support Group. You bring a different perspective, and you understand what the issues are within NASA about flights.\n\n Advisory committees, I have learned, frequently are only told about things that someone wants them to know about, and while I felt that I was useful in many ways, I got a little frustrated by having sometimes a different perspective on what the burning issues were. I felt like an outside advisory committee could do a good job of discussing issues and providing some input as to what was the right thing to do scientifically, but frequently those were not the issues that were presented to them. That was a little frustrating to me, and eventually I got busy and I didn’t feel like I was making the right kinds of input or being very useful, and so I didn’t continue with it. It was an eye-opener for me, and it reminded me that later on when I was on different kinds of advisory committees, that probably whoever was briefing us sometimes had an agenda or sometimes only brought up the things that they wanted the advisory committee to talk about. I think there’re sometimes a limited role for advisory committees, or it’s sometimes the responsibility of an advisory committee to dig a little deeper.

[Assistant] Can you give an example or two?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] As I recall, we were looking at life sciences overall, so it included the animals. I don’t remember whether we did plant stuff or not. I was particularly focused on the human part, but I think they had other groups that were more focused on the other parts of life sciences.

[Assistant] So you had a chance to work with people over at Ames [Research Center, Moffett Field, California] and some of the other Centers that were represented?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Probably a good thing for your other flights.

[User] Yes, definitely. Definitely.

[Assistant] Let’s talk about that first Spacelab Life Sciences flight. The Roundup says you were selected in ’84, and you didn’t end up flying until ’91.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Probably a good thing for your other flights.

[User] Yes, definitely. Definitely.

[Assistant] Let’s talk about that first Spacelab Life Sciences flight. The Roundup says you were selected in ’84, and you didn’t end up flying until ’91.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] So tell us about working on that flight, essentially for seven years. I’m guessing in between you were working on other things as well.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Metabolic experiments.

[Assistant] I know that you had contact with her, obviously, but had you worked with her on experiments before, or was this the first time you had worked with her in this sense?

[User] I’m trying to remember. I think that was probably the first time that I had worked with her as an investigator. I mostly knew her as the director of the medical lab, and so our dealings were with that and more on a personal level. She was our den mother. But I think this was the first time that I had worked with her as one of the investigators.

[Assistant] What was she studying, do you recall?

[User] I think she was doing part of the metabolic experiments, and I’m trying to remember, probably had to do with fluid balance, but I’m not exactly sure. They were looking at a number of the components of the blood, the hormones that regulated fluid balance. Again, faces got puffy, legs got skinny, fluid was redistributed. They felt like probably people got rid of some of that fluid the first few days of flight, but they had not quantified it. They didn’t know what your salt balance was doing; they didn’t know what hormones were involved in that, kidney hormones, pituitary hormones. I think that was what she was interested in. Again, the people doing the metabolic experiments had to coordinate, because certain of the tracers for one experiment would not be good for another experiment, or you couldn’t do the metabolic experiments right after you had done the lung functions because the gases would change. So it was this big coordination thing, but I know she was involved with the metabolic on both of my SLS flights.

[Assistant] I had watched your post-flight video that you had all put together for this mission, and someone had referred to the Spacelab area as the slave quarters. I know you had mentioned that it was a pretty hectic flight. Was that something that you recall, that it was just so hectic, you kind of felt like you were stuck back in that lab?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. There were probably people that objected to our taking the rats in space, so we had to be sensitive to how a lot of other people thought.

[Assistant] You had mentioned, I think it was on STS-51B, they did have the problems with the animal enclosures.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were you at all concerned, or you had spent enough time with the folks at Ames and were convinced that the enclosures would work?

[User] Well, you know, the animal cages, like a lot of things that we do in space, there’s just no way to simulate all of that on the ground. You can take things up in the zero-G plane and get part of it, maybe, but, yes, we were concerned about the cages, and we knew that if they didn’t function well on this flight, that animals were not going to fly again. We knew that the problem had to be solved. But we had followed with great interest over this long period of time what they were doing to the cages. Early on there were people that said, “We’re not going to spend this amount of money. We’re not going to fly animals.” And we knew that a lot was resting on whether the cages did well, so we had a significant interest in the design. We looked at it, we looked at how it could go wrong and what we could do about it.\n\n We had some procedures if any of the animals got in trouble. That’s why we had the sock that we could pull the cage out into when we decided to take it over to the workbench. So we had some plans. All we could do was hope that all of the fixes that they had made were what was needed and that the animals would be safe and well fed and well watered, that there wasn’t going to be any waste floating around. I think we probably would have been very careful if anything had escaped from those cages, to make sure that it didn’t float up to the flight deck and bother the commander, as it had on STS-51B. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Didn’t sound very pleasant.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were you at all concerned, or you had spent enough time with the folks at Ames and were convinced that the enclosures would work?

[User] Well, you know, the animal cages, like a lot of things that we do in space, there’s just no way to simulate all of that on the ground. You can take things up in the zero-G plane and get part of it, maybe, but, yes, we were concerned about the cages, and we knew that if they didn’t function well on this flight, that animals were not going to fly again. We knew that the problem had to be solved. But we had followed with great interest over this long period of time what they were doing to the cages. Early on there were people that said, “We’re not going to spend this amount of money. We’re not going to fly animals.” And we knew that a lot was resting on whether the cages did well, so we had a significant interest in the design. We looked at it, we looked at how it could go wrong and what we could do about it.\n\n We had some procedures if any of the animals got in trouble. That’s why we had the sock that we could pull the cage out into when we decided to take it over to the workbench. So we had some plans. All we could do was hope that all of the fixes that they had made were what was needed and that the animals would be safe and well fed and well watered, that there wasn’t going to be any waste floating around. I think we probably would have been very careful if anything had escaped from those cages, to make sure that it didn’t float up to the flight deck and bother the commander, as it had on STS-51B. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Didn’t sound very pleasant.

[User] Marines don’t like animal poop. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That’s a good quote. We’ll quote you on that. [Laughter]\n\n Tell us about some of the training that you participated in. I’m assuming you went to Ames and to Marshall. Where else did you train?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I don’t remember specific things, but, yes, I talked to everybody that I could talk to about how did this work and how did that work and how did you manage this. But the Skylab flights had a lot more time. We had nine days. If you’re going to do three data takes during the flight on each of the experiments, on each of the people, it’s so tightly interwoven if you lose a data point on day one, you can’t exactly make it up on day three because the next data point’s on day four. So they wanted a smooth timeline, so it was a little bit different. But certainly talking to them about how they did certain things and how blood draws worked and whether they had any surprises about this, that, and the other. The experiments were very different and the equipment was very different, so it was helpful to chat with them. But I think ours was a couple orders of magnitude greater in complexity.

[Assistant] I had read in a newspaper article that sometimes it took two or three people to do blood draws on this flight.

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] Can you explain why that was the case?

[User] You can see the problem on our post-flight science video. We did one for a post-flight press conference, and then we put together a twenty-three-minute science.

[Assistant] I think I saw the first one, just the post-flight video.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] Can you explain why that was the case?

[User] You can see the problem on our post-flight science video. We did one for a post-flight press conference, and then we put together a twenty-three-minute science.

[Assistant] I think I saw the first one, just the post-flight video.

[User] There’s a video sequence of a blood draw going on, and what you’ve got is my arm and you’ve got Jim Bagian putting the tubes on the catheter and collecting the blood and doing all that kind of stuff. Then he’s handing off things to Millie, who’s over here putting the right labels on and putting them in the right order in the trays. Some of them had to be centrifuged. Some of them didn’t have to be centrifuged; they had to be refrigerated right away. Some were for this. Some were for that.\n\n It wasn’t like you just drew a tube of blood and put in the refrigerator. It was, you have to do a finger stick and get a hematocrit. You have to draw blood for this and spin it and separate the serum from the blood. You have to put this one in the refrigerator right away. It was like you collect six or seven things for each draw, and then you’ve got four people, so you’ve got lots of different moving parts. So, yes, it would take three people to do a blood draw: the subject and two operators, one person to really be the operator, and one person to keep track of what you’d drawn, what’s the next tube that you’re going to hand them, what’s the label that goes on this tube and what do I do with it. So, yes, nothing was easy in space.

[Assistant] When I read that, I thought, wow, that’s really complicated.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] You can see the problem on our post-flight science video. We did one for a post-flight press conference, and then we put together a twenty-three-minute science.

[Assistant] I think I saw the first one, just the post-flight video.

[User] There’s a video sequence of a blood draw going on, and what you’ve got is my arm and you’ve got Jim Bagian putting the tubes on the catheter and collecting the blood and doing all that kind of stuff. Then he’s handing off things to Millie, who’s over here putting the right labels on and putting them in the right order in the trays. Some of them had to be centrifuged. Some of them didn’t have to be centrifuged; they had to be refrigerated right away. Some were for this. Some were for that.\n\n It wasn’t like you just drew a tube of blood and put in the refrigerator. It was, you have to do a finger stick and get a hematocrit. You have to draw blood for this and spin it and separate the serum from the blood. You have to put this one in the refrigerator right away. It was like you collect six or seven things for each draw, and then you’ve got four people, so you’ve got lots of different moving parts. So, yes, it would take three people to do a blood draw: the subject and two operators, one person to really be the operator, and one person to keep track of what you’d drawn, what’s the next tube that you’re going to hand them, what’s the label that goes on this tube and what do I do with it. So, yes, nothing was easy in space.

[Assistant] When I read that, I thought, wow, that’s really complicated.

[User] And if you’re not careful, the tube goes floating off and you can’t find it.

[Assistant] Did that happen?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And if you’re not careful, the tube goes floating off and you can’t find it.

[Assistant] Did that happen?

[User] Frequently you’d say, “Okay, we’ve got to collect three purple-top and three red-top tubes and one of something else. Do a hematocrit. I have to do three hematocrit tubes.” So sometimes you would label them ahead of time, and then if you knew you were supposed to have three and you’ve only got two tubes, you’d think, “Where’s the other tube?’” So it was very interesting.\n\n Again, I learned from that flight. When I came back and the scientists said, “Oh, you need to do it this way,” and I could say, “No, you’ve got to have more than one person helping, and you just have to timeline that in. Sorry.” Or, “It really helps if you’ll label our tubes ahead of time and put them in certain places and know where they are. Practice doing it that way.”

[Assistant] This was the first flight to fly three women at one time.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Would you talk about that and the gender balance of your crew?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Frequently you’d say, “Okay, we’ve got to collect three purple-top and three red-top tubes and one of something else. Do a hematocrit. I have to do three hematocrit tubes.” So sometimes you would label them ahead of time, and then if you knew you were supposed to have three and you’ve only got two tubes, you’d think, “Where’s the other tube?’” So it was very interesting.\n\n Again, I learned from that flight. When I came back and the scientists said, “Oh, you need to do it this way,” and I could say, “No, you’ve got to have more than one person helping, and you just have to timeline that in. Sorry.” Or, “It really helps if you’ll label our tubes ahead of time and put them in certain places and know where they are. Practice doing it that way.”

[Assistant] This was the first flight to fly three women at one time.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Would you talk about that and the gender balance of your crew?

[User] Well, I can remember they asked Bryan O’Connor, “Are you afraid of having three women on the flight?”\n\n And he said, “No, I’m more worried about having three doctors on the flight.”\n\n It was nice to have the three of us. I can’t say that we developed a strong group. We weren’t the girls and didn’t do girls’ night out, but it was just kind of nice to not be all men, which is what I’d had on my first flight. I think we had a good relationship and laughed about things and laughed about men, but we were all very serious about doing what we needed to do and could support one another in that. If one person was going through a really rough time, you knew that you had a good support structure out there for you.

[Assistant] Bryan had also mentioned that you were one of the first crews to go through leadership and communications training.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Would you talk about that and the gender balance of your crew?

[User] Well, I can remember they asked Bryan O’Connor, “Are you afraid of having three women on the flight?”\n\n And he said, “No, I’m more worried about having three doctors on the flight.”\n\n It was nice to have the three of us. I can’t say that we developed a strong group. We weren’t the girls and didn’t do girls’ night out, but it was just kind of nice to not be all men, which is what I’d had on my first flight. I think we had a good relationship and laughed about things and laughed about men, but we were all very serious about doing what we needed to do and could support one another in that. If one person was going through a really rough time, you knew that you had a good support structure out there for you.

[Assistant] Bryan had also mentioned that you were one of the first crews to go through leadership and communications training.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you talk about that and what benefit that had on the flight?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Will you talk about that? And you had previously won it yourself in 1986.

[User] Had I?

[Assistant] According to the research we have.

[User] Yes. I think there was recognition that at least for the world of life sciences and aviation and space medicine, that this was an important flight, and it was nice to get the recognition that we had contributed to it.\n\n It’s strange when you do experiments in flight. It’s somebody else’s research, and you don’t get your name on the published papers. So you are subject two in that data. Here it all is, all of this work that you did and all of this suffering that you went through, and your name’s not on the paper. You are a subject number. It’s absolutely important that you are de-identified. In other words, they didn’t say, “This is Rhea’s data.” People needed to know that if they looked really strange physiologically, that it wasn’t going to impact anything or that people weren’t going to worry about being assigned to another flight or something.\n\n Some of the investigators were very nice. They put at the end, “Special thanks go to these people who were both subjects and operators. We really appreciate their help.” That was nice. But it was nice to get an award or two from eminent scientists and others that said, “We appreciated what you did, and what you did really was important to what we are interested in.” You got different kinds of awards for different things, but I think they were very much appreciated.

[Assistant] One of the things that I saw, looking through the research that we pulled, was that you had given some testimony after this flight. One of the committees that I thought was interesting was the Committee on Budget. You had testified in front of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. But that one just struck a chord with me. I thought that that was rather unusual for an astronaut. Is that the case?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I am fine.

[Assistant] Okay. Okay. We're going to start with the questions. And this like I said, this should be between us. And there's 13 questions that we use as a guideline. So some of them might be a little bit redundant, but we're ready to go, okay? So I would, if you could start with describing your present situation, your family, work, where you live, interests. We'll get to the Peace Corps stuff after that, okay? So what would you like to tell us about your family?

[User] I am, I live in Hutto, Texas, and I'm married to Dennis Slocum now for 30 years. We have one daughter who's 28, and I have just recently retired. I worked for 43 years as a registered nurse in various different capacities. And my interests, such as hobbies, would be my, my primary interest is piano. I also play the organ. I was an organist for a little over 20 years for a church, played the pipe organ. I'd love to get better at the violin. I read a lot. Cook. Would love to start traveling again. Was interested, I was on the Historic Preservation Commission for over four years in the town that I was in. And, um, that kind of sums it up.

[Assistant] Okay. Think back to the year before you joined the Peace Corps. That would be 1977. And what can you remember about your life then? You know, then they give other examples too about if you want to talk a little bit about your childhood, education. But, um, what were you doing the year before Peace Corps?

[User] The year before I was in the Peace Corps, I lived in Austin, Texas, and I was a nurse at that time working on a surgical floor. And I had been thinking about doing this ever since I was very young so.

[Assistant] Like how young?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I am, I live in Hutto, Texas, and I'm married to Dennis Slocum now for 30 years. We have one daughter who's 28, and I have just recently retired. I worked for 43 years as a registered nurse in various different capacities. And my interests, such as hobbies, would be my, my primary interest is piano. I also play the organ. I was an organist for a little over 20 years for a church, played the pipe organ. I'd love to get better at the violin. I read a lot. Cook. Would love to start traveling again. Was interested, I was on the Historic Preservation Commission for over four years in the town that I was in. And, um, that kind of sums it up.

[Assistant] Okay. Think back to the year before you joined the Peace Corps. That would be 1977. And what can you remember about your life then? You know, then they give other examples too about if you want to talk a little bit about your childhood, education. But, um, what were you doing the year before Peace Corps?

[User] The year before I was in the Peace Corps, I lived in Austin, Texas, and I was a nurse at that time working on a surgical floor. And I had been thinking about doing this ever since I was very young so.

[Assistant] Like how young?

[User] I remember when Kennedy was president and the Peace Corps was formed and seeing the advertisements for it on TV. I just said, I have to do that someday or something similar to it. So it was something I had longed to do for a long time, for many reasons. And so I felt that that was the right time to make a move. I had a cousin who was dying of cancer, so I quit my job and went to South Texas and helped take care of him for about three months. So it was a good time to do that because I had signed up for the Peace Corps and I had that break time before I was going to leave in June.

[Assistant] Hmm. Okay. What do you want to tell us anything about your education?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The year before I was in the Peace Corps, I lived in Austin, Texas, and I was a nurse at that time working on a surgical floor. And I had been thinking about doing this ever since I was very young so.

[Assistant] Like how young?

[User] I remember when Kennedy was president and the Peace Corps was formed and seeing the advertisements for it on TV. I just said, I have to do that someday or something similar to it. So it was something I had longed to do for a long time, for many reasons. And so I felt that that was the right time to make a move. I had a cousin who was dying of cancer, so I quit my job and went to South Texas and helped take care of him for about three months. So it was a good time to do that because I had signed up for the Peace Corps and I had that break time before I was going to leave in June.

[Assistant] Hmm. Okay. What do you want to tell us anything about your education?

[User] I went to the University of Texas at Austin and did my pre reqs there. I was actually going to go to their nursing program, but my family doctor talked me into going to a diploma school program that was a very good program in town at the time. So I went for a year and a half to do my pre reqs there and then I went to a diploma school in Austin.

[Assistant] And the name was?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I remember when Kennedy was president and the Peace Corps was formed and seeing the advertisements for it on TV. I just said, I have to do that someday or something similar to it. So it was something I had longed to do for a long time, for many reasons. And so I felt that that was the right time to make a move. I had a cousin who was dying of cancer, so I quit my job and went to South Texas and helped take care of him for about three months. So it was a good time to do that because I had signed up for the Peace Corps and I had that break time before I was going to leave in June.

[Assistant] Hmm. Okay. What do you want to tell us anything about your education?

[User] I went to the University of Texas at Austin and did my pre reqs there. I was actually going to go to their nursing program, but my family doctor talked me into going to a diploma school program that was a very good program in town at the time. So I went for a year and a half to do my pre reqs there and then I went to a diploma school in Austin.

[Assistant] And the name was?

[User] It was Brackenridge School of Nursing.

[Assistant] Could you spell that for us?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I went to the University of Texas at Austin and did my pre reqs there. I was actually going to go to their nursing program, but my family doctor talked me into going to a diploma school program that was a very good program in town at the time. So I went for a year and a half to do my pre reqs there and then I went to a diploma school in Austin.

[Assistant] And the name was?

[User] It was Brackenridge School of Nursing.

[Assistant] Could you spell that for us?

[User] B-R-A-C-K-E-N-R-I-D-G-E.

[Assistant] Okay. Was it two years? Three years?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was Brackenridge School of Nursing.

[Assistant] Could you spell that for us?

[User] B-R-A-C-K-E-N-R-I-D-G-E.

[Assistant] Okay. Was it two years? Three years?

[User] Three.

[Assistant] Three years. Okay. What year did you graduate in?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] B-R-A-C-K-E-N-R-I-D-G-E.

[Assistant] Okay. Was it two years? Three years?

[User] Three.

[Assistant] Three years. Okay. What year did you graduate in?

[User] In '74.

[Assistant] '74 from Brackenridge. Okay. Any other experiences you might want to share about why you became a Peace Corps volunteer?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Three.

[Assistant] Three years. Okay. What year did you graduate in?

[User] In '74.

[Assistant] '74 from Brackenridge. Okay. Any other experiences you might want to share about why you became a Peace Corps volunteer?

[User] I, for one thing, being a nurse, I just wanted to see in other countries, undeveloped countries, underdeveloped countries rather, um, how medicine operated, just how different it might be somewhere else. And I just, it sounded like a decent thing to do also. And I was brought up in the church and of course, we had visitors at times that were missionaries. And so that had an influence on me too, just seeing what they had done. And I mean, there's this big world out there, and that was one way to see it. Plus, I had traveled some and I thought, you know, you go on a trip for 1 to 2 weeks and it's just too fast and it's too artificial. You really need to live there. So I said, if I would go live somewhere else, why don't I do this? Because I always wanted to do it.

[Assistant] Okay. Like I said, the second question is, why did you join the Peace Corps? You sort of touched on that. Was there anything else you might want to add about why you joined the Peace Corps?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] In '74.

[Assistant] '74 from Brackenridge. Okay. Any other experiences you might want to share about why you became a Peace Corps volunteer?

[User] I, for one thing, being a nurse, I just wanted to see in other countries, undeveloped countries, underdeveloped countries rather, um, how medicine operated, just how different it might be somewhere else. And I just, it sounded like a decent thing to do also. And I was brought up in the church and of course, we had visitors at times that were missionaries. And so that had an influence on me too, just seeing what they had done. And I mean, there's this big world out there, and that was one way to see it. Plus, I had traveled some and I thought, you know, you go on a trip for 1 to 2 weeks and it's just too fast and it's too artificial. You really need to live there. So I said, if I would go live somewhere else, why don't I do this? Because I always wanted to do it.

[Assistant] Okay. Like I said, the second question is, why did you join the Peace Corps? You sort of touched on that. Was there anything else you might want to add about why you joined the Peace Corps?

[User] I think I, yeah, I think I probably answered that question. Yeah.

[Assistant] Okay. We'll go to the third question. How did you hear about the Peace Corps?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I, for one thing, being a nurse, I just wanted to see in other countries, undeveloped countries, underdeveloped countries rather, um, how medicine operated, just how different it might be somewhere else. And I just, it sounded like a decent thing to do also. And I was brought up in the church and of course, we had visitors at times that were missionaries. And so that had an influence on me too, just seeing what they had done. And I mean, there's this big world out there, and that was one way to see it. Plus, I had traveled some and I thought, you know, you go on a trip for 1 to 2 weeks and it's just too fast and it's too artificial. You really need to live there. So I said, if I would go live somewhere else, why don't I do this? Because I always wanted to do it.

[Assistant] Okay. Like I said, the second question is, why did you join the Peace Corps? You sort of touched on that. Was there anything else you might want to add about why you joined the Peace Corps?

[User] I think I, yeah, I think I probably answered that question. Yeah.

[Assistant] Okay. We'll go to the third question. How did you hear about the Peace Corps?

[User] When I was a kid. TV.

[Assistant] TV. Okay. And what made you decide to apply? Anything else you might want to add to that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think I, yeah, I think I probably answered that question. Yeah.

[Assistant] Okay. We'll go to the third question. How did you hear about the Peace Corps?

[User] When I was a kid. TV.

[Assistant] TV. Okay. And what made you decide to apply? Anything else you might want to add to that?

[User] No, I mean, I knew that when you're young and you're unencumbered and you're not married and you don't have children and bills, you have to do these things. You have to make that decision to do it. And, uh, I just felt like it would be a great adventure on top of everything.

[Assistant] Okay. How did you apply? Meaning like, did you have to go somewhere to interview?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] When I was a kid. TV.

[Assistant] TV. Okay. And what made you decide to apply? Anything else you might want to add to that?

[User] No, I mean, I knew that when you're young and you're unencumbered and you're not married and you don't have children and bills, you have to do these things. You have to make that decision to do it. And, uh, I just felt like it would be a great adventure on top of everything.

[Assistant] Okay. How did you apply? Meaning like, did you have to go somewhere to interview?

[User] There was an office in Austin, so I applied at the office and was interviewed there.

[Assistant] Okay. How long did it take you to be accepted?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, I mean, I knew that when you're young and you're unencumbered and you're not married and you don't have children and bills, you have to do these things. You have to make that decision to do it. And, uh, I just felt like it would be a great adventure on top of everything.

[Assistant] Okay. How did you apply? Meaning like, did you have to go somewhere to interview?

[User] There was an office in Austin, so I applied at the office and was interviewed there.

[Assistant] Okay. How long did it take you to be accepted?

[User] I don't remember. It was, it was quick. I remember it was pretty quick because there were three groups that were going to be leaving just months after I decided to do it. I really wanted to go to Africa. That was my first choice, but there were no groups being formed for that.

[Assistant] Okay. The other part of the question, did you have a specific country? And you just said Africa.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] There was an office in Austin, so I applied at the office and was interviewed there.

[Assistant] Okay. How long did it take you to be accepted?

[User] I don't remember. It was, it was quick. I remember it was pretty quick because there were three groups that were going to be leaving just months after I decided to do it. I really wanted to go to Africa. That was my first choice, but there were no groups being formed for that.

[Assistant] Okay. The other part of the question, did you have a specific country? And you just said Africa.

[User] Yeah, just the continent of Africa. Probably just whatever would have been available and the. Yeah.

[Assistant] Did you have a specific project? I mean, you wanted to be a nurse, I'm assuming.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I don't remember. It was, it was quick. I remember it was pretty quick because there were three groups that were going to be leaving just months after I decided to do it. I really wanted to go to Africa. That was my first choice, but there were no groups being formed for that.

[Assistant] Okay. The other part of the question, did you have a specific country? And you just said Africa.

[User] Yeah, just the continent of Africa. Probably just whatever would have been available and the. Yeah.

[Assistant] Did you have a specific project? I mean, you wanted to be a nurse, I'm assuming.

[User] I wanted to work in community health.

[Assistant] Okay, community health. Yes. Okay. Good. The fourth question, what were your friends and your family's reactions when you were accepted?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, just the continent of Africa. Probably just whatever would have been available and the. Yeah.

[Assistant] Did you have a specific project? I mean, you wanted to be a nurse, I'm assuming.

[User] I wanted to work in community health.

[Assistant] Okay, community health. Yes. Okay. Good. The fourth question, what were your friends and your family's reactions when you were accepted?

[User] The truth?

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, I told the truth in mine. And then you can add along that, you know, was there any hesitation or reservation on your part, your family and friends' part? How do they react when you were accepted?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The truth?

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, I told the truth in mine. And then you can add along that, you know, was there any hesitation or reservation on your part, your family and friends' part? How do they react when you were accepted?

[User] Well, some of my friends thought I was odd to want to do that. My father didn't understand why I wanted to volunteer two years of my life and not get paid really for it.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] He thought that was not a good choice of, um, of a way to spend your, your time. And what was the rest of the question?

[Assistant] Okay, your, you talked about your. How about your mom? How did she react?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He thought that was not a good choice of, um, of a way to spend your, your time. And what was the rest of the question?

[Assistant] Okay, your, you talked about your. How about your mom? How did she react?

[User] She was pretty noncommittal.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] How about your brother and sisters?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] She was pretty noncommittal.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] How about your brother and sisters?

[User] They thought it was cool. They were little kids.

[Assistant] Okay. How about your friends? How did they react?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] How about your brother and sisters?

[User] They thought it was cool. They were little kids.

[Assistant] Okay. How about your friends? How did they react?

[User] Some of my friends thought it was a great thing, especially my nurse friends, and other friends didn't understand. They, you know, they didn't understand. They thought there were, you know, safety issues, health issues. There were risks involved with it. And then some thought that it was just, you know, could be just a great adventure. So was it mixed, a lot of mixed.

[Assistant] Yeah. Do you remember any particular remark, you know, that pro or con, that has stuck with you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Some of my friends thought it was a great thing, especially my nurse friends, and other friends didn't understand. They, you know, they didn't understand. They thought there were, you know, safety issues, health issues. There were risks involved with it. And then some thought that it was just, you know, could be just a great adventure. So was it mixed, a lot of mixed.

[Assistant] Yeah. Do you remember any particular remark, you know, that pro or con, that has stuck with you?

[User] My father's, that I wouldn't get paid.

[Assistant] Yeah. Okay.

[User] That it was just not a sound decision in that respect.

[Assistant] Okay. We'll move on to the fifth question. What project were you invited to join? Oh, and, you know, I'm sort of interrupting because I kind of remember you went to Choluteca first. Okay. So we'll start with, Donna, am I correct, you had two different sites?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] My father's, that I wouldn't get paid.

[Assistant] Yeah. Okay.

[User] That it was just not a sound decision in that respect.

[Assistant] Okay. We'll move on to the fifth question. What project were you invited to join? Oh, and, you know, I'm sort of interrupting because I kind of remember you went to Choluteca first. Okay. So we'll start with, Donna, am I correct, you had two different sites?

[User] I, I only lived in one site, but I was offered two sites.

[Assistant] Let's talk about the first site you were offered, which you have told me in the past was Choluteca.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That it was just not a sound decision in that respect.

[Assistant] Okay. We'll move on to the fifth question. What project were you invited to join? Oh, and, you know, I'm sort of interrupting because I kind of remember you went to Choluteca first. Okay. So we'll start with, Donna, am I correct, you had two different sites?

[User] I, I only lived in one site, but I was offered two sites.

[Assistant] Let's talk about the first site you were offered, which you have told me in the past was Choluteca.

[User] I didn't remember the name, but now that you reminded me. Yeah, I believe that was it.

[Assistant] I think it was. Okay. What were you supposed to do when you went there? Well, not that it happened, but.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I didn't remember the name, but now that you reminded me. Yeah, I believe that was it.

[Assistant] I think it was. Okay. What were you supposed to do when you went there? Well, not that it happened, but.

[User] What they were looking for was literally just some more manpower, or woman power rather. They were looking for a night supervisor, a night shift supervisor in the hospital.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] And I did turn that down because I, for one thing, was not interested in working in a hospital, and I was not interested in working the night shift. And I felt that what I really wanted to do was teach work in an outpatient community. And I felt that that was going to probably have a bigger impact than. That there was other nurses that could fill that open slot for a nursing supervisor on the night shift.

[Assistant] Okay. So that's what you thought initially that you were going to be doing?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] What they were looking for was literally just some more manpower, or woman power rather. They were looking for a night supervisor, a night shift supervisor in the hospital.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] And I did turn that down because I, for one thing, was not interested in working in a hospital, and I was not interested in working the night shift. And I felt that what I really wanted to do was teach work in an outpatient community. And I felt that that was going to probably have a bigger impact than. That there was other nurses that could fill that open slot for a nursing supervisor on the night shift.

[Assistant] Okay. So that's what you thought initially that you were going to be doing?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And I know we'll talk later on about your, the site you really did go to. Okay. Let's go to the sixth question. Training, where did you train? And then you could add things like if you want to say about the faculty, if there was a syllabus, you know, technical studies, other factors. And then there is another part of it that talks about the language training. So tell us first about where you were trained. Where did you live?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And I did turn that down because I, for one thing, was not interested in working in a hospital, and I was not interested in working the night shift. And I felt that what I really wanted to do was teach work in an outpatient community. And I felt that that was going to probably have a bigger impact than. That there was other nurses that could fill that open slot for a nursing supervisor on the night shift.

[Assistant] Okay. So that's what you thought initially that you were going to be doing?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And I know we'll talk later on about your, the site you really did go to. Okay. Let's go to the sixth question. Training, where did you train? And then you could add things like if you want to say about the faculty, if there was a syllabus, you know, technical studies, other factors. And then there is another part of it that talks about the language training. So tell us first about where you were trained. Where did you live?

[User] I was trained in Tegucigalpa at the training center, it was called, and I lived with a host family in the suburbs of Tegucigalpa. I was their first volunteer trainee that they'd ever had. And sadly, either they misunderstood their, um, their role, or I'm not sure what happened there, but I really never, I had very little contact with them. I ate by myself. They put the food on the table and I ate and then they ate later. They didn't interact with me. They didn't, I very rarely was invited into the living room with them to watch, they had a TV, and I was sad and disappointed about that.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah. Yeah.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And I know we'll talk later on about your, the site you really did go to. Okay. Let's go to the sixth question. Training, where did you train? And then you could add things like if you want to say about the faculty, if there was a syllabus, you know, technical studies, other factors. And then there is another part of it that talks about the language training. So tell us first about where you were trained. Where did you live?

[User] I was trained in Tegucigalpa at the training center, it was called, and I lived with a host family in the suburbs of Tegucigalpa. I was their first volunteer trainee that they'd ever had. And sadly, either they misunderstood their, um, their role, or I'm not sure what happened there, but I really never, I had very little contact with them. I ate by myself. They put the food on the table and I ate and then they ate later. They didn't interact with me. They didn't, I very rarely was invited into the living room with them to watch, they had a TV, and I was sad and disappointed about that.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[User] Because I didn't get to speak Spanish either. I lost that opportunity.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Okay. Tell us about your, the faculty at the training center.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I was trained in Tegucigalpa at the training center, it was called, and I lived with a host family in the suburbs of Tegucigalpa. I was their first volunteer trainee that they'd ever had. And sadly, either they misunderstood their, um, their role, or I'm not sure what happened there, but I really never, I had very little contact with them. I ate by myself. They put the food on the table and I ate and then they ate later. They didn't interact with me. They didn't, I very rarely was invited into the living room with them to watch, they had a TV, and I was sad and disappointed about that.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[User] Because I didn't get to speak Spanish either. I lost that opportunity.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Okay. Tell us about your, the faculty at the training center.

[User] The faculty was lovely. They were, they were so nice. The women, they were mainly women that were teaching the courses, and they were very, very good teachers, very good educators. I thought that the training language course was so good. I really love the format of that. And I went to Honduras really with no, um, no grasp of the language at all. And I felt that I came out. I was, I was scored zero.

[Assistant] Oh, in Spanish? Didn't they say los cero?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Because I didn't get to speak Spanish either. I lost that opportunity.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Okay. Tell us about your, the faculty at the training center.

[User] The faculty was lovely. They were, they were so nice. The women, they were mainly women that were teaching the courses, and they were very, very good teachers, very good educators. I thought that the training language course was so good. I really love the format of that. And I went to Honduras really with no, um, no grasp of the language at all. And I felt that I came out. I was, I was scored zero.

[Assistant] Oh, in Spanish? Didn't they say los cero?

[User] Los cero.

[Assistant] Did you study Spanish in Hutto?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The faculty was lovely. They were, they were so nice. The women, they were mainly women that were teaching the courses, and they were very, very good teachers, very good educators. I thought that the training language course was so good. I really love the format of that. And I went to Honduras really with no, um, no grasp of the language at all. And I felt that I came out. I was, I was scored zero.

[Assistant] Oh, in Spanish? Didn't they say los cero?

[User] Los cero.

[Assistant] Did you study Spanish in Hutto?

[User] I did in high school. But that had been probably, what, six years prior to that? And it was a high school Spanish course. I learned how to say hola Paco que tal and that was about it.

[Assistant] Okay, I've heard that before. I think I know Paco myself. Um, technical studies during training. What did you learn technically?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Los cero.

[Assistant] Did you study Spanish in Hutto?

[User] I did in high school. But that had been probably, what, six years prior to that? And it was a high school Spanish course. I learned how to say hola Paco que tal and that was about it.

[Assistant] Okay, I've heard that before. I think I know Paco myself. Um, technical studies during training. What did you learn technically?

[User] Hmm. In as far as my job or my?

[Assistant] Just because we were in the same group, remember we would go visit a hospital or?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I did in high school. But that had been probably, what, six years prior to that? And it was a high school Spanish course. I learned how to say hola Paco que tal and that was about it.

[Assistant] Okay, I've heard that before. I think I know Paco myself. Um, technical studies during training. What did you learn technically?

[User] Hmm. In as far as my job or my?

[Assistant] Just because we were in the same group, remember we would go visit a hospital or?

[User] We observed, but we didn't get training. I mean, we weren't really training in anything.

[Assistant] We did observation.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We observed, but we didn't get training. I mean, we weren't really training in anything.

[Assistant] We did observation.

[User] Yeah, we just observed and we got to just tour the big maternelle infantile hospital.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And someone fainted there. I remember one of our colleagues.

[Assistant] Yes. One did faint when.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, we just observed and we got to just tour the big maternelle infantile hospital.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And someone fainted there. I remember one of our colleagues.

[Assistant] Yes. One did faint when.

[User] Fainted when we saw some of the things that we saw there. But I don't recall having been given any training that would have had anything to do with skills or actual on the job tasks.

[Assistant] Yeah. What I remember were the observations.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And someone fainted there. I remember one of our colleagues.

[Assistant] Yes. One did faint when.

[User] Fainted when we saw some of the things that we saw there. But I don't recall having been given any training that would have had anything to do with skills or actual on the job tasks.

[Assistant] Yeah. What I remember were the observations.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Okay. What did you think about the other people in your training group?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Okay. What did you think about the other people in your training group?

[User] Oh, it's a great bunch of people. We had a great group.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] Made friends with some of them that I'm still friends with. Including you.

[Assistant] Yeah, that's true. For the listener, Donna and I have known each other since 1978.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, it's a great bunch of people. We had a great group.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] Made friends with some of them that I'm still friends with. Including you.

[Assistant] Yeah, that's true. For the listener, Donna and I have known each other since 1978.

[User] 40 years.

[Assistant] Good Lord. Okay. Do you want to say anything else about the language training before we move on? You thought it was good?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] 40 years.

[Assistant] Good Lord. Okay. Do you want to say anything else about the language training before we move on? You thought it was good?

[User] I thought it was really good. I really did, because I've subsequently taken other language courses and nothing compares to as good as that was. I mean, I remember having a headache at the end of every single day, but the drills that they put you through and the fact that it was all oral.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] All oral. You just sat there and talked and talked and talked. And you did get to see it written on the blackboard, but it was oral. It was a great, for me at least, the way I learn it was perfect for me.

[Assistant] Yeah. Okay. Selection. Well, I know you were selected, but were you surprised by anything with the selection process or disappointed? I don't know, that might. Yeah, I mean, we were all selected.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I thought it was really good. I really did, because I've subsequently taken other language courses and nothing compares to as good as that was. I mean, I remember having a headache at the end of every single day, but the drills that they put you through and the fact that it was all oral.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] All oral. You just sat there and talked and talked and talked. And you did get to see it written on the blackboard, but it was oral. It was a great, for me at least, the way I learn it was perfect for me.

[Assistant] Yeah. Okay. Selection. Well, I know you were selected, but were you surprised by anything with the selection process or disappointed? I don't know, that might. Yeah, I mean, we were all selected.

[User] Yeah, I was going to say no.

[Assistant] Okay. I think we'll skip that part. Um, hindsight. Did training prepare you? Was it useful to your Peace Corps service, the training that you had?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, I was going to say no.

[Assistant] Okay. I think we'll skip that part. Um, hindsight. Did training prepare you? Was it useful to your Peace Corps service, the training that you had?

[User] Well, the language prep was really good. But as far as the individual aspects of each person, what they were going to end up doing, I didn't really have any training at all for that.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] I don't know if you want me to talk about that later. Do you want me to talk about that now?

[Assistant] If you want to say anything, yeah, anything that, um, I mean, I do know like where you did end up. Um. Do you feel like you were prepared when you went to your site? Did the training prepare you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, the language prep was really good. But as far as the individual aspects of each person, what they were going to end up doing, I didn't really have any training at all for that.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] I don't know if you want me to talk about that later. Do you want me to talk about that now?

[Assistant] If you want to say anything, yeah, anything that, um, I mean, I do know like where you did end up. Um. Do you feel like you were prepared when you went to your site? Did the training prepare you?

[User] No, not for what I needed and what I ended up having to do there. I wasn't prepared at all.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Okay. If you had gone to Choluteca and stayed there, do you think you might have been prepared?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And they also sent me information on treatments and drugs and disease recognition, and those books were so valuable to me.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] I was so tempted to take them back to the States with me, but I left them there because they were wonderful. And that was a real godsend.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] But I did things that, I mean, I functioned as a physician in so many respects. And I remember thinking, I'm going to get sued. But then I thought, well, I don't think so.

[Assistant] Yeah, right, right.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I was so tempted to take them back to the States with me, but I left them there because they were wonderful. And that was a real godsend.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] But I did things that, I mean, I functioned as a physician in so many respects. And I remember thinking, I'm going to get sued. But then I thought, well, I don't think so.

[Assistant] Yeah, right, right.

[User] Probably not. But I delivered babies and I was taught by the dentist how to suture. I sutured a lot of wounds.

[Assistant] The dentist taught you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But I did things that, I mean, I functioned as a physician in so many respects. And I remember thinking, I'm going to get sued. But then I thought, well, I don't think so.

[Assistant] Yeah, right, right.

[User] Probably not. But I delivered babies and I was taught by the dentist how to suture. I sutured a lot of wounds.

[Assistant] The dentist taught you?

[User] The dentist taught me how to suture.

[Assistant] What was the dentist's name?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I don't remember.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] It was just, it's been, what? How long has it been since then, 39 years?

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah.

[User] I don't remember. I know what she looks like, but I don't remember her name. But she was great and she did help me how to suture. And I did a lot of machete wounds, especially in children. I took care of a lot of asthmatics, delivered babies, as I said, um, and of course, the usual. Malaria, dengue, parasites, amoebas, worms, you know, accidents, seizures.

[Assistant] Yeah, I think.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was just, it's been, what? How long has it been since then, 39 years?

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah.

[User] I don't remember. I know what she looks like, but I don't remember her name. But she was great and she did help me how to suture. And I did a lot of machete wounds, especially in children. I took care of a lot of asthmatics, delivered babies, as I said, um, and of course, the usual. Malaria, dengue, parasites, amoebas, worms, you know, accidents, seizures.

[Assistant] Yeah, I think.

[User] I learned a lot.

[Assistant] Yeah, you have, you have a wealth of stories that you could tell.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I don't remember. I know what she looks like, but I don't remember her name. But she was great and she did help me how to suture. And I did a lot of machete wounds, especially in children. I took care of a lot of asthmatics, delivered babies, as I said, um, and of course, the usual. Malaria, dengue, parasites, amoebas, worms, you know, accidents, seizures.

[Assistant] Yeah, I think.

[User] I learned a lot.

[Assistant] Yeah, you have, you have a wealth of stories that you could tell.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] Which we will continue with. Just thinking about, can you remember when you arrived in country? How did you feel? You know, like observing the people, listening, smelling even? I mean, how did you feel when you arrived in Honduras?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I learned a lot.

[Assistant] Yeah, you have, you have a wealth of stories that you could tell.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] Which we will continue with. Just thinking about, can you remember when you arrived in country? How did you feel? You know, like observing the people, listening, smelling even? I mean, how did you feel when you arrived in Honduras?

[User] Well, being in a country, of course, I'd been in a foreign country before, but just being there for days, which turned into weeks, and not understanding the language, because I arrived with such little grasp of Spanish, that was something that I found to be very disconcerting. I knew it would get better, but that was hard. Um. Things were different, obviously, you're in another country. Things were different. I don't remember feeling lonely or feeling that I'd made the wrong decision. I was very excited about being there and just, you know, getting on with the whole experience.

[Assistant] Okay. Anything that you remember that you might want to share about the people when you arrived?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The Hondurans?

[Assistant] The Hondurans.

[User] Or the other Peace Corps?

[Assistant] The Hondurans.

[User] Well, at that point honestly, we didn't have a lot of, you know, it was mainly walking in the street, going into shops. The only, the only real contact we had with Hondurans was mainly with the training center at that point. And then my host family.

[Assistant] Yeah. Who did not include you.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, at that point honestly, we didn't have a lot of, you know, it was mainly walking in the street, going into shops. The only, the only real contact we had with Hondurans was mainly with the training center at that point. And then my host family.

[Assistant] Yeah. Who did not include you.

[User] Who, very sadly, yeah. Just kind of, you know. And my friend who's sitting right here.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] She had a lovely host family and I loved to go to her house because they all ate meals together and laughed and talked and.

[Assistant] They included me.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Who, very sadly, yeah. Just kind of, you know. And my friend who's sitting right here.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] She had a lovely host family and I loved to go to her house because they all ate meals together and laughed and talked and.

[Assistant] They included me.

[User] And they included you on everything. And I was kind of sad that I had that. At the same time, I was just glad I had your house to go to.

[Assistant] Okay. We've already touched on your assignment, but let's see what else we might talk about with your assignment. So you never, you did make a visit to Choluteca I believe.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] She had a lovely host family and I loved to go to her house because they all ate meals together and laughed and talked and.

[Assistant] They included me.

[User] And they included you on everything. And I was kind of sad that I had that. At the same time, I was just glad I had your house to go to.

[Assistant] Okay. We've already touched on your assignment, but let's see what else we might talk about with your assignment. So you never, you did make a visit to Choluteca I believe.

[User] I did.

[Assistant] And did you know right from the get-go, this is not for me?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And they included you on everything. And I was kind of sad that I had that. At the same time, I was just glad I had your house to go to.

[Assistant] Okay. We've already touched on your assignment, but let's see what else we might talk about with your assignment. So you never, you did make a visit to Choluteca I believe.

[User] I did.

[Assistant] And did you know right from the get-go, this is not for me?

[User] Immediately.

[Assistant] Okay. How did Peace Corps react when you told them, I can't go there, or whatever words you used?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I did.

[Assistant] And did you know right from the get-go, this is not for me?

[User] Immediately.

[Assistant] Okay. How did Peace Corps react when you told them, I can't go there, or whatever words you used?

[User] They were fine.

[Assistant] They were? Okay.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, my, uh, the manager, the program manager was.

[Assistant] Ione.

[User] Ione, Ione Adams, yeah. She was, she just said, okay, you know, we don't, if this isn't going to fit you. And she also, I don't know that she really understood that they wanted me to work the night shift.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I think that that really wasn't an understanding that they had had. And I said, if I work the night shift, I'll go back to the States where there's air conditioning. I can sleep during the day and.

[Assistant] Yeah, and if I remember right, did she say something like was it the nurse supervisor that worked there, kind of operated vending machines?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Ione, Ione Adams, yeah. She was, she just said, okay, you know, we don't, if this isn't going to fit you. And she also, I don't know that she really understood that they wanted me to work the night shift.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I think that that really wasn't an understanding that they had had. And I said, if I work the night shift, I'll go back to the States where there's air conditioning. I can sleep during the day and.

[Assistant] Yeah, and if I remember right, did she say something like was it the nurse supervisor that worked there, kind of operated vending machines?

[User] Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That the director of nursing.

[Assistant] Director of nursing.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think that that really wasn't an understanding that they had had. And I said, if I work the night shift, I'll go back to the States where there's air conditioning. I can sleep during the day and.

[Assistant] Yeah, and if I remember right, did she say something like was it the nurse supervisor that worked there, kind of operated vending machines?

[User] Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That the director of nursing.

[Assistant] Director of nursing.

[User] Had in the courtyard of the hospital a little kiosk, and she sold sodas there and candy. And so that's kind of what she did during the day.

[Assistant] Did she direct the nursing department, as far as you know?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That the director of nursing.

[Assistant] Director of nursing.

[User] Had in the courtyard of the hospital a little kiosk, and she sold sodas there and candy. And so that's kind of what she did during the day.

[Assistant] Did she direct the nursing department, as far as you know?

[User] I don't. I can't see how, but I don't know. I wasn't there long enough to find out. One thing I did feel a little sad about was after the fact, I did wonder if I could have impacted it at all, because, you know, I was concerned about things like maintaining sterility and understanding just basic concepts of, you know, modern day concepts of care. They had Foley catheters dripping urine into coffee cans on the side of the bed. There were dogs running in and out of the ward.

[Assistant] Oh, there were? Okay.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And the patients.

[Assistant] Very hot.

[User] Yes, extremely hot. And no one ate unless family brought them food. Very, very sad. And I after I said I couldn't do it, I felt. I felt bad. I really did. To this day, when I think about it, I wonder did I make the right decision? However, where I did go, they didn't have a doctor, so they really kind of needed.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] They needed someone there. So. And the fact was they just needed a nurse to work the night shift, is what they needed.

[Assistant] Yeah. Okay, well, let's talk more specifically than about your life in Roatan, one of the Bay Islands. And, you know, you went back and told the program manager for health, Ione Adams, you couldn't go to Choluteca. She seemed fine with it. How did you end up in Roatan?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, extremely hot. And no one ate unless family brought them food. Very, very sad. And I after I said I couldn't do it, I felt. I felt bad. I really did. To this day, when I think about it, I wonder did I make the right decision? However, where I did go, they didn't have a doctor, so they really kind of needed.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] They needed someone there. So. And the fact was they just needed a nurse to work the night shift, is what they needed.

[Assistant] Yeah. Okay, well, let's talk more specifically than about your life in Roatan, one of the Bay Islands. And, you know, you went back and told the program manager for health, Ione Adams, you couldn't go to Choluteca. She seemed fine with it. How did you end up in Roatan?

[User] Well, she, when I went back to Tegucigalpa and I told Ione that I just felt that this, this was not the reason I came. She said, well, guess what, we've got something. We haven't had a volunteer in the Bay Islands in years, in many years, and something's coming up in the clinic there, in an outpatient clinic. And I said, that is exactly what I was hoping to have.

[Assistant] And I forgot you said you want community health.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They needed someone there. So. And the fact was they just needed a nurse to work the night shift, is what they needed.

[Assistant] Yeah. Okay, well, let's talk more specifically than about your life in Roatan, one of the Bay Islands. And, you know, you went back and told the program manager for health, Ione Adams, you couldn't go to Choluteca. She seemed fine with it. How did you end up in Roatan?

[User] Well, she, when I went back to Tegucigalpa and I told Ione that I just felt that this, this was not the reason I came. She said, well, guess what, we've got something. We haven't had a volunteer in the Bay Islands in years, in many years, and something's coming up in the clinic there, in an outpatient clinic. And I said, that is exactly what I was hoping to have.

[Assistant] And I forgot you said you want community health.

[User] Yeah, I really, really, really wanted community health. And so that is how I ended up there. So I made the visit, and the minute I was there, I said, this is exactly what I want. There was a physician there at the time, and so my role was going to be more of a teaching capacity, especially in perinatal, handwashing, hygiene, boiling water, that kind of thing. So, um, that's how it started. And then the doctor was gone.

[Assistant] In five months.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, she, when I went back to Tegucigalpa and I told Ione that I just felt that this, this was not the reason I came. She said, well, guess what, we've got something. We haven't had a volunteer in the Bay Islands in years, in many years, and something's coming up in the clinic there, in an outpatient clinic. And I said, that is exactly what I was hoping to have.

[Assistant] And I forgot you said you want community health.

[User] Yeah, I really, really, really wanted community health. And so that is how I ended up there. So I made the visit, and the minute I was there, I said, this is exactly what I want. There was a physician there at the time, and so my role was going to be more of a teaching capacity, especially in perinatal, handwashing, hygiene, boiling water, that kind of thing. So, um, that's how it started. And then the doctor was gone.

[Assistant] In five months.

[User] In five months.

[Assistant] And they never replaced the doctor?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, I really, really, really wanted community health. And so that is how I ended up there. So I made the visit, and the minute I was there, I said, this is exactly what I want. There was a physician there at the time, and so my role was going to be more of a teaching capacity, especially in perinatal, handwashing, hygiene, boiling water, that kind of thing. So, um, that's how it started. And then the doctor was gone.

[Assistant] In five months.

[User] In five months.

[Assistant] And they never replaced the doctor?

[User] They replaced the, they, we did get a physician for a very short amount of time, but he actually also had a karate studio. And so he spent a really large amount of his time in his karate studio.

[Assistant] I don't remember that, but that's very interesting.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] In five months.

[Assistant] And they never replaced the doctor?

[User] They replaced the, they, we did get a physician for a very short amount of time, but he actually also had a karate studio. And so he spent a really large amount of his time in his karate studio.

[Assistant] I don't remember that, but that's very interesting.

[User] He did.

[Assistant] Okay. Listener, I'm sorry I'm laughing, but okay, so we're talking about the doctor's karate studio.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They replaced the, they, we did get a physician for a very short amount of time, but he actually also had a karate studio. And so he spent a really large amount of his time in his karate studio.

[Assistant] I don't remember that, but that's very interesting.

[User] He did.

[Assistant] Okay. Listener, I'm sorry I'm laughing, but okay, so we're talking about the doctor's karate studio.

[User] He also had a wife that was always at the clinic, Betty.

[Assistant] I don't remember her.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He did.

[Assistant] Okay. Listener, I'm sorry I'm laughing, but okay, so we're talking about the doctor's karate studio.

[User] He also had a wife that was always at the clinic, Betty.

[Assistant] I don't remember her.

[User] Remember me telling you?

[Assistant] I think, you could tell me more because actually it was quite an interesting story.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He also had a wife that was always at the clinic, Betty.

[Assistant] I don't remember her.

[User] Remember me telling you?

[Assistant] I think, you could tell me more because actually it was quite an interesting story.

[User] She was kind of running the clinic and then even when he wasn't there, she was running the clinic when he was at the karate studio. And he also had some very dubious practices. He did a DNC in the clinic with unsterile equipment without the patient's permission. And I went to the Ministry of Health and along with the dentist, she went with me, and we talked to the head, the head, she was the manager or whatever they're called.

[Assistant] At the Ministry of Health.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] She was kind of running the clinic and then even when he wasn't there, she was running the clinic when he was at the karate studio. And he also had some very dubious practices. He did a DNC in the clinic with unsterile equipment without the patient's permission. And I went to the Ministry of Health and along with the dentist, she went with me, and we talked to the head, the head, she was the manager or whatever they're called.

[Assistant] At the Ministry of Health.

[User] Yeah. And, um, and I had kind of a laundry list of things that were, plus some equipment that was disappearing from the clinic. So he was removed.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So he was removed and which was okay. But then we'd never got a physician again. So that's how I ended up pretty much for a year and a half not having a doctor there.

[Assistant] Wow. Okay. Can you explain a typical day, and maybe there wasn't a typical day, but what comes to your mind when I ask you that question? A typical day at that centro de salud, I'm guessing.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. And, um, and I had kind of a laundry list of things that were, plus some equipment that was disappearing from the clinic. So he was removed.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So he was removed and which was okay. But then we'd never got a physician again. So that's how I ended up pretty much for a year and a half not having a doctor there.

[Assistant] Wow. Okay. Can you explain a typical day, and maybe there wasn't a typical day, but what comes to your mind when I ask you that question? A typical day at that centro de salud, I'm guessing.

[User] Yeah, well, Monday through Friday I was there by 8:00. And of course, we shut down for, was it an hour or 2 hours? I can't remember. But so we shut down.

[Assistant] At lunchtime, I'm guessing.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So he was removed and which was okay. But then we'd never got a physician again. So that's how I ended up pretty much for a year and a half not having a doctor there.

[Assistant] Wow. Okay. Can you explain a typical day, and maybe there wasn't a typical day, but what comes to your mind when I ask you that question? A typical day at that centro de salud, I'm guessing.

[User] Yeah, well, Monday through Friday I was there by 8:00. And of course, we shut down for, was it an hour or 2 hours? I can't remember. But so we shut down.

[Assistant] At lunchtime, I'm guessing.

[User] For the mid time, for lunch. And then we were there till 5:00 or 6:00, and we just saw a slew of patients. And I did have what would be the equivalent of an American LVN nurse who helped me.

[Assistant] And was is LVN, Donna, for the listener?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, well, Monday through Friday I was there by 8:00. And of course, we shut down for, was it an hour or 2 hours? I can't remember. But so we shut down.

[Assistant] At lunchtime, I'm guessing.

[User] For the mid time, for lunch. And then we were there till 5:00 or 6:00, and we just saw a slew of patients. And I did have what would be the equivalent of an American LVN nurse who helped me.

[Assistant] And was is LVN, Donna, for the listener?

[User] An LVN is a licensed vocational nurse who doesn't have as much education as a registered nurse. And their role is very different. And she was a great nurse, so she was really good. She taught, she did teach me a lot. Thank goodness for her.

[Assistant] She did, good.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] For the mid time, for lunch. And then we were there till 5:00 or 6:00, and we just saw a slew of patients. And I did have what would be the equivalent of an American LVN nurse who helped me.

[Assistant] And was is LVN, Donna, for the listener?

[User] An LVN is a licensed vocational nurse who doesn't have as much education as a registered nurse. And their role is very different. And she was a great nurse, so she was really good. She taught, she did teach me a lot. Thank goodness for her.

[Assistant] She did, good.

[User] She did. And we would usually spend the end of each day washing gloves, turning them inside out, drying them, wrapping them in brown paper bags, and then sterilizing them the next morning in the pressure.

[Assistant] In the autoclave, yes.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] An LVN is a licensed vocational nurse who doesn't have as much education as a registered nurse. And their role is very different. And she was a great nurse, so she was really good. She taught, she did teach me a lot. Thank goodness for her.

[Assistant] She did, good.

[User] She did. And we would usually spend the end of each day washing gloves, turning them inside out, drying them, wrapping them in brown paper bags, and then sterilizing them the next morning in the pressure.

[Assistant] In the autoclave, yes.

[User] No, no. The pressure cooker.

[Assistant] Oh, pressure cooker? I thought you had an autoclave.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We put it on the kerosene stove.

[Assistant] Yes, absolutely.

[User] And then we boiled the needles.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] We boiled the needles.

[Assistant] And use them again.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And then we boiled the needles.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] We boiled the needles.

[Assistant] And use them again.

[User] We'd use them until you could no longer see the markings on the side, so you were kind of guessing at the dosage. Dosing them out, as sad and as scary as that is, I mean, thank goodness we didn't have anything greater than a three CC syringe. So you could kind of, most of them were used for giving penicillin. So. And I didn't even have a magic marker to mark them on the sides. So you would just kind of guess from whatever other syringes you had. So we had to prepare a lot of equipment. And order supplies, do that kind of thing. But I also often had patients come to me in the evening and it was usually.

[Assistant] They knew where you lived.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We boiled the needles.

[Assistant] And use them again.

[User] We'd use them until you could no longer see the markings on the side, so you were kind of guessing at the dosage. Dosing them out, as sad and as scary as that is, I mean, thank goodness we didn't have anything greater than a three CC syringe. So you could kind of, most of them were used for giving penicillin. So. And I didn't even have a magic marker to mark them on the sides. So you would just kind of guess from whatever other syringes you had. So we had to prepare a lot of equipment. And order supplies, do that kind of thing. But I also often had patients come to me in the evening and it was usually.

[Assistant] They knew where you lived.

[User] They knew where I lived and it was mainly kids that came and. But at the clinic, kids came without their parents. I mean, it was very unusual for kids to show up with their parents.

[Assistant] With their parents.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They knew where I lived and it was mainly kids that came and. But at the clinic, kids came without their parents. I mean, it was very unusual for kids to show up with their parents.

[Assistant] With their parents.

[User] With their parents. And often they came in for something like an injury, usually a machete injury, and I had to suture it, clean it up and suture it.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So, uh, but at my house, I had one little patient. His name was Tony. He was a doll. He had bad asthma. So I kept aminophylline at my house.

[Assistant] Because of him.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] With their parents. And often they came in for something like an injury, usually a machete injury, and I had to suture it, clean it up and suture it.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So, uh, but at my house, I had one little patient. His name was Tony. He was a doll. He had bad asthma. So I kept aminophylline at my house.

[Assistant] Because of him.

[User] Because of him. So I had syringes and tourniquets and all the equipment that needed to give him aminophylline. And that was all I had, aminophylline, that was it. But it would usually, it would fix it. And then he would stay for a while. And I'd give him a peanut butter sandwich. And he liked to sing. So once he could breathe again, he would sit on my porch and sing.

[Assistant] Really? That's a lovely story.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So, uh, but at my house, I had one little patient. His name was Tony. He was a doll. He had bad asthma. So I kept aminophylline at my house.

[Assistant] Because of him.

[User] Because of him. So I had syringes and tourniquets and all the equipment that needed to give him aminophylline. And that was all I had, aminophylline, that was it. But it would usually, it would fix it. And then he would stay for a while. And I'd give him a peanut butter sandwich. And he liked to sing. So once he could breathe again, he would sit on my porch and sing.

[Assistant] Really? That's a lovely story.

[User] He was so adorable. He was. I heard down the road that he died of an asthma attack. So. Yeah, but he was, he was such a doll.

[Assistant] Yeah. I'm assuming that you could tell many, many stories about your time as Dr. Stern. Oh, excuse me, La Doctora Stern in Roatan. Now, what was the name of the town you lived in?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Because of him. So I had syringes and tourniquets and all the equipment that needed to give him aminophylline. And that was all I had, aminophylline, that was it. But it would usually, it would fix it. And then he would stay for a while. And I'd give him a peanut butter sandwich. And he liked to sing. So once he could breathe again, he would sit on my porch and sing.

[Assistant] Really? That's a lovely story.

[User] He was so adorable. He was. I heard down the road that he died of an asthma attack. So. Yeah, but he was, he was such a doll.

[Assistant] Yeah. I'm assuming that you could tell many, many stories about your time as Dr. Stern. Oh, excuse me, La Doctora Stern in Roatan. Now, what was the name of the town you lived in?

[User] Coxen Hole.

[Assistant] Could you spell that for us?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He was so adorable. He was. I heard down the road that he died of an asthma attack. So. Yeah, but he was, he was such a doll.

[Assistant] Yeah. I'm assuming that you could tell many, many stories about your time as Dr. Stern. Oh, excuse me, La Doctora Stern in Roatan. Now, what was the name of the town you lived in?

[User] Coxen Hole.

[Assistant] Could you spell that for us?

[User] C-O-X-E-N.

[Assistant] Hole. H-O-L-E. And that was the town in Roatan, the island of Roatan, where you lived. And other stories may come to mind or anything else you might want to share about a typical day at your assignment in Coxen Hole?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] C-O-X-E-N.

[Assistant] Hole. H-O-L-E. And that was the town in Roatan, the island of Roatan, where you lived. And other stories may come to mind or anything else you might want to share about a typical day at your assignment in Coxen Hole?

[User] Well, initially when we had a physician, my typical day was mainly doing classes.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] And I would go to.

[Assistant] Who did you teach for?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, initially when we had a physician, my typical day was mainly doing classes.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] And I would go to.

[Assistant] Who did you teach for?

[User] So I started by trying to teach some prenatal classes, pregnant moms, and those were so interesting. I learned more than I taught.

[Assistant] Okay. Oh, and I'm interrupting myself. What language did you speak in?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So I started by trying to teach some prenatal classes, pregnant moms, and those were so interesting. I learned more than I taught.

[Assistant] Okay. Oh, and I'm interrupting myself. What language did you speak in?

[User] Oh, English. Everything, almost everything was in English.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Unless someone from the Ministry of Health came. And then I had to find, I did find out that my regular English wasn't going to work because it was Caribbean English.

[Assistant] Yours, for what?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, English. Everything, almost everything was in English.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Unless someone from the Ministry of Health came. And then I had to find, I did find out that my regular English wasn't going to work because it was Caribbean English.

[Assistant] Yours, for what?

[User] My English. For example, they didn't understand me, the way I spoke. For example, it was a Caribbean English.

[Assistant] Oh, okay, Caribbean, that they spoke?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Unless someone from the Ministry of Health came. And then I had to find, I did find out that my regular English wasn't going to work because it was Caribbean English.

[Assistant] Yours, for what?

[User] My English. For example, they didn't understand me, the way I spoke. For example, it was a Caribbean English.

[Assistant] Oh, okay, Caribbean, that they spoke?

[User] That they spoke. For example, I remember the first time someone came in and said to me, I said, I said, what's going on? And they said, I got one open belly mon.

[Assistant] Okay, hold on. For the listener, I didn't get that. Can you repeat that once again, Donna?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] My English. For example, they didn't understand me, the way I spoke. For example, it was a Caribbean English.

[Assistant] Oh, okay, Caribbean, that they spoke?

[User] That they spoke. For example, I remember the first time someone came in and said to me, I said, I said, what's going on? And they said, I got one open belly mon.

[Assistant] Okay, hold on. For the listener, I didn't get that. Can you repeat that once again, Donna?

[User] I got one open belly mon.

[Assistant] I got one open belly mon. Okay, could you tell us what that means?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That they spoke. For example, I remember the first time someone came in and said to me, I said, I said, what's going on? And they said, I got one open belly mon.

[Assistant] Okay, hold on. For the listener, I didn't get that. Can you repeat that once again, Donna?

[User] I got one open belly mon.

[Assistant] I got one open belly mon. Okay, could you tell us what that means?

[User] That means I have diarrhea. I have an open belly, man.

[Assistant] Okay, I never would have guessed that one.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That means I have diarrhea. I have an open belly, man.

[Assistant] Okay, I never would have guessed that one.

[User] In other words, your belly is open and everything's coming out. You have diarrhea.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] Or I remember one.

[Assistant] How did you find that out?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] In other words, your belly is open and everything's coming out. You have diarrhea.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] Or I remember one.

[Assistant] How did you find that out?

[User] I had to keep asking the question. But they, that's how they would describe diarrhea. And I remember one fellow that came in that was injured, and I said, what happened? He said, I fell off she moto. I fell off of her motorcycle.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. That one kind of made sense. Okay. But did you say she moto?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I had to keep asking the question. But they, that's how they would describe diarrhea. And I remember one fellow that came in that was injured, and I said, what happened? He said, I fell off she moto. I fell off of her motorcycle.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. That one kind of made sense. Okay. But did you say she moto?

[User] She moto. Her motorcycle.

[Assistant] Oh. Her.

[User] Her motorcycle. Yeah.

[Assistant] Really. Okay. Okay.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But the rest of us. I had a couple of other helpers that helped in the, and they spoke, they spoke English, the Caribbean English.

[Assistant] She moto.

[User] She moto.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So, uh, yeah.

[Assistant] Okay. Tell us about your living conditions. Where did you live in Coxen Hole?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I lived in a wooden structure that was made out of plywood sheets on pier and beam.

[Assistant] On what?

[User] Pier and beam, just up off the ground.

[Assistant] Oh, okay.

[User] And there weren't any windows, there weren't any screens. There were just wooden shutters that opened and closed.

[Assistant] So an opening, I mean.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Pier and beam, just up off the ground.

[Assistant] Oh, okay.

[User] And there weren't any windows, there weren't any screens. There were just wooden shutters that opened and closed.

[Assistant] So an opening, I mean.

[User] Just an opening with a wooden shutter I could close. Yeah. And then the walls.

[Assistant] Any screens on your windows?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Just an opening with a wooden shutter I could close. Yeah. And then the walls.

[Assistant] Any screens on your windows?

[User] No screens. And the walls did not meet the roof. So there was about maybe a 4 to 5 inch opening. Which kind of was good.

[Assistant] For ventilation.

[User] Air path. However, everything, every varmint in the world came in too.

[Assistant] Can you tell us the varmints that came in?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Air path. However, everything, every varmint in the world came in too.

[Assistant] Can you tell us the varmints that came in?

[User] Yes. Well, I had a terrible rat problem for a while, and I had to hire some guys that were coming through town that said they were exterminators to get rid of my rats. It was good timing.

[Assistant] Yes, okay.

[User] And when they came into the house to get rid of the rats, a bunch of snakes slithered out of the house.

[Assistant] Do you know what kind of snakes?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. Well, I had a terrible rat problem for a while, and I had to hire some guys that were coming through town that said they were exterminators to get rid of my rats. It was good timing.

[Assistant] Yes, okay.

[User] And when they came into the house to get rid of the rats, a bunch of snakes slithered out of the house.

[Assistant] Do you know what kind of snakes?

[User] They were black. And I'm not sure. I don't think they were poisonous. But I didn't even know I had the snakes. But I had a semblance of a kitchen. There were these, there was a little row of cabinets, and they were underneath these cabinets.

[Assistant] The snakes were under the cabinets, okay.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So there was a snake nest under there. So whatever poison they used got rid of the snakes.

[Assistant] Also.

[User] And also some spiders came out too. And then that night the rats commenced to rattle around on the rafters. And I didn't have a ceiling, it was just rafters. And these rats were big and they were really, really bold. I remember playing a flashlight on them. You could see their red reflex in their eyes.

[Assistant] Really?

[User] And they just stared at me. It was like, I dare you.

[Assistant] Could you guess how long they might have been?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And also some spiders came out too. And then that night the rats commenced to rattle around on the rafters. And I didn't have a ceiling, it was just rafters. And these rats were big and they were really, really bold. I remember playing a flashlight on them. You could see their red reflex in their eyes.

[Assistant] Really?

[User] And they just stared at me. It was like, I dare you.

[Assistant] Could you guess how long they might have been?

[User] Oh my gosh, 12 inches? They were so huge.

[Assistant] Oh my gosh.