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

[User] No, no. But the French. So they had to they had to have some, some score. And I think there were some people that didn't make it. There were people who were worried about not making it. And I think there were a couple who didn't. And then there were, there was one I remember who dropped out, who just went home, but mostly those who came did it.

[Assistant] So you didn't have interviews with psychiatrists or psychologists?

[User] No, thank goodness. Apparently, they did do that earlier. Did you have that?

[Assistant] Oh yes.

[User] I might not have gotten in!

[Assistant] Oh my. We became very proficient in dealing with those interviews. Anyway, who ran, the person who was responsible for the academic portions of the training or content of it?


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

[User] No, thank goodness. Apparently, they did do that earlier. Did you have that?

[Assistant] Oh yes.

[User] I might not have gotten in!

[Assistant] Oh my. We became very proficient in dealing with those interviews. Anyway, who ran, the person who was responsible for the academic portions of the training or content of it?

[User] I can't tell you because I experienced it as kid, as a volunteer. So I don't know all of the hierarchy, but I believe, I know we used FSI materials, Foreign Service Institute. We used their training program, and we use their grading scale of one plus, two plus, three minus, that kind of stuff. And I believe we might have had their people come in to do the testing. I don't know. The teachers. We would, most of the day was spent in going to classes from one class to another. There'd be maybe 40 minutes of class and you have a five minute break, then you go to another class. And most of them were language training. Some were cross-cultural training and some were teaching you about to be a teacher. But the language training classes were mostly run by people from the Francophone countries. There were a couple of French people and I think they were all contract workers, but many of them did it a lot, so they knew each other. And then there were some former Peace Corps volunteers too, who were doing it. So it was a mishmash. In fact, when I finished Peace Corps, I became a trainer for about six months. It was a wonderful experience.

[Assistant] Oh, good, we'll talk about that later.


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

[User] I might not have gotten in!

[Assistant] Oh my. We became very proficient in dealing with those interviews. Anyway, who ran, the person who was responsible for the academic portions of the training or content of it?

[User] I can't tell you because I experienced it as kid, as a volunteer. So I don't know all of the hierarchy, but I believe, I know we used FSI materials, Foreign Service Institute. We used their training program, and we use their grading scale of one plus, two plus, three minus, that kind of stuff. And I believe we might have had their people come in to do the testing. I don't know. The teachers. We would, most of the day was spent in going to classes from one class to another. There'd be maybe 40 minutes of class and you have a five minute break, then you go to another class. And most of them were language training. Some were cross-cultural training and some were teaching you about to be a teacher. But the language training classes were mostly run by people from the Francophone countries. There were a couple of French people and I think they were all contract workers, but many of them did it a lot, so they knew each other. And then there were some former Peace Corps volunteers too, who were doing it. So it was a mishmash. In fact, when I finished Peace Corps, I became a trainer for about six months. It was a wonderful experience.

[Assistant] Oh, good, we'll talk about that later.

[User] So I don't know. I wasn't aware of a university that did it, but I don't think so. But I don't know.

[Assistant] Yeah. Were there courses about the history of, in your case, of Chad?


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

[User] So I don't know. I wasn't aware of a university that did it, but I don't think so. But I don't know.

[Assistant] Yeah. Were there courses about the history of, in your case, of Chad?

[User] Yes, I would say we had what we called cross-cultural training and that was there was some history involved, but the point of the training was to help us to be sensitive to another place, another culture when most of us had never been out of our own backyard, you know. And so they would try to teach us how people thought differently, how people acted differently than we might expect. And they would do that with historical and cultural roots. They wouldn't just say, well, these people are weird, they do this. This is how they came to speak French. This is how this is why they have this attitude towards school or something. So we would learn that. But it wasn't a history lesson, really. And we learned about the different regions of the country because we were allowed to choose where we wanted to go.

[Assistant] This is fabulous, wonderful.

[User] That was one of the nice things about being in a small group of 13 people we got we really they treated us like individuals. And so, yeah, we learned, we learned as much as I think you can learn. And with that part was done by the Chadians. So they were very good at like saying, you can't say that if you're in Chad, Jane. And saying why, you know, and it would just be very they were very open with us and they knew how to how to chastise us for not being culturally sensitive.

[Assistant] Can you give an example of something that an American might say or do that would be offensive in Chad?


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

[User] That was one of the nice things about being in a small group of 13 people we got we really they treated us like individuals. And so, yeah, we learned, we learned as much as I think you can learn. And with that part was done by the Chadians. So they were very good at like saying, you can't say that if you're in Chad, Jane. And saying why, you know, and it would just be very they were very open with us and they knew how to how to chastise us for not being culturally sensitive.

[Assistant] Can you give an example of something that an American might say or do that would be offensive in Chad?

[User] Oh my goodness. I can't think of it off the top of my head, I can think of. We were warned so often, and this was by the American Peace Corps people too, that we must not talk politics. And so there was a lot of political unrest in Chad then as there is now, and it was there was a virtual civil war starting in the country. And so they were very concerned that we not express an opinion in any political discussion and that we were kind of told that it's all, it's not any of your business, and it's all much more complicated than you can imagine. So as a teenager coming from the Vietnam War here, you're just going to want to jump right in and talk about what's fair and what's not. And these our Chadian teachers told us this, too. They said, you know, you just don't know how deeply the resentments lie and they're ethnic and they run along linguistic lines and racial lines. And you just you're going to be in a situation where people will want you to agree with them, and you just have to learn to listen politely and to answer noncommittally.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] And that was not something American students at that time knew how to do or even know now. But in the Vietnam era, it was. We were really activists.

[Assistant] Yes. And so did they tell you how to respond if Chadians were to ask you your opinion about the war in Vietnam?


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

[User] And they didn't say it, but I'm sure that was about CIA.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] Yeah, yeah. We all knew that. So, but no Americans I didn't know came to my town. It was pretty remote.

[Assistant] You've described a really excellent training program. What do you feel it gave you as much preparation as possible to do what you later did?

[User] I do. I really I really, really liked it. And I know training was very has been very uneven in different places over the years. This one was very well run it. It was out, it was out in the middle of nowhere, which is why they chose this place. It could have been. It was in Canada. Canada has nothing to do with Africa, but it's a French speaking country and it was very isolated. So we didn't have we didn't have a lot of distractions and we certainly didn't have any non-English speakers around aside from us later on. Then we did six weeks or two months of training in the country too. So we had this this language piece.

[Assistant] And how long did that last in Quebec?


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

[User] Yeah, yeah. We all knew that. So, but no Americans I didn't know came to my town. It was pretty remote.

[Assistant] You've described a really excellent training program. What do you feel it gave you as much preparation as possible to do what you later did?

[User] I do. I really I really, really liked it. And I know training was very has been very uneven in different places over the years. This one was very well run it. It was out, it was out in the middle of nowhere, which is why they chose this place. It could have been. It was in Canada. Canada has nothing to do with Africa, but it's a French speaking country and it was very isolated. So we didn't have we didn't have a lot of distractions and we certainly didn't have any non-English speakers around aside from us later on. Then we did six weeks or two months of training in the country too. So we had this this language piece.

[Assistant] And how long did that last in Quebec?

[User] Probably six weeks. And then I think there was, I think it was three months all together between Quebec and then we went into Africa. The bigger groups like when Ivory Coast went to Ivory Coast, but Niger and Chad went together and we went to Niger to do student teaching. And I think I think there was a month of that, maybe two months in Canada, a month in Niger.

[Assistant] So in Canada, you were learning about methods of teaching?


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

[User] I do. I really I really, really liked it. And I know training was very has been very uneven in different places over the years. This one was very well run it. It was out, it was out in the middle of nowhere, which is why they chose this place. It could have been. It was in Canada. Canada has nothing to do with Africa, but it's a French speaking country and it was very isolated. So we didn't have we didn't have a lot of distractions and we certainly didn't have any non-English speakers around aside from us later on. Then we did six weeks or two months of training in the country too. So we had this this language piece.

[Assistant] And how long did that last in Quebec?

[User] Probably six weeks. And then I think there was, I think it was three months all together between Quebec and then we went into Africa. The bigger groups like when Ivory Coast went to Ivory Coast, but Niger and Chad went together and we went to Niger to do student teaching. And I think I think there was a month of that, maybe two months in Canada, a month in Niger.

[Assistant] So in Canada, you were learning about methods of teaching?

[User] In Canada, we had, yeah. They had a Peace Corps method and the five point method all in English. They had it very well. They had very well organized. They knew that none of us were teachers or most of us and that we didn't have a clue. So they worked up this method that was based on oral proficiency, mainly because that's what they were into. But they did do all the four, reading, writing and everything. But it was taught to us by former volunteers who had taught. So I think it was a very practical introduction. It was a very good method because it was not dependent on materials on textbooks, and that was good because we didn't have any.

[Assistant] You didn't have textbooks.


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

[User] Probably six weeks. And then I think there was, I think it was three months all together between Quebec and then we went into Africa. The bigger groups like when Ivory Coast went to Ivory Coast, but Niger and Chad went together and we went to Niger to do student teaching. And I think I think there was a month of that, maybe two months in Canada, a month in Niger.

[Assistant] So in Canada, you were learning about methods of teaching?

[User] In Canada, we had, yeah. They had a Peace Corps method and the five point method all in English. They had it very well. They had very well organized. They knew that none of us were teachers or most of us and that we didn't have a clue. So they worked up this method that was based on oral proficiency, mainly because that's what they were into. But they did do all the four, reading, writing and everything. But it was taught to us by former volunteers who had taught. So I think it was a very practical introduction. It was a very good method because it was not dependent on materials on textbooks, and that was good because we didn't have any.

[Assistant] You didn't have textbooks.

[User] No. But it was made to teach you how to take how to make a lesson from nothing.

[Assistant] Oh, wonderful. Oh that's excellent.


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

[User] In Canada, we had, yeah. They had a Peace Corps method and the five point method all in English. They had it very well. They had very well organized. They knew that none of us were teachers or most of us and that we didn't have a clue. So they worked up this method that was based on oral proficiency, mainly because that's what they were into. But they did do all the four, reading, writing and everything. But it was taught to us by former volunteers who had taught. So I think it was a very practical introduction. It was a very good method because it was not dependent on materials on textbooks, and that was good because we didn't have any.

[Assistant] You didn't have textbooks.

[User] No. But it was made to teach you how to take how to make a lesson from nothing.

[Assistant] Oh, wonderful. Oh that's excellent.

[User] So I've always spent all my life as a teacher. People argue about textbooks and I just tune out, you know, give me whatever you want. I'll make. I'll do it.

[Assistant] You're going to do what you know how to do. Your six weeks or so in Quebec comes to an end. Do you get to go home before flying overseas?


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

[User] No. But it was made to teach you how to take how to make a lesson from nothing.

[Assistant] Oh, wonderful. Oh that's excellent.

[User] So I've always spent all my life as a teacher. People argue about textbooks and I just tune out, you know, give me whatever you want. I'll make. I'll do it.

[Assistant] You're going to do what you know how to do. Your six weeks or so in Quebec comes to an end. Do you get to go home before flying overseas?

[User] We had a break. It's like three days. We were going out of New York, so they got us to New York and I met my family there. We could do what we wanted to do for three days in New York.

[Assistant] Three days in New York. But this isn't going home to go shopping.


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

[User] So I've always spent all my life as a teacher. People argue about textbooks and I just tune out, you know, give me whatever you want. I'll make. I'll do it.

[Assistant] You're going to do what you know how to do. Your six weeks or so in Quebec comes to an end. Do you get to go home before flying overseas?

[User] We had a break. It's like three days. We were going out of New York, so they got us to New York and I met my family there. We could do what we wanted to do for three days in New York.

[Assistant] Three days in New York. But this isn't going home to go shopping.

[User] Well, you could, I suppose, if that's what you wanted, if you had the funds to do it.

[Assistant] So but you had arrived in Quebec with all the clothes you were going to take with you to Chad. Wow.


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

[User] We had a break. It's like three days. We were going out of New York, so they got us to New York and I met my family there. We could do what we wanted to do for three days in New York.

[Assistant] Three days in New York. But this isn't going home to go shopping.

[User] Well, you could, I suppose, if that's what you wanted, if you had the funds to do it.

[Assistant] So but you had arrived in Quebec with all the clothes you were going to take with you to Chad. Wow.

[User] Mm hmm. With everything. And so but in New York, my parents came up from Washington and they we stayed in a hotel and we went to see Fiddler on the Roof. We never went to New York. It was a big deal, so it was like a big kind of celebration to see me off, and that was nice.

[Assistant] The boyfriend came too?


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

[User] Well, you could, I suppose, if that's what you wanted, if you had the funds to do it.

[Assistant] So but you had arrived in Quebec with all the clothes you were going to take with you to Chad. Wow.

[User] Mm hmm. With everything. And so but in New York, my parents came up from Washington and they we stayed in a hotel and we went to see Fiddler on the Roof. We never went to New York. It was a big deal, so it was like a big kind of celebration to see me off, and that was nice.

[Assistant] The boyfriend came too?

[User] Oh no, he was not. He was out of the picture.

[Assistant] It was just you and your parent in New York together. Three days sounds about right.


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

[User] Mm hmm. With everything. And so but in New York, my parents came up from Washington and they we stayed in a hotel and we went to see Fiddler on the Roof. We never went to New York. It was a big deal, so it was like a big kind of celebration to see me off, and that was nice.

[Assistant] The boyfriend came too?

[User] Oh no, he was not. He was out of the picture.

[Assistant] It was just you and your parent in New York together. Three days sounds about right.

[User] It was good. Yeah, I believe that at least one of those days I had bad diarrhea, which was kind of a thing. You know, showing what's going on, what lies ahead. I think I was sick for part of the time.

[Assistant] And then you say goodbye to your parents and you go to the airport. Which airport would that have been?


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

[User] Oh no, he was not. He was out of the picture.

[Assistant] It was just you and your parent in New York together. Three days sounds about right.

[User] It was good. Yeah, I believe that at least one of those days I had bad diarrhea, which was kind of a thing. You know, showing what's going on, what lies ahead. I think I was sick for part of the time.

[Assistant] And then you say goodbye to your parents and you go to the airport. Which airport would that have been?

[User] I have no idea. I didn't know New York. You could have taken me. I didn't know. I was at an airport with a bunch of kids. It was a full full of Peace Corps volunteers. The whole plane. And I know we saw Dr. Zhivago on the plane as the film and we had like an 18 hour stopover in Paris. And we got off the plane. We were dead tired. Nobody had slept the night before. Nobody had slept on the plane. We were dead tired, but we went out. I had something written in my diary about this. And we just went out through the town and went, saw everything, saw everything we'd ever heard of. And then we got back on the plane and went to Chad. Well, we went to Niger and then we stayed a month there.

[Assistant] So in Niamey?


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

[User] No, it's the what they call the vax, wax. I have a bunch of it in there I can show you. It's the same as in Nigeria I think. It's a print and it's done. The good ones were done at that time in Holland, and they were done with the same techniques that Indonesia used the wax, the wax technique and that had been brought from Indonesia to Holland down to Africa. And so everybody wanted this one kind of material because it was well, it didn't run, you know. They were prints.

[Assistant] Is it a kind of cotton?

[User] Yeah, it was all cotton.

[Assistant] And what colors?

[User] Oh, bright, vibrant. Probably the same thing you were used to in Nigeria and a very, very beautiful patterns. A lot of geometric things, a lot of patterns. I loved it. I really loved it. And the ones that I thought were so were funny. I don't think I bought any. But every time they would have any kind of celebration or somebody would visit the country, they would make a special cloth with that person's name on it. So you would see them. And I just remember one time the Pope. This was on a later visit to Africa years later. But the Pope had visited Senegal, I think, and I saw a woman in the market and she had the Pope's face right on her. But, you know, and it was just so funny to me. I didn't say anything, but I was just I just loved it. I loved how people wore people's faces and things so well.

[Assistant] Now, tell us how you bargained for it. You did an excellent job on your first, how did you do it?


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

[User] Yeah, it was all cotton.

[Assistant] And what colors?

[User] Oh, bright, vibrant. Probably the same thing you were used to in Nigeria and a very, very beautiful patterns. A lot of geometric things, a lot of patterns. I loved it. I really loved it. And the ones that I thought were so were funny. I don't think I bought any. But every time they would have any kind of celebration or somebody would visit the country, they would make a special cloth with that person's name on it. So you would see them. And I just remember one time the Pope. This was on a later visit to Africa years later. But the Pope had visited Senegal, I think, and I saw a woman in the market and she had the Pope's face right on her. But, you know, and it was just so funny to me. I didn't say anything, but I was just I just loved it. I loved how people wore people's faces and things so well.

[Assistant] Now, tell us how you bargained for it. You did an excellent job on your first, how did you do it?

[User] He told me, he said, first of all, you have to. I think I might have been with another African too. A Peace Corps returned volunteer who knew the deal and then another African, probably from Niger. And they told me they said, OK, you look at the cloth, but you don't zero in on anything, especially if you see something you like. Do not take any time to look at it. Just kind of it's there, but you can look at you can say, oh this is nice or that one's nice. Could I see this one? And meanwhile, you're getting an idea of what you're interested in and you start talking about the price. And you say, well, I don't have much money, but I think I would like to buy 500 meters of this and they would have. I don't know. And they say, oh well, what would you like to pay? So you're supposed to give the first price.

[Assistant] Oh so you begin? Oh dear.


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

[User] Maybe, except I would have they would have gotten a much better price than. I was sure. I always I knew that I was paying more, but I also knew that I had a lot more money than anybody else. But I just didn't want to be paying more than I needed to because I didn't have a lot of money.

[Assistant] And all of this was part of training.

[User] Yes. Well, that's, it was all. We were surrounded by people with experience and who knew what we needed both. It was good to have American and African trainers, and they all worked together. They all we grew up, we grew together as a cross-cultural community and at nights we would, you know, sit around and ask each other questions that we knew we wouldn't be able to ask to anybody else, that we weren't close to us.

[Assistant] So you were making good friends among the volunteers that you were training with?

[User] Yeah. But then we didn't see each other. We all went to separate town.

[Assistant] Ok. Once training ended, you were spread out. When you were in Niamey for that part of training, where did you live?


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

[User] I remember we had a big ceremony for the end of the summer school for the kids, and it may have been altogether. I don't know. The one I remember was the prize giving ceremony, and it was really very nice. We gave them prizes and everybody spoke about how much we loved each other. And it was nice. Then I don't know about. I know, I know I was sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer somewhere by somebody, but I don't know whether it was in Niger or in Fort Lamy. Fort Lamy was the name of the French name of the capital at that time.

[Assistant] Of Quebec?

[User] Of Chad.

[Assistant] Of Chad. Oh, that's right, because then you had to go on from Niamey to Chad.

[User] Well, then we had to go to Chad and we had like a week of staging there where we got to meet the director and the doctor and the different personnel. And then then we went up to our post. So it was probably, I think we met the ambassador during that time. I think that's when we were sworn in, but that was not a big deal. I, you know, that was maybe a big deal for them, but not for me. I mean.

[Assistant] So this is the capital of Chad at that time, Fort Lamy.


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

[User] Of Chad.

[Assistant] Of Chad. Oh, that's right, because then you had to go on from Niamey to Chad.

[User] Well, then we had to go to Chad and we had like a week of staging there where we got to meet the director and the doctor and the different personnel. And then then we went up to our post. So it was probably, I think we met the ambassador during that time. I think that's when we were sworn in, but that was not a big deal. I, you know, that was maybe a big deal for them, but not for me. I mean.

[Assistant] So this is the capital of Chad at that time, Fort Lamy.

[User] Now they call it N'Djamena. They've changed it. They Africanized it right after I left, but Fort Lamy was what I always knew it as. And the thing that impressed that I remember most, I don't remember the swearing in ceremony, but I remember the doctor we had. Back then they had a lot of resources. They had one doctor for, for the volunteers in the country. And he told us, he said, any of you girls who are not on birth control, I want you to take some pills with you. And he said, And I want you to, if you just let me know when you need them, we will make sure that you have them. And I was like, no, no adult had ever given me any kind of permission to like, even talk about sex up until then. Not that I hadn't done it, but this was not something that you, you know, that a person in authority offering me birth control pills was one of the biggest shocks of my life, but it was very smart.

[Assistant] Smart and assuming and giving you credit for being a fully mature adult human being.


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

[User] Well, then we had to go to Chad and we had like a week of staging there where we got to meet the director and the doctor and the different personnel. And then then we went up to our post. So it was probably, I think we met the ambassador during that time. I think that's when we were sworn in, but that was not a big deal. I, you know, that was maybe a big deal for them, but not for me. I mean.

[Assistant] So this is the capital of Chad at that time, Fort Lamy.

[User] Now they call it N'Djamena. They've changed it. They Africanized it right after I left, but Fort Lamy was what I always knew it as. And the thing that impressed that I remember most, I don't remember the swearing in ceremony, but I remember the doctor we had. Back then they had a lot of resources. They had one doctor for, for the volunteers in the country. And he told us, he said, any of you girls who are not on birth control, I want you to take some pills with you. And he said, And I want you to, if you just let me know when you need them, we will make sure that you have them. And I was like, no, no adult had ever given me any kind of permission to like, even talk about sex up until then. Not that I hadn't done it, but this was not something that you, you know, that a person in authority offering me birth control pills was one of the biggest shocks of my life, but it was very smart.

[Assistant] Smart and assuming and giving you credit for being a fully mature adult human being.

[User] He was way ahead of his time.

[Assistant] You're not a teenager anymore.


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

[User] Now they call it N'Djamena. They've changed it. They Africanized it right after I left, but Fort Lamy was what I always knew it as. And the thing that impressed that I remember most, I don't remember the swearing in ceremony, but I remember the doctor we had. Back then they had a lot of resources. They had one doctor for, for the volunteers in the country. And he told us, he said, any of you girls who are not on birth control, I want you to take some pills with you. And he said, And I want you to, if you just let me know when you need them, we will make sure that you have them. And I was like, no, no adult had ever given me any kind of permission to like, even talk about sex up until then. Not that I hadn't done it, but this was not something that you, you know, that a person in authority offering me birth control pills was one of the biggest shocks of my life, but it was very smart.

[Assistant] Smart and assuming and giving you credit for being a fully mature adult human being.

[User] He was way ahead of his time.

[Assistant] You're not a teenager anymore.

[User] It was great and it was in the Peace Corps' best interest too, let me tell you.

[Assistant] Of course. So then your staging time in Fort Lamy was finished and you moved to the place where you were going to spend two years working, living and working as a Peace Corps volunteer? What was that place?


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

[User] He was way ahead of his time.

[Assistant] You're not a teenager anymore.

[User] It was great and it was in the Peace Corps' best interest too, let me tell you.

[Assistant] Of course. So then your staging time in Fort Lamy was finished and you moved to the place where you were going to spend two years working, living and working as a Peace Corps volunteer? What was that place?

[User] It was called Abéché.

[Assistant] Abéché. And how did you get to Abéché?


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

[User] It was great and it was in the Peace Corps' best interest too, let me tell you.

[Assistant] Of course. So then your staging time in Fort Lamy was finished and you moved to the place where you were going to spend two years working, living and working as a Peace Corps volunteer? What was that place?

[User] It was called Abéché.

[Assistant] Abéché. And how did you get to Abéché?

[User] I took a plane. You had to.

[Assistant] Oh, so it's pretty far away.


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

[User] It was called Abéché.

[Assistant] Abéché. And how did you get to Abéché?

[User] I took a plane. You had to.

[Assistant] Oh, so it's pretty far away.

[User] It was far away and it was, there was danger at the time on the roads. There were armed marauders on the roads.

[Assistant] Which is one of the reasons why you'd fly.


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

[User] I took a plane. You had to.

[Assistant] Oh, so it's pretty far away.

[User] It was far away and it was, there was danger at the time on the roads. There were armed marauders on the roads.

[Assistant] Which is one of the reasons why you'd fly.

[User] They wouldn't let us go on the road.

[Assistant] And Chad is a huge.


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

[User] It was far away and it was, there was danger at the time on the roads. There were armed marauders on the roads.

[Assistant] Which is one of the reasons why you'd fly.

[User] They wouldn't let us go on the road.

[Assistant] And Chad is a huge.

[User] Chad is a big country. It's huge. So it would take several days otherwise. Yeah.

[Assistant] And where in Chad is Abéché?


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

[User] Yeah. I was. That was all I had.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. But when you got up to Abéché, you have to bargain in Chadian Arabic?

[User] That's the only Chadian Arabic I knew. I tried very hard to learn Chadian Arabic and I had a tutor come to my house and everything. But I just I just my tutor didn't know what I didn't know, wasn't trained as a teacher. And I didn't know. I didn't know what to do so. And the people who learned the Arabic were those who, the volunteers were, those who didn't come with very good French. But if you went with good French like I did everybody, everybody in my profession, if you're in schooling, everybody spoke French, they could. So they would just speak French with you because it was easy. Nobody was going to take the time to to worry about, you know. So the only times that I was in only Chadian Arabic speaking groups was when I went to a colleague's house for dinner, say, and they would put me with the women to eat. And that's that was one of the big motivators for me because I wanted to speak to them. They usually would put me with the men at the beginning, and I'd say, you know, I'm not a man, you know, I feel funny in. But you're a teacher, right? You know, all of this. And so I felt like I had arrived when I got put with the women, but then I couldn't say anything. So I tried very hard to learn and I did. I did know, some and I certainly knew enough to bargain in the market.

[Assistant] That's great.

[User] I think I've forgotten it all, but I was, yeah, I was able to do it.

[Assistant] Well, let's talk about where you lived. And then later we'll go to school and talk about your job as a Peace Corps volunteer. But you took, you flew from Fort Lamy into Abéché. Did someone meet you at the airport?


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

[User] The prefect's office, the government.

[Assistant] OK.

[User] The governor's office, yeah. And found me a government house government owned house that was across from the market. It was very nice.

[Assistant] So in town, you're not on the school compound, you're in town.

[User] Mm hmm. And I liked it. It had electricity. It had a sink with cold water. It, I think it had a shower. It didn't have. It had an outhouse in the back, but it was fine. I liked it. It was very loud because it was across, right across from the camel market. And, you know, camels are very loud. And on the other side was a bar that played Arabic music all night long. So it was it was very loud, but otherwise it was. It was a good place to live.

[Assistant] And did you do your own cooking?


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

[User] Mm hmm. And I liked it. It had electricity. It had a sink with cold water. It, I think it had a shower. It didn't have. It had an outhouse in the back, but it was fine. I liked it. It was very loud because it was across, right across from the camel market. And, you know, camels are very loud. And on the other side was a bar that played Arabic music all night long. So it was it was very loud, but otherwise it was. It was a good place to live.

[Assistant] And did you do your own cooking?

[User] No, I that was one of the big shocks to me is that I didn't really know what I was going to do. They did provide you a refrigerator. That was one, they would let you have a refrigerator and Mobylette, a motorbike.

[Assistant] Oh!

[User] Yeah, that was, those were the two things Peace Corps gave you.

[Assistant] Oh, Peace Corps gave you them.


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

[User] No, I that was one of the big shocks to me is that I didn't really know what I was going to do. They did provide you a refrigerator. That was one, they would let you have a refrigerator and Mobylette, a motorbike.

[Assistant] Oh!

[User] Yeah, that was, those were the two things Peace Corps gave you.

[Assistant] Oh, Peace Corps gave you them.

[User] And so we all could have that if we wanted. And when I got when I got up there, I had a note from somebody that said, the Peace Corps volunteer who was here before, Ed Lowe, said the refrigerator is at so and so's house and she knows she's supposed to give it to you. So I, you know, I don't know what to do about this, and he said, well, I'll ask her to come over. So she came over one day. It turns out she was a prostitute that he had been living with, and he left her the refrigerator.

[Assistant] And this is a Chadian woman?


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

[User] Yeah, that was, those were the two things Peace Corps gave you.

[Assistant] Oh, Peace Corps gave you them.

[User] And so we all could have that if we wanted. And when I got when I got up there, I had a note from somebody that said, the Peace Corps volunteer who was here before, Ed Lowe, said the refrigerator is at so and so's house and she knows she's supposed to give it to you. So I, you know, I don't know what to do about this, and he said, well, I'll ask her to come over. So she came over one day. It turns out she was a prostitute that he had been living with, and he left her the refrigerator.

[Assistant] And this is a Chadian woman?

[User]
Mm hmm. And so I didn't want to take a refrigerator from her. You know, it's like, Oh, it's also the last thing I was. But anyway, we wound up being pretty good friends. It turned out, actually, that the prostitutes in town were the ones that I could talk with because they had some French. They, you know, they worked with a lot. We had a lot of French soldiers in town. We had we had an army base, so. So anyway, they were real nice. I remember every once in a while my mother would say, What can I? What can I send you? And I'd say, send earrings, you know, because they were they were cheap and they're easy to send. So I always had earrings for my prostitute friends and it was fun. But anyway, I don't think I ever got the refrigerator, but I did get a Mobylette and that was nice.

And so that was the first year, the second year I was a little disappointed because I was living in by myself and I had to have a cook. I had to hire a cook.

[Assistant] I was going to ask you, the first year too you hired a cook?


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] It was provided by the local government.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] Ok. Peace Corps didn't pay for it either, right? It was part of the deal. You get a Peace Corps volunteer if you provide housing.

[User] I don't know if I think it might have been a different deal with every, every site. I mean, they probably had it. They negotiated whatever it was and the second year, I'm pretty sure I paid something, but it was very small. I just looked up today. I was looking through some of my Peace Corps souvenirs before you came in. I found a letter that it said every month they sent me 30,000 francs from Peace Corps in the capital, and that is 50 dollars.

[Assistant] That was at that time anyway, 50 dollars a month.


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

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] Ok. Peace Corps didn't pay for it either, right? It was part of the deal. You get a Peace Corps volunteer if you provide housing.

[User] I don't know if I think it might have been a different deal with every, every site. I mean, they probably had it. They negotiated whatever it was and the second year, I'm pretty sure I paid something, but it was very small. I just looked up today. I was looking through some of my Peace Corps souvenirs before you came in. I found a letter that it said every month they sent me 30,000 francs from Peace Corps in the capital, and that is 50 dollars.

[Assistant] That was at that time anyway, 50 dollars a month.

[User] Well, that's what it is now. So oh, so it would have been the equivalent.

[Assistant] Yes, that's exactly what I got, the equivalent of $50 a month, which was more than adequate.


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

[User] I don't know if I think it might have been a different deal with every, every site. I mean, they probably had it. They negotiated whatever it was and the second year, I'm pretty sure I paid something, but it was very small. I just looked up today. I was looking through some of my Peace Corps souvenirs before you came in. I found a letter that it said every month they sent me 30,000 francs from Peace Corps in the capital, and that is 50 dollars.

[Assistant] That was at that time anyway, 50 dollars a month.

[User] Well, that's what it is now. So oh, so it would have been the equivalent.

[Assistant] Yes, that's exactly what I got, the equivalent of $50 a month, which was more than adequate.

[User] I had money left over to buy lots of cloth. I really did not, I wanted this life of voluntary poverty, but I didn't get it. It turns out it's hard for an American to become poor and in the rest of the, or at least at that time. It was hard for a middle class American to do it. So yeah, things didn't cost anything. And so I had quite a bit of money.

[Assistant] So in in your second. Well, let's wait to talk about the second year. Let's begin. I have all kinds of questions I want to ask you about the family you were living with, but let's go to school now. You've arrived. When did you start teaching, when you were still living in the in the guest house or?


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

[User] Well, that's what it is now. So oh, so it would have been the equivalent.

[Assistant] Yes, that's exactly what I got, the equivalent of $50 a month, which was more than adequate.

[User] I had money left over to buy lots of cloth. I really did not, I wanted this life of voluntary poverty, but I didn't get it. It turns out it's hard for an American to become poor and in the rest of the, or at least at that time. It was hard for a middle class American to do it. So yeah, things didn't cost anything. And so I had quite a bit of money.

[Assistant] So in in your second. Well, let's wait to talk about the second year. Let's begin. I have all kinds of questions I want to ask you about the family you were living with, but let's go to school now. You've arrived. When did you start teaching, when you were still living in the in the guest house or?

[User] I don't think so.

[Assistant] Did you have some time to settle in kind of?


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

[User] I had money left over to buy lots of cloth. I really did not, I wanted this life of voluntary poverty, but I didn't get it. It turns out it's hard for an American to become poor and in the rest of the, or at least at that time. It was hard for a middle class American to do it. So yeah, things didn't cost anything. And so I had quite a bit of money.

[Assistant] So in in your second. Well, let's wait to talk about the second year. Let's begin. I have all kinds of questions I want to ask you about the family you were living with, but let's go to school now. You've arrived. When did you start teaching, when you were still living in the in the guest house or?

[User] I don't think so.

[Assistant] Did you have some time to settle in kind of?

[User]
It's vague in my mind. Since that time I have been involved in teaching in different places in Africa as well as in France. And the biggest difference in our system and those is that nobody quite knows when school starts. Even in France, I mean, I went there for graduate school for a year and I kept trying to find out where is the course and what am I going to take? When do the classes start? Nobody knew. Like, it just happens. So this was the French system in Africa which made it even more informal. So it was like whenever the students show up or about this time.

So I think I arrived probably in late August, early September, and I don't think school started until sometime in October, but nobody really knew it'll happen. But not today, maybe not tomorrow. So but it just somehow happened. And so I did have time to get acclimated to this, get to know people. It was good.

[Assistant] So let's go to school. How far from your apartment, across the street from the market, to the lycee where you taught?


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

[User] I don't think so.

[Assistant] Did you have some time to settle in kind of?

[User]
It's vague in my mind. Since that time I have been involved in teaching in different places in Africa as well as in France. And the biggest difference in our system and those is that nobody quite knows when school starts. Even in France, I mean, I went there for graduate school for a year and I kept trying to find out where is the course and what am I going to take? When do the classes start? Nobody knew. Like, it just happens. So this was the French system in Africa which made it even more informal. So it was like whenever the students show up or about this time.

So I think I arrived probably in late August, early September, and I don't think school started until sometime in October, but nobody really knew it'll happen. But not today, maybe not tomorrow. So but it just somehow happened. And so I did have time to get acclimated to this, get to know people. It was good.

[Assistant] So let's go to school. How far from your apartment, across the street from the market, to the lycee where you taught?

[User] I took my motorbike. It was walkable, but it would have been a 40 minute walk, maybe 30, five, 40 minute walk. And it was very hot, you remember? So the motorbike was a blessing. And the second year I was living right near it.

[Assistant] So you get on your, what did you call it, a Mobylette?


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

[User]
It's vague in my mind. Since that time I have been involved in teaching in different places in Africa as well as in France. And the biggest difference in our system and those is that nobody quite knows when school starts. Even in France, I mean, I went there for graduate school for a year and I kept trying to find out where is the course and what am I going to take? When do the classes start? Nobody knew. Like, it just happens. So this was the French system in Africa which made it even more informal. So it was like whenever the students show up or about this time.

So I think I arrived probably in late August, early September, and I don't think school started until sometime in October, but nobody really knew it'll happen. But not today, maybe not tomorrow. So but it just somehow happened. And so I did have time to get acclimated to this, get to know people. It was good.

[Assistant] So let's go to school. How far from your apartment, across the street from the market, to the lycee where you taught?

[User] I took my motorbike. It was walkable, but it would have been a 40 minute walk, maybe 30, five, 40 minute walk. And it was very hot, you remember? So the motorbike was a blessing. And the second year I was living right near it.

[Assistant] So you get on your, what did you call it, a Mobylette?

[User] Mobylette.

[Assistant] Your Mobylette and you arrive at the school, describe the school.


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

[User] Mobylette.

[Assistant] Your Mobylette and you arrive at the school, describe the school.

[User] The school was one of the most impressive buildings in town, I think, with next to the mosque and it was next to the mosque. It was the most impressive building in town. It was a school that served a wide area. People came from all over to go to this school and they had boarding there. They had some boarding students, but also a lot of families would send their kids to live with relatives in the town and go there, so it drew from a wide region. And it was called the Lycèe Franco-Arabe d'Abéché. So it was French and Arabic, and it was half and half. They had different the different administrations on each side. They had different teaching staffs and they had different, I think the student bodies were different, too. I think there might have been some way that they took courses. Some of the students took courses in one part and the other, but they were pretty separate places. And in one place the teaching was all in Arabic and it was done by people. I don't know, I don't really know who they were. We didn't know them. We didn't have much to do with them. They might have been some people from the Middle East and some people from Chad, but all the instruction was in Arabic and it was geared towards the Middle East like these students were if they went to college afterwards, they were going to go to Sudan or Egypt or someplace like that. And ours was geared towards France and they were going to go, if they went to college, they would go to France. We didn't have a college in our country.

[Assistant] In Chad?

[User] They do now, but we didn't then.

[Assistant] And these were all men or women or a mixture?


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

[User] They do now, but we didn't then.

[Assistant] And these were all men or women or a mixture?

[User] The students? The students, they were mostly men. In the Arabic section, they probably were all men, I don't know. But in the in my section, I might have had one girl per class.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] And I would have a class of 45 or 50 students and there'd be one girl. That was very, very interesting because they tended to be the children of wealthy people and people who had probably had some Western education and wanted their kids to have education. It was a very hard thing for them because they were in an environment where, I mean, most of them, I think, were seen by the other kids as prostitutes. They were not well treated. And so a lot of them got pregnant early and they became a self-fulfilling prophecy that any time you send your girls to school, you ruin her. You know, she goes out, you send girls to school, they go out and then they get corrupted. And it would happen because that's the situation when you have one girl with 45 boys who aren't used to having a girl around.

[Assistant] Yes. And so she was either living in a dorm or?


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

[User] The students? The students, they were mostly men. In the Arabic section, they probably were all men, I don't know. But in the in my section, I might have had one girl per class.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] And I would have a class of 45 or 50 students and there'd be one girl. That was very, very interesting because they tended to be the children of wealthy people and people who had probably had some Western education and wanted their kids to have education. It was a very hard thing for them because they were in an environment where, I mean, most of them, I think, were seen by the other kids as prostitutes. They were not well treated. And so a lot of them got pregnant early and they became a self-fulfilling prophecy that any time you send your girls to school, you ruin her. You know, she goes out, you send girls to school, they go out and then they get corrupted. And it would happen because that's the situation when you have one girl with 45 boys who aren't used to having a girl around.

[Assistant] Yes. And so she was either living in a dorm or?

[User] She probably came from home. She would live with relatives.

[Assistant] And the relatives may or may not feel parental responsibility.


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

[User] And I would have a class of 45 or 50 students and there'd be one girl. That was very, very interesting because they tended to be the children of wealthy people and people who had probably had some Western education and wanted their kids to have education. It was a very hard thing for them because they were in an environment where, I mean, most of them, I think, were seen by the other kids as prostitutes. They were not well treated. And so a lot of them got pregnant early and they became a self-fulfilling prophecy that any time you send your girls to school, you ruin her. You know, she goes out, you send girls to school, they go out and then they get corrupted. And it would happen because that's the situation when you have one girl with 45 boys who aren't used to having a girl around.

[Assistant] Yes. And so she was either living in a dorm or?

[User] She probably came from home. She would live with relatives.

[Assistant] And the relatives may or may not feel parental responsibility.

[User] Well, even if they did, once you let them, they weren't prepared to let their girls out of the house. This society. The girls stayed home. And if they went out, it was accompanied by a family member, male usually, or maybe women would go to the market and things. But they didn't. A 13 year old girl, didn't walk around on her own. And these kids, they just they were put in a situation where they had no support. But I don't believe their families knew what to do or even knew what was going to happen to them. And I think it was probably one of the hardest situations. I'm not saying they all got pregnant, but they just were very much fish out of water.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. And there was really no one in their family to guide them to tell them what sort of behavior was okay?


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

[User] She probably came from home. She would live with relatives.

[Assistant] And the relatives may or may not feel parental responsibility.

[User] Well, even if they did, once you let them, they weren't prepared to let their girls out of the house. This society. The girls stayed home. And if they went out, it was accompanied by a family member, male usually, or maybe women would go to the market and things. But they didn't. A 13 year old girl, didn't walk around on her own. And these kids, they just they were put in a situation where they had no support. But I don't believe their families knew what to do or even knew what was going to happen to them. And I think it was probably one of the hardest situations. I'm not saying they all got pregnant, but they just were very much fish out of water.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. And there was really no one in their family to guide them to tell them what sort of behavior was okay?

[User] None of the women had probably been to school, and you know, it's so different if you if you're in a place like, if even in the capital city, probably that would have been different. There would have been some women who had, would have been more women in the school and there would have been more guidance. But in Abéché, it was a very, very different kind of situation. And chances are, they may have been another north south thing. They may have been daughters of bureaucrats in town because those were mostly from the South. Those were people who had been educated in French when the French were there and were ready to take over those posts in independence. So like the postmaster's daughter, it might be her. And then she's not only the only girl, but the only person of her tribe, of her ethnicity. I mean, this is totally alone. Isolation, yeah. But anyway, I either did or didn't have one girl in a class.

[Assistant] And so you step into the classroom and the kids are there, they stand up when you walk into the room.


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

[User] Well, see, I had been ready for them to be very passive and very, not passive, but very polite. Everybody had said this. They said, Jane, when you go to Chad, they are all going to stand up. They're going to call you Madame. They're going to just they're going to do everything to please you. Turns out that's what the kids in the South did, but not in my town.

[Assistant] Oh, so what was it like?

[User] It was horrible. It's everything they said it wasn't going to be. And I was five feet tall. I was 21 years old. And these kids were, the older ones were almost my age, you know, and they were tall and they were Muslim and they were. And they didn't have any idea who I was or what I was doing there. And I didn't know either. It's like, why am I teaching English to these kids? What the hell is this about, you know? But they told me to do it, and they told those guys to take it. So here we were, and so I tried. And it's very, the classroom management was a problem from the beginning because there's that many students, we had no materials and I did my best to give good lessons. But if somebody didn't want to listen or if somebody got up and walked around or did anything, I didn't I didn't have any authority. I didn't know how to do anything.

[Assistant] And you're a woman.

[User] Of course.

[Assistant] And you're speaking to them in the language that they don't understand.


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

[User] It was horrible. It's everything they said it wasn't going to be. And I was five feet tall. I was 21 years old. And these kids were, the older ones were almost my age, you know, and they were tall and they were Muslim and they were. And they didn't have any idea who I was or what I was doing there. And I didn't know either. It's like, why am I teaching English to these kids? What the hell is this about, you know? But they told me to do it, and they told those guys to take it. So here we were, and so I tried. And it's very, the classroom management was a problem from the beginning because there's that many students, we had no materials and I did my best to give good lessons. But if somebody didn't want to listen or if somebody got up and walked around or did anything, I didn't I didn't have any authority. I didn't know how to do anything.

[Assistant] And you're a woman.

[User] Of course.

[Assistant] And you're speaking to them in the language that they don't understand.

[User] And they didn't have any idea why they were learning English, and a few of them did. I'm speaking in generalities. I had a few really wonderful students who were great, but it was a very bad discipline situation and I had a lot of problems. One time I walked, I went out to the parking lot to get my motorbike and somebody had slashed my tires. So I was really awful. I hated that.

[Assistant] Oh! That was a bad day.


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

[User] And then one time I had a class go on strike. And that's big, big stuff. And they went on strike because they thought I had been unfair to one of the students who had been sick and I hadn't graded his test right or something, I don't know. And so it was the head of the lycee told me to stay away from school for a while until they straightened it out. And so I did. I went home. I was scared to death. I didn't know what to do. And then they finally had me come in and meet with the representatives of the class. And it was kind of humiliating. But I got back, but my headmaster provisoire, they called him. He didn't like me from the beginning, so he was not very helpful in solving this. He was from India.

[Assistant] Oy.

[User] And they had this, there's, I don't know if you had people like that in Nigeria, but there's a group of Indians who speak French from, I think, Pondicherry. It's a very small part of India that was colonized by the French, and they grow up learning in French and they're Indian. And so so they're very, they're more French than the French. Very, very proud of their achievements. And so he was in the French colonial system and he had a big post as a producer and he thought very well of himself. He was a big fish in a little pond and I was not probably as respectful. I'm sure I was not as respectful as I should have been or as he thought I should have been. And I didn't know all the etiquette. I was more concerned with etiquette with the Chadian people, and I didn't pay enough attention to this relationship. And so anyway, he didn't like me. But so that was that was hard. But I did wind up having overall a good experience in the classroom. It was just hard.

[Assistant] How many different classes did you have to teach in a day?

[User] Probably five.

[Assistant] Oh, that's a lot.


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

[User] And they had this, there's, I don't know if you had people like that in Nigeria, but there's a group of Indians who speak French from, I think, Pondicherry. It's a very small part of India that was colonized by the French, and they grow up learning in French and they're Indian. And so so they're very, they're more French than the French. Very, very proud of their achievements. And so he was in the French colonial system and he had a big post as a producer and he thought very well of himself. He was a big fish in a little pond and I was not probably as respectful. I'm sure I was not as respectful as I should have been or as he thought I should have been. And I didn't know all the etiquette. I was more concerned with etiquette with the Chadian people, and I didn't pay enough attention to this relationship. And so anyway, he didn't like me. But so that was that was hard. But I did wind up having overall a good experience in the classroom. It was just hard.

[Assistant] How many different classes did you have to teach in a day?

[User] Probably five.

[Assistant] Oh, that's a lot.

[User] Oh yeah.

[Assistant] And the same, were the all five classes the same? Or were they different?


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

[User] Oh yeah.

[Assistant] And the same, were the all five classes the same? Or were they different?

[User] No, there were different preparations. You know, the beginning and later and they had, I mean, they were all. It was quite a system. They had to follow the French curriculum. So in the French curriculum, everybody takes from the beginning of junior high school, they start a language, a foreign language. And they take it for three years and then they start second foreign language and they take that with the other foreign language for three years. So they have living language one and living language two. I think that's distinct from Latin and dead languages. But anyway, so so these kids came to school. When they came to school, they probably had six languages already, you know?

[Assistant] My goodness.

[User] I mean, they were they were from a very cosmopolitan area and it was just a very, they knew a lot of different African languages. So they came and they knew Arabic very well. And then they learned in French. So that's not even a foreign language in this system because it's the French system. So then they have to take living language one, and that would be either English or Arabic, I guess. The literary Arabic. And then they would take foreign language two, and that would be either English or the literary Arabic. So I was teaching some kids that were in first year of living language two and first year of living language one. Those were different stages, different classes, and then up to terminal. We didn't have that, that was the last year. They had to go to the capital for that. But the last year we had, was last year of the lycee there. So I had from beginners to the ones who. The young ones were easier and the ones in the last class were easier, but the ones in the middle who were just starting, they were the first. They were horrible.

[Assistant] I would think that the older ones towards the end there would realize they had a final exam coming up and that would be a motivator.


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

[User] I mean, they were they were from a very cosmopolitan area and it was just a very, they knew a lot of different African languages. So they came and they knew Arabic very well. And then they learned in French. So that's not even a foreign language in this system because it's the French system. So then they have to take living language one, and that would be either English or Arabic, I guess. The literary Arabic. And then they would take foreign language two, and that would be either English or the literary Arabic. So I was teaching some kids that were in first year of living language two and first year of living language one. Those were different stages, different classes, and then up to terminal. We didn't have that, that was the last year. They had to go to the capital for that. But the last year we had, was last year of the lycee there. So I had from beginners to the ones who. The young ones were easier and the ones in the last class were easier, but the ones in the middle who were just starting, they were the first. They were horrible.

[Assistant] I would think that the older ones towards the end there would realize they had a final exam coming up and that would be a motivator.

[User] They had exams. But see, it was so funny because when we taught to, they had to take these same exams that they had in France, right?

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] And with the baccalaureate and so.

[Assistant] Literature, French literature?


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

[User] And with the baccalaureate and so.

[Assistant] Literature, French literature?

[User] Oh yeah. No, African literature, nothing. And so for the English in Chad, they had for the oral part, they had the Peace Corps volunteers giving the oral part of the English exam because we were the only people that could do, you know? So they had a written part. But the oral part counted a lot. And I got a nice trip up to a nice town to do it for a colleague and somebody came down to mine to do it for my students. And it turns out after that, after they had that exam, they came in and they said to me, Mademoiselle, they asked exactly the same questions you do. Because they thought that I was teaching them wrong because I was teaching this Aptiv method, oral. It wasn't like, sit down and copy this in your book.

[Assistant] Right.

[User]
They were really used to the old fashioned technique, and if I had done that, they probably would have behaved. But I was trying to get them to listen and participate. All the stuff, you know, so it was a losing proposition. But once they got the exam, they said, oh you were right. So yeah, that was the teaching.

I remember when the when the headmaster took me around on a tour of the school, the first time I went in to see him and get acquainted. He took me around and he showed me. He said, OK, now here. And he opened this closet with the key. And he said, these are books, English books for the fourth level, and they were like a stack of books. And I said, wow, and I thought this is great. I'm going to have at least one level with books. And I said, well, can I give them to the students? And he said, no, because then we wouldn't have them. So that was kind of, that was the logic of the lycee. We could either have the books or use the books. We'd rather have them.

[Assistant] They look so nice on the shelves.


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

[User]
They were really used to the old fashioned technique, and if I had done that, they probably would have behaved. But I was trying to get them to listen and participate. All the stuff, you know, so it was a losing proposition. But once they got the exam, they said, oh you were right. So yeah, that was the teaching.

I remember when the when the headmaster took me around on a tour of the school, the first time I went in to see him and get acquainted. He took me around and he showed me. He said, OK, now here. And he opened this closet with the key. And he said, these are books, English books for the fourth level, and they were like a stack of books. And I said, wow, and I thought this is great. I'm going to have at least one level with books. And I said, well, can I give them to the students? And he said, no, because then we wouldn't have them. So that was kind of, that was the logic of the lycee. We could either have the books or use the books. We'd rather have them.

[Assistant] They look so nice on the shelves.

[User] They gave me one copy so I could prepare.

[Assistant] So how did you teach without books? You step into the classroom. There's a chalkboard and chalk.

[User] Yeah. Not chalk. You have to bring your chalk. But there's a chalkboard.

[Assistant] And students have notebooks and pencils.


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

[User] They gave me one copy so I could prepare.

[Assistant] So how did you teach without books? You step into the classroom. There's a chalkboard and chalk.

[User] Yeah. Not chalk. You have to bring your chalk. But there's a chalkboard.

[Assistant] And students have notebooks and pencils.

[User] They have notebooks and pencils. Yeah. And you, most of the teachers would write things on the board for them to copy down and that would be the lesson.

[Assistant] But you using the method you had been taught in Canada. So what did you do?


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

[User] Yeah. Not chalk. You have to bring your chalk. But there's a chalkboard.

[Assistant] And students have notebooks and pencils.

[User] They have notebooks and pencils. Yeah. And you, most of the teachers would write things on the board for them to copy down and that would be the lesson.

[Assistant] But you using the method you had been taught in Canada. So what did you do?

[User] Ok. Today I'm teaching you a lesson. The five parts of it, one is there's a small text on your level, and we're going to prepare that text. So I pull out the vocabulary. I choose the text. I have a book at home that I choose something from. Whatever I use those, they gave me one of those fourth level books. I use that. But I had some other material.

[Assistant] Would you copy that text onto the board or did you have a duplicating machine or something, a typewriter?


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

[User] They have notebooks and pencils. Yeah. And you, most of the teachers would write things on the board for them to copy down and that would be the lesson.

[Assistant] But you using the method you had been taught in Canada. So what did you do?

[User] Ok. Today I'm teaching you a lesson. The five parts of it, one is there's a small text on your level, and we're going to prepare that text. So I pull out the vocabulary. I choose the text. I have a book at home that I choose something from. Whatever I use those, they gave me one of those fourth level books. I use that. But I had some other material.

[Assistant] Would you copy that text onto the board or did you have a duplicating machine or something, a typewriter?

[User] No, I would decide like a paragraph. And so I would pull out the words from the paragraph in planning the lesson. I would say these are the words that they won't know. And then this is the grammar point that I'm going to. This is in this tense so we're going to work on this tense today. And so the five point lesson was introduction, where you warm them up and you review something from yesterday. Then you present the text, you write it on the board. No, you present the words. You work on the words. You write them on the board and then you present them and you get them. You don't give them the French equivalent. You act them out. You bring in visual aids.

[Assistant] There's no translation here.


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

[User] Ok. Today I'm teaching you a lesson. The five parts of it, one is there's a small text on your level, and we're going to prepare that text. So I pull out the vocabulary. I choose the text. I have a book at home that I choose something from. Whatever I use those, they gave me one of those fourth level books. I use that. But I had some other material.

[Assistant] Would you copy that text onto the board or did you have a duplicating machine or something, a typewriter?

[User] No, I would decide like a paragraph. And so I would pull out the words from the paragraph in planning the lesson. I would say these are the words that they won't know. And then this is the grammar point that I'm going to. This is in this tense so we're going to work on this tense today. And so the five point lesson was introduction, where you warm them up and you review something from yesterday. Then you present the text, you write it on the board. No, you present the words. You work on the words. You write them on the board and then you present them and you get them. You don't give them the French equivalent. You act them out. You bring in visual aids.

[Assistant] There's no translation here.

[User] No, you do whatever you can to get them to understand. And if they don't want to, they won't, right. So you do that and then you give them. The third point would be a grammar lesson using those words somehow with whatever grammar point you're doing. And the fourth part would be the text. You'd bring up the text, you'd write it on the board, they would write it in their books and then you would work on it and understanding and learning it. And then the fifth part would be review everything.

[Assistant] OK. And at some point the kids have to read the text too and pronounce the English correctly. I suppose.


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

[User] No, I would decide like a paragraph. And so I would pull out the words from the paragraph in planning the lesson. I would say these are the words that they won't know. And then this is the grammar point that I'm going to. This is in this tense so we're going to work on this tense today. And so the five point lesson was introduction, where you warm them up and you review something from yesterday. Then you present the text, you write it on the board. No, you present the words. You work on the words. You write them on the board and then you present them and you get them. You don't give them the French equivalent. You act them out. You bring in visual aids.

[Assistant] There's no translation here.

[User] No, you do whatever you can to get them to understand. And if they don't want to, they won't, right. So you do that and then you give them. The third point would be a grammar lesson using those words somehow with whatever grammar point you're doing. And the fourth part would be the text. You'd bring up the text, you'd write it on the board, they would write it in their books and then you would work on it and understanding and learning it. And then the fifth part would be review everything.

[Assistant] OK. And at some point the kids have to read the text too and pronounce the English correctly. I suppose.

[User] Yeah, that's the fourth part. Yeah, but they were supposed to understand it too.

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, this sounds extremely difficult. With the classroom management part being the hardest aspect of it. Were there times where you thought you would just quit and go home?


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

[User] Yeah, that's the fourth part. Yeah, but they were supposed to understand it too.

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, this sounds extremely difficult. With the classroom management part being the hardest aspect of it. Were there times where you thought you would just quit and go home?

[User] I wasn't about to go home. Everybody had told me, you won't make it. You know, you'll never last.

[Assistant] Really? Who?

[User] My parents, everybody.

[Assistant] Not the Peace Corps.


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

[User] Yes, but it was the ones who really wanted to learn.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] And so I got to know them and then got to know me. And that helped a lot.

[Assistant] No kidding.

[User] So that was one of the big, big good things.

[Assistant] You mentioned having to fly to the capital city when you were really ill with dysentery one time. Was there no doctor in town?


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

[User] And so I got to know them and then got to know me. And that helped a lot.

[Assistant] No kidding.

[User] So that was one of the big, big good things.

[Assistant] You mentioned having to fly to the capital city when you were really ill with dysentery one time. Was there no doctor in town?

[User] There were some. There was an Indian doctor and there was a French doctor. Both of them spoke French and worked at a hospital there. And I went to them. But it was too. It was more than they could, I was really sick. They wanted me, I was losing weight and they just wanted me to go out and get help.

[Assistant] And you're the only Peace Corps volunteer in this whole city?


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

[User] So that was one of the big, big good things.

[Assistant] You mentioned having to fly to the capital city when you were really ill with dysentery one time. Was there no doctor in town?

[User] There were some. There was an Indian doctor and there was a French doctor. Both of them spoke French and worked at a hospital there. And I went to them. But it was too. It was more than they could, I was really sick. They wanted me, I was losing weight and they just wanted me to go out and get help.

[Assistant] And you're the only Peace Corps volunteer in this whole city?

[User] For the first year, the second year they put another guy in.

[Assistant] Ok. Was there a phone? If you were really in trouble, how would you communicate with the Peace Corps?


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

[User] There were some. There was an Indian doctor and there was a French doctor. Both of them spoke French and worked at a hospital there. And I went to them. But it was too. It was more than they could, I was really sick. They wanted me, I was losing weight and they just wanted me to go out and get help.

[Assistant] And you're the only Peace Corps volunteer in this whole city?

[User] For the first year, the second year they put another guy in.

[Assistant] Ok. Was there a phone? If you were really in trouble, how would you communicate with the Peace Corps?

[User] There were phones. I didn't have a phone. There was one. There were phones in the lycee. I had a boyfriend who was French and he had a phone. He ran Alliance Francaise for the town, so I could use, I could ask him to make a call. There weren't many phones, but it was possible. It was possible.

[Assistant] So you come to the end of your first year and there's probably school holidays.


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

[User] For the first year, the second year they put another guy in.

[Assistant] Ok. Was there a phone? If you were really in trouble, how would you communicate with the Peace Corps?

[User] There were phones. I didn't have a phone. There was one. There were phones in the lycee. I had a boyfriend who was French and he had a phone. He ran Alliance Francaise for the town, so I could use, I could ask him to make a call. There weren't many phones, but it was possible. It was possible.

[Assistant] So you come to the end of your first year and there's probably school holidays.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] How big a break did you have there?


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

[User] There were phones. I didn't have a phone. There was one. There were phones in the lycee. I had a boyfriend who was French and he had a phone. He ran Alliance Francaise for the town, so I could use, I could ask him to make a call. There weren't many phones, but it was possible. It was possible.

[Assistant] So you come to the end of your first year and there's probably school holidays.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] How big a break did you have there?

[User] We had this is a very interesting question, because people, I have a letter in there from some volunteer that I trained talking about, well we have the summer off. We just got an official communique from Peace Corps saying that we have 48 days of vacation and not one more, but somebody never told, you know. Anyway, so we had the summer off. But I agreed to. They asked me to come down to this town in the south to be part of the training, in-country training program for the new volunteers.

[Assistant] After you'd been there for one year?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] How big a break did you have there?

[User] We had this is a very interesting question, because people, I have a letter in there from some volunteer that I trained talking about, well we have the summer off. We just got an official communique from Peace Corps saying that we have 48 days of vacation and not one more, but somebody never told, you know. Anyway, so we had the summer off. But I agreed to. They asked me to come down to this town in the south to be part of the training, in-country training program for the new volunteers.

[Assistant] After you'd been there for one year?

[User] Uh huh. And so I did that for a month in the summer. But the previous part of the summer I planned a trip. All the expatriates in town went home for, all the French people went home for this summer and a lot of the students and teachers too, because they were not from that town. So it wasn't much point in sitting around the town, it wasn't anything going on.

[Assistant] So their school vacation coincided with the European school vacation. June, July, August, sort of?


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

[User] We had this is a very interesting question, because people, I have a letter in there from some volunteer that I trained talking about, well we have the summer off. We just got an official communique from Peace Corps saying that we have 48 days of vacation and not one more, but somebody never told, you know. Anyway, so we had the summer off. But I agreed to. They asked me to come down to this town in the south to be part of the training, in-country training program for the new volunteers.

[Assistant] After you'd been there for one year?

[User] Uh huh. And so I did that for a month in the summer. But the previous part of the summer I planned a trip. All the expatriates in town went home for, all the French people went home for this summer and a lot of the students and teachers too, because they were not from that town. So it wasn't much point in sitting around the town, it wasn't anything going on.

[Assistant] So their school vacation coincided with the European school vacation. June, July, August, sort of?

[User] Mm hmm. So I said, I'm going to see the rest of Africa, and I had a friend who I had met at the World Bank, who had gone over to become the secretary to the Africa mission in Abidjan, in Ivory Coast. And so she invited. She said, well, while you're over there you should come visit me. Chad to Ivory Coast is pretty far, a big distance. But I said, I'm just going to do this. So I got out the map and I started looking. And it's like all across the coast of West Africa. But I did it and I didn't occur to me that, you know, it was dangerous or whatever. I just said, this will work.

[Assistant] Let's hear how you went.


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

[User] Uh huh. And so I did that for a month in the summer. But the previous part of the summer I planned a trip. All the expatriates in town went home for, all the French people went home for this summer and a lot of the students and teachers too, because they were not from that town. So it wasn't much point in sitting around the town, it wasn't anything going on.

[Assistant] So their school vacation coincided with the European school vacation. June, July, August, sort of?

[User] Mm hmm. So I said, I'm going to see the rest of Africa, and I had a friend who I had met at the World Bank, who had gone over to become the secretary to the Africa mission in Abidjan, in Ivory Coast. And so she invited. She said, well, while you're over there you should come visit me. Chad to Ivory Coast is pretty far, a big distance. But I said, I'm just going to do this. So I got out the map and I started looking. And it's like all across the coast of West Africa. But I did it and I didn't occur to me that, you know, it was dangerous or whatever. I just said, this will work.

[Assistant] Let's hear how you went.

[User] So I went from Fort Lamy to Cameroon. I actually don't remember. I probably took a bush taxi to that. And then I went through Cameroon on a train.

[Assistant] So you're going from north to south in Cameroon?


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

[User] Mm hmm. So I said, I'm going to see the rest of Africa, and I had a friend who I had met at the World Bank, who had gone over to become the secretary to the Africa mission in Abidjan, in Ivory Coast. And so she invited. She said, well, while you're over there you should come visit me. Chad to Ivory Coast is pretty far, a big distance. But I said, I'm just going to do this. So I got out the map and I started looking. And it's like all across the coast of West Africa. But I did it and I didn't occur to me that, you know, it was dangerous or whatever. I just said, this will work.

[Assistant] Let's hear how you went.

[User] So I went from Fort Lamy to Cameroon. I actually don't remember. I probably took a bush taxi to that. And then I went through Cameroon on a train.

[Assistant] So you're going from north to south in Cameroon?

[User]
Yeah. I went to the coast on a train and that was lovely. And then when I was in Cameroon, they had told me that I would not be able to go through Nigeria because it takes. You could only get a 24 hour visa and it would take more than 24 hours to get across. And so I said, well, what can I do? And they said, well, you can fly, you can fly in and out, but you still have to get a visa. You can't get a visa from Chad, you have to get it from Cameroon. So I went to the whatever Nigerian embassy in Cameroon and I said what I was going to do and I said I was going to go and stay one night in Lagos and then take the plane.

Take the plane in and take the plane out. And they said, OK, so they gave me the thing. So I went, I took a plane to Lagos, so I got to Lagos, didn't know anybody.

[Assistant] Did you go to the Peace Corps office?


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

[User] So I went from Fort Lamy to Cameroon. I actually don't remember. I probably took a bush taxi to that. And then I went through Cameroon on a train.

[Assistant] So you're going from north to south in Cameroon?

[User]
Yeah. I went to the coast on a train and that was lovely. And then when I was in Cameroon, they had told me that I would not be able to go through Nigeria because it takes. You could only get a 24 hour visa and it would take more than 24 hours to get across. And so I said, well, what can I do? And they said, well, you can fly, you can fly in and out, but you still have to get a visa. You can't get a visa from Chad, you have to get it from Cameroon. So I went to the whatever Nigerian embassy in Cameroon and I said what I was going to do and I said I was going to go and stay one night in Lagos and then take the plane.

Take the plane in and take the plane out. And they said, OK, so they gave me the thing. So I went, I took a plane to Lagos, so I got to Lagos, didn't know anybody.

[Assistant] Did you go to the Peace Corps office?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Maybe there even wasn't one.


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] Maybe there even wasn't one.

[User] I had no idea. I had no idea about any of that. I found a YWCA in Lagos.

[Assistant] My goodness.

[User] And I met a cab driver at the airport. I mean, I got a cab driver at the airport, and it became clear to me after a while that he was not going to take me to the YWCA and he drove me all around. So I remember I got out my umbrella and I hit him and I got out of the car. That was the only bad thing that happened to me on the whole journey. Of course, it had to be in Lagos. But anyway, I stayed overnight in the YWCA. I flew out. So I only got.

[Assistant] You got into a different cab or something, right? You somehow got there.


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

[User] And I met a cab driver at the airport. I mean, I got a cab driver at the airport, and it became clear to me after a while that he was not going to take me to the YWCA and he drove me all around. So I remember I got out my umbrella and I hit him and I got out of the car. That was the only bad thing that happened to me on the whole journey. Of course, it had to be in Lagos. But anyway, I stayed overnight in the YWCA. I flew out. So I only got.

[Assistant] You got into a different cab or something, right? You somehow got there.

[User] Yeah. So then the next place, what's on the other side?

[Assistant] Dahomey.

[User] So I went to Dahomey and I stayed there, and I.

[Assistant] We might mention that Dahomey is now Benin.


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

[User] Yeah. So then the next place, what's on the other side?

[Assistant] Dahomey.

[User] So I went to Dahomey and I stayed there, and I.

[Assistant] We might mention that Dahomey is now Benin.

[User] Yes, but the people of Benin would like it to be Dahomey again, I think, because that was just perfectly good African name, it was. Anyway, so then I went to Togo.

[Assistant] You're going along the coast?


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

[User] Yes, but the people of Benin would like it to be Dahomey again, I think, because that was just perfectly good African name, it was. Anyway, so then I went to Togo.

[Assistant] You're going along the coast?

[User]
Yeah, I'm going along. And then it's all after Lagos, everything, well, Cameroon was beautiful. And then Togo, Dahomey, Ghana on the coast. It was like paradise. It was just beautiful. And it was very, it was very pristine at that time, you know, nothing was polluted and it was it was a beautiful place and it was very safe. What I was doing was very safe. I took bush taxis where you would get in a taxi and five other people would get in and you'd go from one point to the other. I met people at various points. There are a couple of Peace Corps volunteers I met in different places and they were going someplace, so I would go with them to that place, or sometimes I would stay in a Peace Corps volunteer's house, sometimes. I remember I spent one night up on the roof of one of those slave castles in Ghana. It was very beautiful and very, very lovely place. It was just it was let's just see what's next kind of thing.

And then I went through Ghana and then up and down. I think there was some problem going across the border on the coast. So I went up north and down south to Abidjan, and I stayed in Abidjan for two weeks.

[Assistant] Oh boy.

[User] It took me, I think it took me about two weeks to get across and I stayed in Abidjan for almost two weeks and then I took the plane back.

[Assistant] And of course, in Abidjan, you could speak French.


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

[User]
Yeah, I'm going along. And then it's all after Lagos, everything, well, Cameroon was beautiful. And then Togo, Dahomey, Ghana on the coast. It was like paradise. It was just beautiful. And it was very, it was very pristine at that time, you know, nothing was polluted and it was it was a beautiful place and it was very safe. What I was doing was very safe. I took bush taxis where you would get in a taxi and five other people would get in and you'd go from one point to the other. I met people at various points. There are a couple of Peace Corps volunteers I met in different places and they were going someplace, so I would go with them to that place, or sometimes I would stay in a Peace Corps volunteer's house, sometimes. I remember I spent one night up on the roof of one of those slave castles in Ghana. It was very beautiful and very, very lovely place. It was just it was let's just see what's next kind of thing.

And then I went through Ghana and then up and down. I think there was some problem going across the border on the coast. So I went up north and down south to Abidjan, and I stayed in Abidjan for two weeks.

[Assistant] Oh boy.

[User] It took me, I think it took me about two weeks to get across and I stayed in Abidjan for almost two weeks and then I took the plane back.

[Assistant] And of course, in Abidjan, you could speak French.

[User] My God, in Abidjan, it was like Paris. They called it the Paris of Africa. It was. And these people, the World Bank people, they were living the good life. I mean, they still do. But my boss from back in the States was the one in charge of the mission. So they treated me royally. They took me out every night to discotheques and I got all kinds of really pretty clothes made out of African fabrics and I just had the best time.

[Assistant] So you're describing a vacation!


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

[User] It was, and it was like the absolute opposite of what I had just been living for a year.

[Assistant] Right, right.

[User] And Patricia was a very, very nice woman, and I lived with her in a fancy apartment and air conditioning and everything. So then I went, I took a plane and I went back to Chad to teach this stage, this training group. And then I went back up to Abéché for the second year. Yeah, it was great. I'm really glad I took that vacation. I think I think it is a trip that you could not, nobody could take it right now.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] It just wouldn't be. It wouldn't be fun. It wouldn't be feasible, particularly, and it would not be safe. It would not, not be safe.

[Assistant] Especially for a woman traveling alone.


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

[User] Oh my god. Yeah, I mean, it's the kind of thing that my parents, I don't actually think I told them that I was doing it probably. I mean, I probably told them I was going to go see somebody, but I didn't tell them I was doing what I was doing, and it was the kind of thing that it was safe in Africa to do things that it wasn't safe in America to do at that point.

[Assistant] That's right.

[User] Now, people. I mean, everybody was afraid when I went to Africa, oh my god, you're going to get eaten by tribes of this and you're going to have this and that. And it was like, it turned out to be like the nicest, safest place to be, didn't you find that?

[Assistant] Yes, yes.

[User] And I've never felt safer in my life. So but now it's not that way. And I know from having gone back and I just would not do that. But I'm glad I did it when I could.

[Assistant] When you could, right. The time was right. So eventually you go back up to Abéché and begin your second year and now you're living with in a family in there within their compound. Talk about that a little bit. You had your own little house within their compound.


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

[User] And I've never felt safer in my life. So but now it's not that way. And I know from having gone back and I just would not do that. But I'm glad I did it when I could.

[Assistant] When you could, right. The time was right. So eventually you go back up to Abéché and begin your second year and now you're living with in a family in there within their compound. Talk about that a little bit. You had your own little house within their compound.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Describe that.

[User] The master of the compound, who was my friend, who was the teacher, he had gone to teach in the capital. And so his room, which was the best room, was empty and he gave it to me. He let me rent it.

[Assistant] So it's a room.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Describe that.

[User] The master of the compound, who was my friend, who was the teacher, he had gone to teach in the capital. And so his room, which was the best room, was empty and he gave it to me. He let me rent it.

[Assistant] So it's a room.

[User] Well, it's yeah, the compound is built in a square and the rooms, I don't think they're not freestanding huts in there. They're like built onto the square. So it's like a room here and then they're in a room there.

[Assistant] Is there an open air patio in the middle of the square?


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

[User] Well, it's yeah, the compound is built in a square and the rooms, I don't think they're not freestanding huts in there. They're like built onto the square. So it's like a room here and then they're in a room there.

[Assistant] Is there an open air patio in the middle of the square?

[User] It is open there, but there was a privacy wall that went halfway down the middle. So he had that, that privacy and that was. I got the spot that was like the master spot. So I had I had some privacy. But they had to go into my part of the compound to get to their part around the wall. So I mean, I saw everybody. But it was a very good situation because they lived their life in their part of the compound outside, and I could go there and participate with them anytime I wanted to. But in my part of the compound, we didn't congregate a lot, so I had my bed outside.

[Assistant] Outside?

[User] Yeah, it had a mosquito net.

[Assistant] Oh, that would be cooler then.