https://nunncenter.net/ohms-spokedb/render.php?cachefile=2005oh028_pc045_ohm.xml#segment0
Partial Transcript: This is, um, Friday, February 18th, and we are interviewing Nancy--it's Angene Wilson interviewing Nancy Dare about her experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer.
Segment Synopsis: Dare was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She went to University of Tulsa for a year, then Philips University, then transferred to the University of Kentucky where she graduated with a degree in history focused on Europe. She was inspired by the president to join Peace Corps. The FBI interviewed her. She was invited to go to Malaysia. She was trained in Hawaii for three months, with language, cultural, and physical training, including swimming. She discusses the evaluation process for picking volunteers.
Keywords: East/West Center; Marriage.; Swimming.; Training
Subjects: Cultural awareness.; Education, Higher.; Europe.; Hawaii; History.; Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963.; Language learning and language teaching; Malay language.; Malaysia.; Occupational training.; Peace Corps (U.S.); Phillips University (Enid, Okla.); Physical education and training.; Political science.; Saint Louis (Mo.); Singapore.; United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation.; University of Kentucky; University of Tulsa; Women in higher education.; Women volunteers; Women--Education (Higher)
https://nunncenter.net/ohms-spokedb/render.php?cachefile=2005oh028_pc045_ohm.xml#segment765
Partial Transcript: So you got to Malaysia in what, January sixty--?
Segment Synopsis: Dare spent a couple weeks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia when she first arrived and then spent another couple weeks in Singapore. She describes the boat trip to her location. She discusses the connections between the people she met there and the U.S. Dare describes where she lived and how they ate. She mentions how the school would conduct its exercises. After class, she cooked, but the locals thought it was weird. She discusses her social interactions with the people she met.
Keywords: Books.; Exercise.; Homestay; Methodist; Rajang River
Subjects: Adjustment (Psychology); Boats and boating.; Chinese; Cooking.; Culture shock; Education.; Food habits.; Friendship.; Intergroup relations.; Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia); Lifestyles.; Malaysia.; Manners and customs.; Marriage.; Peace Corps (U.S.); Physical education and training.; Rivers; Schools.; Singapore.; Social interaction.; Students.; Teachers.
https://nunncenter.net/ohms-spokedb/render.php?cachefile=2005oh028_pc045_ohm.xml#segment1733
Partial Transcript: What, uh, what about teaching, what was that like?
Segment Synopsis: Dare discusses her teaching experience. The school was named Winston-Salem. She took on the English classes for the upper grades and supervised the lower grade English classes. She discusses her recreational travel using Malaysian Airlines. She would also read and go for walks and go to conferences. She mentions interacting with an Australian man with a yacht as well as her interactions with missionaries. She further discusses her interactions with host country nationals. She describes a class of eight blind children, as well as the native longhouses. Dare briefly discusses the Gurkhas and Singapore.
Keywords: Longhouses; Mainstreaming; Reading.; Walking.; Yachts.
Subjects: Blind children; Blindness.; Boats and boating.; Children with disabilities.; Chinese; Chinese New Year.; Disabilities.; Friendship.; Gorkha (South Asian people); Hong Kong (China); Iban language; Intergroup relations.; Japan.; Kuching (Sarawak, Malaysia); Logging.; Mainstreaming in education.; Malaysia Airlines; Malaysia.; Manila (Philippines); Meetings.; Missionaries; Peace Corps (U.S.); Ramadan.; Recreation.; Schools.; Singapore.; Social interaction.; Teachers.; Teaching.; Thailand.; Travel.; Women teachers.; Women volunteers
https://nunncenter.net/ohms-spokedb/render.php?cachefile=2005oh028_pc045_ohm.xml#segment2662
Partial Transcript: What was it like to come home?
Segment Synopsis: Dare discusses the return home. They met a lot of return Peace Corps volunteers. She worked at the university. She doesn't think she personally had a big impact on others in Malaysia, but it had a big impact on her. Her children are adopted and biracial and she thinks this is because of the impact of Peace Corps on her. She discusses her family's reaction to her time in Peace Corps. Her husband finished library school and she works in a library. Peace Corps made her skeptical of the news and more empathetic towards others in the world. She thinks Peace Corps puts a better face on the U.S. She discusses her experience with blind children.
Keywords: Braille; Drinking water.; Empathy.; Homestay; Logging.
Subjects: Adoption.; Blind children; Blindness.; Children with disabilities.; Chinese; Cross cultural communication; Cultural awareness.; Disabilities.; Families.; Globalization.; Intercultural communication.; Interracial adoption; Islam.; Kentucky.; Library science.; Lifestyles.; Mainstreaming in education.; Malays (Asian people); Malaysia.; Manners and customs.; Marriage.; Peace Corps (U.S.); Skepticism.; Stereotypes (Social psychology); Students, Foreign.; Travel.; University of Kentucky; Voluntarism.; Women employees; Women volunteers; Women--Employment.
WILSON: This is Friday, February the 18th and we are interviewing Nancy,
it's Angene Wilson interviewing Nancy Dare about her experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer. What is your full name?DARE: Nancy Sweet Dare, D-a-r-e.
WILSON: And where and when were you born?
DARE: St. Louis, Missouri, May 25, 1940.
WILSON: And can you tell me a little bit about your family and something
about your growing up?DARE: Wow, well, I had two siblings; I was the middle one and everything
that that means, hahaha. I had an older brother and a younger sister. Parents, I think I probably a very normal, maybe even better than normal childhood. As far as I know, there was never any fighting or anything like that going on and had good school experiences. Parents 00:01:00always involved in school and always involved in church so we got all that also. That's about it. I had, my younger sister has since died and but my brother is still alive and we're on good relationships.WILSON: Where and when did you go to college?
DARE: Well, I started off at the, oh, 196-, '58, I went to the University
of Tulsa for a year. The next year, I went to Phillips University both of those in Oklahoma and then, I was married and transferred here to the University of Kentucky where I graduated in 1962.WILSON: And what did you study?
DARE: History.
WILSON: Oh! History!
DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: Okay, particular?
DARE: European.
WILSON: European History, okay, what, what did you do between, well,
you've got, you already had, had married--DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: But what did you do between the time you graduated and when you
00:02:00went into Peace Corps? Were there other jobs that you had? ---------- -(??)DARE: Well, I was, when I graduated from the university, I direct, went
directly to work for the university at the Medical Center for a while I guess and then, I, oh! In Ag, no, it was the Medical Center first and then, in Ag and in '65, I went to the Peace Corps from that position.WILSON: Okay and what were you doing there?
DARE: I was an editorial assistant--
WILSON: Oh!
DARE: In extension.
WILSON: Oh, okay and how did you find out about the Peace Corp and what
made you want to join?DARE: Well, we were both of us were Kennedy people and we were answering
the call; that's all actually. Hahaha.WILSON: So say a little bit more about what that means. It's easy for
those of us who were there then to know-- 00:03:00DARE: What the call was--
WILSON: What the call was but, but what does that mean to you?
DARE: I'm not sure, you know, it was a time when it was very hopeful.
We'd wake up, my husband was in seminary at the time, Lexington Theological Seminary and I was working at the university and it was like every time we'd open a newspaper, we were excited to read politics and read what was happening and, and thinking that maybe we could do something, you know, help.WILSON: How did you find out about the Peace Corps specifically? Do
you remember?DARE: Well, you know, I don't remember. I don't remember just that we
were very interested in John Kennedy--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And whatever he was doing so--
WILSON: Did you know anybody else that had been in the Peace Corps?
DARE: No, no, never.
WILSON: So what do you remember about the process of joining?
DARE: Well, I don't even know where we got the papers if we even sent
off for them or just how it happened but we made application. I 00:04:00remember they ask you to put down three places that you'd like to go none of which were Malaysia, hahaha. I think one was Ethiopia, one was India and I don't know where the other one was and actually, I really didn't think we were going to do it. Hahaha.WILSON: Why was that?
DARE: It was just a lark, not a lark but we were young and you know, you
do all kinds of things. We'd even taken the test for the, for overseas for what?WILSON: Foreign Service?
DARE: Foreign Service.
WILSON: Oh you did?
DARE: Yeah, yeah.
WILSON: Oh, okay
DARE: I and I was being very silly about it but Phil was serious about
it. He did a lot better than I did so but we were, he was finishing a degree and or starting a degree in History and I was just working at the university. We've never planned our lives very much so this was, a lot of this was just serendipitous--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And we made application and we began hearing people say oh, the
FBI--WILSON: Hahaha, right.
DARE: Happened to see that about us and we thought whoa, wait a minute
00:05:00and one of the funny things about that is we had neighbors. We were living on the university campus right on Washington Ave--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And that little place there and we had some FBI people come
and visit us and this was a little odd and they said they were investigating Peace Corp volunteer applicants and we thought well, this is odd that they're doing this with us but anyway, what happened is what for our neighbors across the hall, hahaha--WILSON: Hahaha, oh, that's interesting.
DARE: Yes and they had been, same thing had happened to them. They'd
been interviewed about us so it, I don't know if you know Jock Gum?WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: Oh, it was the Gums.
WILSON: Oh really?
DARE: Yeah.
WILSON: I guess we need to interview them actually.
DARE: I don't think that they're a couple, the same one.
WILSON: Okay but he's still around right?
DARE: He's still around.
WILSON: I mean, he was principal--
DARE: And he went for a year, I don't know if they went for longer than
that--WILSON: Mm.
DARE: But I'm not sure about that.
WILSON: I saw him on the list and I didn't realize he was a RPCV--
DARE: Okay.
WILSON: I never thought oh, I know who he is, hmm, okay--
00:06:00DARE: Mm hmm, okay.
WILSON: That's interesting.
DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: Yes, well, the FBI did go interview people--
DARE: Yes.
WILSON: So anyway, you got accepted and told you were going to Malaysia
and that was okay.DARE: Invited to go to Malaysia--
WILSON: Invited, that's right, you're right.
DARE: And we had a class under Dr. Vandenbosch at the university--
WILSON: Oh, okay!
DARE: I was taking it just extra and Phil--
WILSON: Okay.
DARE: Maybe we both were, I don't remember.
WILSON: And he was at the Patterson School at that point?
DARE: No, it was before the Patterson School.
WILSON: So it would have been in Political Science?
DARE: Just in Political Science, yeah--
WILSON: Oh, I see, okay.
DARE: Just because of who he was--
WILSON: Yeah, sure.
DARE: And he talked about oh, that marvelous Singapore. He thought
Singapore was just one of the most wonderful cities in the world--WILSON: Ah huh.
DARE: And he talked about the, all about the Federation of Malaysia and
how that was coming about and all that because he was very instrumental in what was happening after the Tibetan area of the world--WILSON: Oh really?
DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: I didn't know that because he had worked--
DARE: Mm hmm and the U.N--
WILSON: Well--
DARE: -----------(??)
WILSON: --involved in the U.N.
00:07:00DARE: And that was all part of, part of that after the war, who gets
what and what becomes together and all that--WILSON: Right, right, right.
DARE: And Singapore at that time was part of Malaysia--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Singapore pulled out or was pushed out while we were training.
WILSON: So, I'd forgotten that.
DARE: Mm hmm--
WILSON: Okay.
DARE: So anyway--
WILSON: So you had taken this course before?
DARE: Well, yeah, yeah, well, we had made an application but it didn't,
I mean, it just happened that you know, that's how our interest was. We were still interested in Political Science and that kind of thing so we thought oh yeah, that sounds good but actually, to tell you the truth, I thought it was off the coast of Africa--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: And I first got the Malaysia, oh--
WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: Hahaha.
WILSON: And so you had to look at a map?
DARE: Oh yeah, had to look at a map--
WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: But Phil's always better about that than I was but and even then,
I was a little nervous about this and, and we, we talked about whether or not we should accept this because if we turned it down, would we 00:08:00be asked to join another one and we decided well, maybe we, maybe we wouldn't, we'd better just take it. Grab it and go and I think it was the best thing we ever did.WILSON: And so this was when?
DARE: Well, '65, I want to say '65. Yeah, we had been married about
five years so it was the summer of '65--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: We had just moved into an apartment, I mean, getting out of that
lease was interesting after two months. We got, they didn't, they weren't real specific at first you know and then, once we said yes, we'd go, then, they became more specific about when we were going and this is in September.WILSON: And where did you train?
DARE: Hawaii.
WILSON: Oh!
DARE: Isn't that terrible? Hahaha!
WILSON: Hahaha! Where in Hawaii?
DARE: Hilo.
WILSON: Wow.
DARE: Yes.
WILSON: Oh, right, East West Center--
DARE: Yeah, well, the East West Center was just getting off the ground I
think--WILSON: Okay.
DARE: But we didn't, we really benefited from that because we had
speakers all the time from East West Center and people were coming back and forth between Asia and the U.S. always stopping off there and came 00:09:00to talk to us. We had a wonderful--Peace Corp training was better for me than college, I mean, it was, you know--WILSON: So you had language training and--
DARE: Of course.
WILSON: What, what else? What, what do you--?
DARE: Culture training--
WILSON: Right.
DARE: I mean, that's the first place I'd ever heard of culture shock and
that kind of stuff--WILSON: Mm hmm, mm hmm.
DARE: A lot of physical training. Phil jokes about that fact he was in
remedial P.E. because he couldn't swim so they, he had to learn how to swim or they wouldn't take us actually. Did you know that?WILSON: No, wow.
DARE: Yeah because in Malaysia, it was, people got around on the river--
WILSON: Oh sure, sure.
DARE: And they didn't want to send people there who couldn't swim.
WILSON: -----------(??)
DARE: Yeah and so we did a lot of running, walking and a lot, and some
of the trainers were people in Hawaii who had done Olympic stuff--WILSON: Mm!
DARE: So that was fun too, yeah, our trainers were -----------(??)--
WILSON: So you were there for three months, right?
00:10:00DARE: Three months and we were the middle of September through December.
We were there through Christmas I think--WILSON: And language training as well?
DARE: Language training was about five hours a day.
WILSON: In?
DARE: Malay.
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Malay is a language that's kind of invented but it's the national
language and all they, the government of Malaysia wanted all the schools to become Malay medium even though they weren't at the time and we ended up going to places that were not. They were English medium schools.WILSON: Mm hmm but Malay still?
DARE: Where we ended up going--
WILSON: -----------(??)
DARE: Yes but they didn't, there were, there was a Malay compound but
fewer Malays in our area. They were mainly native cultural people and Chinese--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And we ended up on a, we, there were so many in our group
00:11:00actually, we flooded Malaysia and--WILSON: How many was it? And this was you were among the first groups
or--?DARE: No, we were Malaysia twelve.
WILSON: Oh! Okay so--
DARE: There was already a couple of groups there--
WILSON: Peace Corps had started--
DARE: Yeah, they had started and I think Malaysia was one of the first
they went to--WILSON: Okay, okay, all right.
DARE: And so there were still people there. We were overlapping from
them--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And people came in after we were there too so we had a, I think
we started off with a little over two hundred. After the de-selection process, I think there was like a hundred and twenty-five but I may, that's, that's, I can't bank on that number.WILSON: Okay and this was a, and de-selection means?
DARE: It means people who would go to Hawaii and we do, take a battery
of tests and people would watch us and they may come to you and say we don't think that you're really ready to do this and would send them home and by the time-- 00:12:00WILSON: So if a hundred and twenty-five out of two hundred went, that's
quite a lot of people who didn't make it--DARE: Right, right.
WILSON: Is that the sense you have?
DARE: Right, right and we were one of the first groups--
WILSON: And you had psychologists, a lot of psychologists interviewing
you.DARE: Right and of course, that we, we always felt like they were
watching us--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: But that didn't bother me, that was still fun. We always felt like
even if we were de-selected, we had a great time in Hawaii, hahaha.WILSON: Hahaha, nobody could take that away from you.
DARE: No, hahaha.
WILSON: And you were all going to be teachers?
DARE: Teachers, ah huh, we were all generalists--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And that was the heyday of the generalists, you know, when they
were training us to teach--WILSON: Right, right.
DARE: And so that was part of our, our education too while we were there.
WILSON: That's also -----------(??)
DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: Right so you got to Malaysia in what? January '66?
DARE: It was the end of December, first of January of, yeah, '66--
WILSON: And were there for, until?
DARE: Until '68.
WILSON: Until '68.
00:13:00DARE: Mm hmm, we left in '68.
WILSON: So a full two years?
DARE: Right.
WILSON: What was it like to arrive in Malaysia and go to your site? Do
you remember that?DARE: Well, we arrived almost a month too early because we landed there
and we spent a couple of weeks in KL--WILSON: Meaning?
DARE: Kuala Lumpur--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And that, when you want an impression, people told us this that,
you know, there is going to be a little culture shock when you get there--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And one of the things that will strike you is the smell and the
smell of Asia and it's true. It did at that point and it affected me more than it did Phil. I was real nervous about that but, and we were housed in a technical school. I think they were gone on vacation during that time and so we were in their dorm areas which were nothing that we were used to but, but that shouldn't have bothered us and then, that part didn't but the foods were different and I think I would have 00:14:00been better if they just had Malays come in and feed us but, but I think they were trying to kind of have Malays feed us American food and it just didn't go real well but anyway, two weeks there. Then, we took a taxi with another couple south to Singapore. That part was a lot of fun because we were on our own and had to use our language and do that--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And then, once we got to Singapore, I really don't know how long
we were there, maybe three days and then, we took a plane to Kuching which is the capital of Sarawak and spent another couple of weeks there because again, they weren't ready for us so we were, they, they put us with a group writing scripts for teaching language--WILSON: Teaching English? Teaching--
DARE: Yes, yes.
WILSON: Oh! Okay, hmm.
00:15:00DARE: And I don't know, it didn't take very well with us. We were young
again but so was everybody else and we just saw the city, you know, got on bikes and did that and I don't think any worthwhile script came out of that but maybe it did. Not from me, I don't think--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: But then, they told us we were going to go up, what they call ulu
which means up river a couple of days and that really scared me--WILSON: That that's where you were going to be?
DARE: That's where we were going to be.
WILSON: And you didn't know that before?
DARE: Well, we, I'm not sure at what point we knew that--
WILSON: Okay.
DARE: But that upset me a lot, we were going to be a little more
isolated than I had first anticipated but--WILSON: Do you think they were doing that because you were a married
couple and were there many married couples in your group?DARE: I was about to say in our group, I think there were thirty married
couples--WILSON: Wow, that's a lot.
DARE: Yeah and I think that was the first group that had them but I
00:16:00maybe mistaken about that.WILSON: Oh, well, ours had ten and that was, that was, but that was in
'62--DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: And that was a lot for the, at that point so--
DARE: Right, I think Malaysia hadn't tried that before but maybe, again,
I don't--WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: My memory is kind of bad about that. Anyway, there were a lot of
us and that made it kind of fun really and I'm not sure I'd been strong enough to do it on my own, you know, it made it, made it really--and I often wonder you know, how somebody comes back from Peace Corps and marries somebody who didn't have that experience, you know?WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: There's something, something unusual about it, hahaha--
WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: And a lot of them didn't make it I don't think either but anyway,
we got in a little boat. There were fifteen or twenty of us that got in this boat that came out of Kuching and out into the Indian Ocean--WILSON: Wow.
DARE: And chugged up the Rajang River, let people off kind of along the
way, along the river to their sites--WILSON: And what did you have with you?
DARE: A book locker for one thing.
00:17:00WILSON: Your book locker, okay--
DARE: Hahaha.
WILSON: There were book lockers in the 1960s, right?
DARE: Yes.
WILSON: Right.
DARE: Ah huh and that was wonderful, we had a book locker and I don't
remember how, whether we had our suitcases or not but I guess we did. We had some.WILSON: You must had taken whatever you had--
DARE: Yeah, right, right.
WILSON: On the boat.
DARE: On this boat.
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And it, we, you come out into the ocean and then, you come up to
Sibu which is where they dock and then, you get in a small boat from there on up. You didn't have big boats but--WILSON: And so what does a small boat mean?
DARE: A small boat means, did you ever see African Queen?
WILSON: Mm, mm.
DARE: Africa, that's the boat, that's the size that we would have going
up the river--WILSON: So there would have been how many people on it?
DARE: Oh, there maybe lots of people on it, hahaha, many more than you'd
like but we got there I guess during the rainy season and the river was up high so that was a little scary--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: I mean, but they did it all the time so--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: You know, it's just something you kind of got used to--
WILSON: And there were other Peace Corps volunteers besides you and
your husband?DARE: Yes, yes but there were a lot of other people too--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: There were a lot of Malaysians and there were pigs and chickens
00:18:00and everything was on the boat--WILSON: Oh!
DARE: And as you go up over, you kind of drop people off and put, bring
more people on and some of the students were going back to school so you'd get some of the students and we finally got to our place, Kapit which is as far up as those boats can go and then, anybody who went from there on up, had to go in long boats which were, were just really long boats--WILSON: More like canoes or--?
DARE: No, they were a lot longer than canoes--
WILSON: Okay.
DARE: And they had motors on the back.
WILSON: Motors on the back.
DARE: Mm hmm and an Iban would be usually driving the boat and there'd
be somebody at the front of the boat who'd have to watch out for logs and stuff--WILSON: Mm hmm, that was an ebon?
DARE: Well, an Iban was the original wild man of Borneo. He was the
man, he was, they were the people who were in the majority in our area of Borneo--WILSON: Okay.
DARE: And they were very adapted to driving these boats--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And like I said, there would be one at the front of the boat and
00:19:00one at the back and then we were, whoever had to go up farther, would be in the middle. They may carry six to eight people, maybe but the people who did the work was the guy at the back and the one in the front.WILSON: So you also had a chance obviously to go on these boats?
DARE: Yes.
WILSON: As well--
DARE: Yes, yes.
WILSON: Even though you were--
DARE: We were at Kapit.
WILSON: So you were, but you were the last volunteers dropped off ------
-----(??)?DARE: No, there were some more that went up farther--
WILSON: Went farther, oh, okay, alright.
DARE: And those that went up farther were, our, our little town was sort
of the capital of the Iban group--WILSON: Okay.
DARE: And so there was a government office there, there was a government
school, there was a mission school too so we were really landed on a mission station--WILSON: Ah huh and so--.
DARE: And that's unusual.
WILSON: Several hundred people or--?
DARE: Oh--
WILSON: Bigger than that?
DARE: A couple thousand maybe--
WILSON: Couple thousand people.
DARE: And that, that fluctuated because that's where the trading was
done.WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: There was a square of Chinese shop houses with the square in the
middle and that's rubber and things would come down and rattan and you'd see them drying on the, on the basketball court in the middle of 00:20:00town and the Chinese shops were facing it and they'd trade off and go back, the Ibans would go back up river and, and the Chinese would do the trading and take it off, down.WILSON: So you got there and you were assigned to?
DARE: To, I was assigned to a primary school, a Methodist primary
school--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And Phil was assigned to a high school, Methodist high school and
the interesting thing there is my head mistress was a graduate of the Ohio State University--WILSON: Oh wow.
DARE: Ms. Wong, yeah and his head master had gone to Berea College.
WILSON: Oh my goodness.
DARE: Yes.
WILSON: Small world.
DARE: Oh yes.
WILSON: They were?
DARE: They, he was Chin-, both were Chinese actually--
WILSON: Both were Chinese.
DARE: Both were Chinese, yeah--
WILSON: Ah huh.
DARE: But because of the, the Methodists being there, they would choose
people to take, to send back to be educated and so that's and the Methodists, there happened to be Asbury Methodists, hahaha-- 00:21:00WILSON: Oh, good gracious!
DARE: And there was a nurse there who was a graduate of the first
graduating class of UK's nursing school as well as John Payne. He came after we were there and he, of course, was of the first graduating class of the medical school here at UK. Did you know that?WILSON: No, no.
DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: Jack interviewed him.
DARE: Yeah.
WILSON: Well, so there were lots of connections?
DARE: There was lots of connections--
WILSON: Yes.
DARE: And yeah and it happened because we were where we were, a lot of
people liked to come to Kapit because it was kind of, kind of an area that lots of things were happening and still happening in the Chinese, a lot of good mix of things going on and so any of the, any of them that had gone up river, any time, they'd come for supplies, we'd, they'd end up at our place and, and a lot of people on break would come up to our place because we would usually have some project that we were doing with the schools.WILSON: So what was your place like?
DARE: Oh, well, the first place was, was across the river from town so
we all and it was in a mission's, the Methodist mission had built four 00:22:00houses over there. Now, why over across, away from town, I don't know but there was only one family left over there and so they wanted, they were glad to have somebody in one of the other houses so we were there for six months and then, that family left and then, we moved across town. We lived in a Chinese shop house. They had built new shop houses and we were on the fourth floor--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And we shared a bath and the building with a Chinese family and
they'd come through our place to go up to the roof to do their wash and that kind of stuff. Nobody else, there were rooms that they could have rented on our floor but they didn't and I don't know if it just because they didn't have anybody that would want to room with us, ha, you know, want to share space with us but we had two front rooms and then, at the back was the kitchen and a bath--WILSON: Mm hmm and so what was living day to day, I mean, we'll talk
00:23:00about school too--DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: But, but what was, how was living day to day like?
DARE: Wow, well, got up and usually had breakfast, in fact, our Chinese
shop house down below had a bakery so that was kind of nice.WILSON: Oh!
DARE: Yeah, didn't have English style things but it was a bakery so we'd
have breakfast and I don't even remember what we would eat. Lots of tea, oh, we tried to eat what everybody else ate but it became obvious that Phil was losing weight fast and so we had to start buying some things that would put meat on him. I, I gained the ten pounds that they said woman gain during training and I don't know if that's because we don't have think about the food during training. It was just wonderful. We just went to class and did some -----------(??) thing and everybody, you know, just go sit down and there was this and we had where we were in Hawaii was a training table--WILSON: Mm.
DARE: For the military!
WILSON: Oh my, oh my.
DARE: So we had all this food and I had already gained like ten pounds
00:24:00so it didn't show on me as it did him but anyway, so we did that and then we'd go to school and it's interesting to see with Kentucky doing what they're doing now about exercise--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: There would be one of the teachers that kind of rotated, they
would do the exercise for the whole school. They'd come out and all the school would line up and then one of the teachers would do exercises with them.WILSON: For a half and hour like our legislatures--
DARE: Yeah, fifteen or a half--
WILSON: Mandate?
DARE: Yeah, right.
WILSON: Huh, before school started?
DARE: Well, yes, I want to say that and I'm pretty sure that's when
it was.WILSON: What, what time was school from?
DARE: I don't remember, I don't remember.
WILSON: Was it early like seven thirty or nine thirty or no?
DARE: No, no, no, well, it was early but we, we stopped at about one--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And then, we'd go home have some lunch or whatever and then, come
back at three so--WILSON: Oh, oh okay.
DARE: And then, they had some more after that because that was the
00:25:00hottest part of the day--WILSON: Right.
DARE: And we were two degrees above the equator so--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Only mad dogs and Englishmen and Peace Corps were out in the
middle of the day, hahaha--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: So anyway, that's and then, we had classes on Saturday mornings
also.WILSON: Mm so when class was over then you'd go back to your place and,
and you did the cooking or--?DARE: Yeah.
WILSON: Yeah?
DARE: Yeah, I, we had cooking, I did that and that was, that was always
a matter of people thinking it was funny that I would cook and--WILSON: Because they expected you to hire somebody?
DARE: Well, I don't know if they expected us to hire. Peace Corps told
us not to do that--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: But I wouldn't have known what to do about that anyway--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: But the, but the Englishmen is what they would call or European is
what they would call everybody else who was Caucasian always did--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Hire somebody to do their cooking and cleaning for them but that
was not me.WILSON: So you fixed, I mean, you were talking about food earlier, you
00:26:00fixed Malay dishes, Chinese dishes, whatever you could get?DARE: Well, yes, yes but in our little town, there was a woman who was
a Chinese and she had four kids that went to our schools. She was very smart. When the missionaries first came there, she asked them, the people who were hired to work in their homes to save any of the labels off of cans that these people brought with them and boxes and she would order things from the States so she had all this stuff and not only that, she had her kids deliver them to the homes so there was an open market which I couldn't get to because I was at school while the open market was in, in the morning--WILSON: Right.
DARE: So you could drop off a list with Ms. Pohghee and she would shop
for you and then, send it up and it'd be there when you got home from--WILSON: So--
DARE: So--
WILSON: -----------(??)
DARE: We can get American food as well as--
00:27:00WILSON: Like?
DARE: Like Jell-O, I remember one day--
WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: I was coming by her place and she had all this Jell-O out. The
ants had gotten to the Jell-O, hahaha--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: So she couldn't sell that but, but there were things like products
that you wouldn't be able to find any place else in Malaysia but in Kapit because she was so smart to do that and when the Gurkhas came, when, we were there during confrontation with Indonesia and the Gurkhas were stationed there, well, and there were some British people too.WILSON: And the Gurkhas are?
DARE: Men from Nepal who are mercenaries and--
WILSON: Who were trained originally by the British, right?
DARE: British, right, right and, and trained and fought with the
British--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: All over the world--
WILSON: Right, right.
DARE: But she was the one that could supply them because she was so, had
thought ahead and done all of this but--WILSON: Did you have fruit or any -----------(??)?
DARE: Oh, lots of wonderful fruit--
WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: And she would always, we got to know her and her family real well
and in fact, all four of her kids came to the state or Canada to school 00:28:00later on and we kept in, we still keep in touch with them and Mrs. Pohghee. Her name is not really Pohghee but that was his name Pohghee and we just called him Mrs. Pohghee and that's what we always knew her by. She came to visit us twice. She was here--WILSON: Oh really? Was that--
DARE: And that was the first time, yeah, first time she'd ever been out
of Borneo--WILSON: Oh wow, that's neat.
DARE: So yeah, it was a really neat thing. Her husband liked Phil
real well but he didn't, I mean, Mrs. Pohghee always tried to speak English. She'd learned as much as she could but her husband never did but he really liked Phil, partly because Phil would drink with him. He had a real drinking problem I think, hahaha--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: And she, that's why ran the store, I mean--
WILSON: Mm hmm, mm hmm.
DARE: She did all that but anyway, I don't want to tell tales--
WILSON: Oh, that's right--
DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: What, what about teaching? What was that like? You were teaching
primary school?DARE: Right and this was an interesting little school. The school
00:29:00was named Winston Salem because some people from Winston Salem, North Carolina had given the money for this school through the missionaries--WILSON: Oh!
DARE: So it's called Winston Salem and, and there were two classes of
every, two classrooms of every class and one was called Winston and one was called Salem--WILSON: Ha!
DARE: And that was all the way through six grades or forms, fives I
guess, it's the British system. I've been away from it too long now but my, in my school it was I did the English, took on the English classes--WILSON: For all the grades?
DARE: No, the lower grades I sort of supervised--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: I never had an supervisory experience but you know, that's what
I did and then, I taught the upper grades because they would take the overseas exams in order to go to the next level and so that's was sort of my responsibility and on top of that, there was a small school up 00:30:00river that this mission group took care of and they would have me go up there and supervise too so I, once a month, would get in one of these boats with some man that drove it, hahaha--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: And we'd go up river and that was--
WILSON: -----------(??)
DARE: Yeah, that was a lot of fun actually, you know--
WILSON: Wow.
DARE: Yeah.
WILSON: What did you do for recreation when you and Phil weren't
teaching?DARE: Oh, well, let's see--
WILSON: You know, you said you had people come and visit you--
DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: Did you get out of your town at all?
DARE: Not much except on vacation time--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Because you know, we were pretty well tired there with school,
during the school terms but off the school terms, they had the six weeks in the winter and then, two three week breaks and on the long one, we would try to get out of Kapit. We took a couple of air tours, 00:31:00Malaysian Airways is, was, is, was wonderful--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: You could go from Kuching to Manila to Hong Kong to Japan and
then, back to Thailand down the coast of Malaysia--WILSON: Well, so you did all of that while you were there?
DARE: Yeah!
WILSON: Oh, my gosh!
DARE: Because that was when the airlines, you could get one ticket, you
can just get on and off wherever, whenever--WILSON: Wow.
DARE: You didn't have to have this, you know, be very specific when you
bought it--WILSON: Right, right.
DARE: But anyway, yeah, so that was what we did the first long vacation
but during those short, those three week ones, we would try to have some kind of project that we would do and again, because so many people liked to come up there, we'd, we built a basketball court with concrete for Phil's school and it was up on a hill so we had all these Peace Corps volunteers unloading sacks of concrete down the hill and walking up the hill with these fifty pound packs of-- 00:32:00WILSON: Right.
DARE: And that, the people there could hardly believe that, that these
kids were working so hard and anyway, that was one of our projects and I can't remember what the other projects were but we were--WILSON: And when you were staying there, you would read books out of
book locker?DARE: Oh yes.
WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: And walk the town.
WILSON: Walk the town.
DARE: I really wish, Phil did a lot more getting out than I did and I'm
not quite sure what and I did go down river for some conferences. They would have conference for teachers--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And so that's some of what we did and we had one experience that
there was an Australian fellow who had brought his yacht up to Kapit and then, he, they had a logging camp up farther and when he realized we were in town, he invited us to go up there. Well, we were obviously way out of our element and he was way out of his element, hahaha. We 00:33:00didn't mesh at all. He talked about yachting and polo and all this--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: And when we could blah, blah, blah--
WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: And he had this air conditioned beautiful home up there--
WILSON: Wow.
DARE: Yeah and, and then, they were logging taking all this wood out
of Malaysia and at the time, even when we said don't you feel any compunction about this, you know?WILSON: Mm hmm, mm hmm.
DARE: Oh no, the Malaysian government okays it, well, you know, that
was, that was the beginning of what was happening in Malaysia. They were denuding the forests and--WILSON: Right and you could see that.
DARE: Yeah.
WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: Oh yeah, he was very, he very proudly showed it all to us.
WILSON: What were your interactions with host country nationals like?
You mentioned this--DARE: Malaysian, Mrs. Pohghee.
WILSON: Yeah, Mrs. Pohghee.
DARE: Well, some of our problems, some of the problem with that
particular station was the missionaries--WILSON: Mm.
DARE: You know, you had--
WILSON: So you had American missionaries?
DARE: Yes! Like I said they were from Asbury--
WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: I mean, Asbury College!
WILSON: Right, right.
DARE: So--
WILSON: So how many?
DARE: Well, there was a hospital there--
00:34:00WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: So there were nurses and they had their own little houses and we
really did stay away from them but you know, that, in some ways, that was rude, you know? We couldn't do that all the time--WILSON: Sure.
DARE: And there were some people that were very nice. It wasn't that
they weren't nice so we, that, that was a little bit of a deterrent, deterrent to mixing as much but we, when we, we went back in 1985, '95, excuse me, I don't know why I said '85, '95 and we had, we would go into the Malay Compound and we still had friends there, Chinese friends--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Teachers that, that I had worked with.
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: They were all so wonderful. By that time, the mission station
was gone. The government had taken over the hospital and the schools so that was, they weren't, they weren't as big an item and the people began to realize we were not the same as the missionaries, you know?WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: When we could go into the coffee houses and sit and talk and do
00:35:00but that, we didn't have as, well, we did, I think. Like I said, when we went back, there were a lot of people that remembered us and we were invited into their homes and when we got there, Ramadan was on and the Chinese New Year at the same time so we were visiting--WILSON: Everybody!
DARE: Everybody right off the bat--
WILSON: Oh, that's great.
DARE: So that was really great, yeah.
WILSON: Former students as well you saw when you were there?
DARE: Oh yeah.
WILSON: -----------(??) yeah, yeah--
DARE: Oh yes, yeah.
WILSON: Oh wow.
DARE: Of course, they had their own families. In fact, we had, Phil
was in a wedding. One of the Philippine, she was a Philippine nurse that was on the mission station and she married a national and he and Phil got to be good friends and when they were married, Phil was their best man there in town and I was in the wedding too. Well, when we went back, we wrote them and said that we were coming and when we were coming. Well, she was, they had since moved down river to another town 00:36:00and wrote and said that one of my fifth grade students, when she heard I was coming, she just was overjoyed and wrote to me right away. She wanted to host me through all of this and she did. We met her family and she certainly since got married and had children and we went and visited her parents and Phil could still remember some of Iban. He studied Iban which is really close to Malay too--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And the father was just overjoyed that Phil had tried so hard, you
know, to, to communicate with him. Even though he was Chinese, they, the Chinese are real adept at learning languages because of commerce and so this young lady, Rose Chung, she's, them, we've written to them since too and her husband and two children so yeah, students and in fact, I'll tell this story. It doesn't need to be repeated but I remember when we walked in one, one of the places where some, they had 00:37:00a supper for us when we, Mrs. Pohghee had told some people we were coming so they were having a supper for us and we walked in and they said "Oh! Teacher, that's what they called us, Teacher you haven't changed at all!" Phil, they thought he really had because all this white hair now--WILSON: Oh, right.
DARE: Yeah, yeah but they said you just haven't changed at all. You're
fatter--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: Hahaha, they were right up front with that.
WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: Hahaha but other, other than that, they were just, most of, some
of them were teaching now, you know? And there was still one or two that was still teaching there which was very strange, you know, to still be there--WILSON: Oh, yeah, I know what you're saying.
DARE: And one was a Malay woman who again had us to her home during
that time. Very impressive, one of these women that was a natural born teacher. She was wonderful as a second grade teacher and she'd been with that school that whole time. From the time we were there till we went back in '95, that's a long time.WILSON: Were there other memorable stories from Peace Corps the two
00:38:00years that you were there?DARE: I don't know. I'm sure if you lead me through some I could do
that. One of the things that was very memorable and interesting in our school, in my grade school. The government had gone through, this is the beginning of the Malaysian government as we know it today and they were trying to get all the kids in school so they were going into the long houses and trying to find children that were not in school and bring them down and of course, these are kids come there and are gone from home. They, once they come down river--WILSON: Because they have boarding--
DARE: Boarding.
WILSON: Even if they were at primary school?
DARE: Oh yes.
WILSON: Yeah, yeah.
DARE: From the time they, yeah--
WILSON: Right, right.
DARE: Well, we had a class, we had a class of eight blind children
that they had found in the long houses and they had trained two of the nationals to teach them and they were all ages in the primary school and that was a wonderful, this is in the school itself and they were 00:39:00trying to mainstream them. Juwin was the name of the teacher. He would teach them for the first year and I must have been there either the first year or the second year that those children were there so he'd have them all together one, for part of the year, for the first part of the year and then, he began mainstreaming them and some were from, from grades one all the way through fifth and sixth grade and they were so bright--WILSON: And when you say they were all, they were all ages--
DARE: Yes.
WILSON: So kids coming who might be twelve but they'd be starting
school? Is that--DARE: Well--
WILSON: No, that's not right because that--
DARE: Some of the blind children, that may have been true--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Because they didn't, you know, first of all, the parents won't let
go of them--WILSON: Right.
DARE: And some places they went into those longhouses and they had a
hard time finding them because they hide them.WILSON: Now, what do you mean by the longhouses?
DARE: The longhouses is a home. It's an apartment building but it's
length wise instead of going up and they're divided into three sections. 00:40:00The whole front section is the porch and every, that's where all the, that's where all the social life is and then, the next one is their, it's also open and it's, but it had a roof over it but it's pretty well open. These are all up on stilts because the rivers flood and, and it gets them up off the ground. Anyway, that's their cooking areas--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And then, you go into the next room and that's their sleeping area.
WILSON: And one family is living per long house?
DARE: One family, no--
WILSON: Or no?
DARE: The longhouse may have--
WILSON: -----------(??)
DARE: Yes, may have twenty to fifty families. In fact, you, you might
say that's a twenty family long house so they're long length wise but then they're cut off like this. They each one, each family has three rooms.WILSON: And those families, are those families related or not?
DARE: Some.
WILSON: Ah huh.
DARE: They, they have to be because they don't, there's not that many
00:41:00around--WILSON: Okay.
DARE: So most of them are related, yeah.
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Mm hmm and they're, they're different tribes.
WILSON: But, but so the government was, was going, when you say going to
the longhouses, they were going to these homes?DARE: Homes and saying your children need to be in school--
WILSON: Need to be in school--
DARE: Ah huh, ah huh.
WILSON: Wow.
DARE: And since when went back, they had actually built more schools
closer to these longhouses--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And you could go up river, you could see the longhouses. Most
of them were, were built close to the river because that's the water source--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And you can see them from the river but you may go ten or fifteen
miles before you see another one, you know so--WILSON: What would have been the occupation of the people living in,
where they--DARE: Hunters and gatherers.
WILSON: Okay, so pretty subsistence?
DARE: Pretty subsistence but they were also rubber tappers--
WILSON: Oh, okay.
DARE: So they knew how to tap rubber.
WILSON: So that was an area where they were--
DARE: Right, they would bring the rubber down to, to Kapit and then,
sell it from there or sell it to the Chinese and the Chinese would go ahead and send it on out and berries and couple times, when you 00:42:00asked what we did for, we did go up into a couple of longhouses of some students and spent a couple of days in each of them. That was a really an eye opener. We went out into the jungle and helped them, watched them gather berries and the things that they ate, we ate in the longhouse, slept in the longhouse.WILSON: What about, because I think you mentioned the Gurkhas coming in--
DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: What happened politically while you were there?
DARE: Well, there was never any, we were about twenty-five miles from
the border--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: But there were mountains.
WILSON: The border with?
DARE: Indonesia because this is the island of Borneo and Sarawak is on
the north part and Kalimantan is on the other side--WILSON: Right.
DARE: And there were some mountains. The Gurkhas were stationed there.
We never saw any action but people were restricted as even the, the local people were restricted to how much, how much, how many bullets 00:43:00they could have--WILSON: Mm!
DARE: For their rifles, that was pretty well--no Chinese firecrackers
so there were some restrictions that way but I, confrontation was over before we left but there was, I don't remember any celebration about it or--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: But we went, we had the Prime Minister came up while we were and
I mean so, we were isolated but not because it was kind of the, the headquarters like I said of the Ibans and they were politically viable in the Malaysian government so whenever there was anybody important that would come to Borneo, they would come to Kapit.WILSON: But that was also the time, you said when Singapore left
Malaysia.DARE: Singapore left before we even got there--
WILSON: Oh, before you got there?
DARE: It was while we were in Hawaii--
WILSON: Okay, okay.
DARE: And I was on the impression they were, they pulled out--
00:44:00WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: But it's been since then that they, no, they were told they needed
to leave because they were ethnically Chinese--WILSON: Ah!
DARE: That's where all the power was--
WILSON: Ah, okay!
DARE: And Malaysia as a federation thought they would dominate--
WILSON: Ah huh, -----------(??)
DARE: Yeah.
WILSON: Yeah, what was it like to come home?
DARE: Oh, hmm, not as bad for me as it was for Phil because he was
working on a dissertation and he was by himself too much, you know, doing research--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: I went to work right away so I was with people and I could tell my
story and you know, and I bored people silly, hahaha--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: But I had a good time and we met a lot of return Peace Corps
volunteers then. When we went, there were very few from Kentucky, very few but when we came back, there were people coming back to Kentucky, getting degrees in anthropology--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: In fact, two of the, right away, we met couples that had come,
00:45:00one from Malaysia actually and the others were in the, in the Caribbean some place and they were working on degrees in anthropology and JulesDelambre--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: He was one of those too. Now, we met him then but we're not as
good of friends with him as we were with some of the others so--WILSON: And you were doing what?
DARE: I just came back and worked at the university in different things,
medical illustrations, worked for the Pre-Med office in Liberal Arts, you know, Arts and Sciences and then, I moved into Library Science and I was there forever, hahaha, so--WILSON: But did you, original degree, get Library Science?
DARE: No, no, no, no and I was, I was a clerical person.
WILSON: Oh, okay, right.
DARE: Administrative Assistant or Staff Assistant, whatever you want to
call it--WILSON: Yeah, yeah.
DARE: So that's just where I landed and where I stayed and like I said,
we don't plan our lives real well, hahaha-- 00:46:00WILSON: Hahaha, oh--
DARE: But it was an adjustment. One of the big adjustments being
litter. It's better now but it really bothered us at first and then, going into a grocery store where there were rows and rows of dog food and cat food and we did not, we were really and since then, we've been told we were in the Cadillac of countries as far as the Peace Corps went during that time but we didn't, I mean, we saw beggars when we traveled. We didn't have beggars where we lived but you certainly knew people lived a lot more simply and we learned to live a lot more simply than what we saw around us and that was hard to adjust to and we still haven't actually, ha, you know?WILSON: I think I'm going to turn this over.
DARE: Okay.
[Side a ends; side b begins.]
WILSON: So what do you think the impact of your Peace Corps service was
00:47:00on the country and the people and what was the impact on you?DARE: Well, personally, I don't think I had that great of an impact. I
mean, as a group, I think we did and I think from what I can tell; it was one of the ideal places for Peace Corps. We were invited in for a specific purpose. We, it was to staff schools until they could train their own people. They were doing that at the time. We were doing some of the training and when they got them trained, they asked us to leave.WILSON: And when did Peace Corps leave Malaysia?
DARE: I don't know but they're not there now.
WILSON: No, I know--
DARE: It was not, it was not long after.
WILSON: So they were there maybe a limited time--
DARE: Right.
WILSON: During the 1960s?
DARE: And I'm not sure when we were invited in, if that was, if that was
designated, you know--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: We want Peace Corps volunteer here for ten years while we do this
and they didn't, they were not real crazy about some many of us being 00:48:00there--WILSON: So were there like a three or four hundred when you were there
-----------(??)?DARE: Yeah, oh sure!
WILSON: Oh, wow!
DARE: Oh sure, there had to be that many because we had, I mean, you
couldn't go any place in Malaysia without bumping into one--WILSON: That's interesting.
DARE: And not only our group, like I said, there were some before us and
there were some after us--WILSON: Right, right.
DARE: But I think actually, that's, you know, that's what it was
designed to do--WILSON: Mm hmm
DARE: You know, for, for countries that needed something done and we can
be invited in and do the job and leave and not Americanize them, ha--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Yeah so that I think, that was good. That's what we did. Now, we
didn't leave, we left behind a basketball court, hahaha--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: They talked about the fact you need to leave and you think oh my
goodness--WILSON: Hahaha
DARE: But we, we do still have friends there and as far as what it did
for us, it was a seminal time for us. It's everything that was before Peace Corps or after Peace Corps and while we didn't do that much, 00:49:00when we came back to share that, it was just that the two of us always have that together and it means a lot. It's, that's why we're still interested in government and why we're still interested in Habitat and things like that, you know, it's all part of the volunteerism too so I mean, it had a huge impact on us and I thought, I don't think anybody who knows us very well--I am surprised every once in a while. We had a niece go to the Ukraine for a year.WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: She came back and she was talking to Phil on the phone and Phil was
saying yeah, you know, when we were in Malaysia, you know, and she says "You were in Malaysia? What were you doing there? You know, it was like after a while, you don't talk about it anymore and then, all of sudden you realize, there's this whole group of people that didn't know you were there and but, but most people who know us very well, they, that's 00:50:00one of the things they know about us, that we were in the Peace Corps.WILSON: That's interesting because you were talking about that earlier
too. What, can you say something more about why it's so important for those of us who went together as couples?DARE: Oh wow--
WILSON: Because, because I agree with you--
DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: I think that's--
DARE: You and Jack were married at the time?
WILSON: Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
DARE: I guess, I don't know, I--well, both of my children are adopted
and they're both biracial--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And that probably is one of the reasons, you know?
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And people who don't know us well and don't know the exact ages of
our kids, think we brought them back with us, hahaha--WILSON: Hahaha, oh, that's interesting!
DARE: Yes, they do--
WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: But so that, that always, you know, the interest in cross cultural
and diversity and that's just been a part of us since we've been back and I think if you dig very deeply in that kind of globalization that's 00:51:00happened to the world, you'll find Peace Corp volunteers that, you know, on different levels and doing different things even though Phil and I never got involved in any of the National Peace Corps things or--WILSON: Oh, well, but--
DARE: It's just and I took a trip to Nicaragua two years ago, three
years ago, was there for about ten days and we were with my church--WILSON: Okay.
DARE: There was, well, it was a group of women volunteers, just women to
build a little library up river--WILSON: Oh, yeah, yeah.
DARE: I mean, there were a lot of similarities I'll tell you and but when
we were, got to the hotel in, in Managua, somebody said did you know there's a couple of other Peace Corps volunteers here that are actually volunteers? So I went down just to see them and talk to them. They were just oh! It was like oh my goodness! You were back there in '65?WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: Hahaha, it was like whoa, hahaha so--
00:52:00WILSON: But you still had something in common with them, right?
DARE: Oh yeah, oh, immediately--
WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Oh immediately, it's been amazing--
WILSON: And did you have more, were you more comfortable going up the
river than some of the other women?DARE: Well, I thought I would be. I really should have been better than
I was--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: One of my problems was water, you know, potable water in Central
and South America is not, not available just everywhere--WILSON: Mm hmm, mm hmm.
DARE: And we never had a problem about that in Malaysia, ever!
WILSON: Mm
DARE: Yes, from the time we got there, I never, we were never sick, we
were never worried about that--WILSON: They had potable water?
DARE: Yes! Our little town had a water system.
WILSON: My goodness--
DARE: Yeah! They pumped it up from the river and put chlorine in the
water just like and I think fluoride even, hahaha, so that was not something I was ever concerned about and I was when I went to Managua and I mean, to Nicaragua and, and we weren't ever afraid but there was still a lot of military stuff going on in Nicaragua when we were there-- 00:53:00WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: So there's, there was a difference and I was disappointed in
myself that I wasn't as well prepared as I should have been, you know? I thought this is going to be a breeze.WILSON: Have you done other, you, you went back to Malaysia -----------
(??), have you done other international travels since you came back?DARE: We did take our kids to Europe for, just because we thought that
was important.WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: That and nope, that's it and then, the big trip that we took. We
took five weeks that we took--WILSON: Right.
DARE: To Malaysia. We, we did almost our circling touring. We went to
Japan and visited, well, yes, excuse me. I work with the International Hospitality Group on campus and that's always been a part of my life too so we've always had international students in our house and so all of that has great meaning but you know, we had a, because we've 00:54:00had this connection, someone called us and asked if we could house a Japanese student for three weeks. She was a high school student and they were here just for three weeks. I never quite figured out what it was for but anyway, she was here and Phil's brother had sent us a book of Japanese homes, village homes, you know, the old style wooden--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Really and it's a black and white book and we showed Yutaka this
book. She was embarrassed by it because she said I've never seen any houses like this in Japan and we have to remember that you know, first of all, we were there forty years ago, almost fifty years ago--WILSON: That's a long time.
DARE: A long time ago and these kids have no, I mean and they are so
proud of how, how technologically advanced they are and especially, in Southeast Asia--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: I mean, you, if you meet someone from Malaysia and you talk about
00:55:00being from East Malaysia which is where we were, oh, that's like saying you were in--WILSON: Yeah, Sarawak and so, did they, have you had Malaysian students
as, you've hosted Malaysians -----------(??) now?DARE: No, well, yes, we have had some--
WILSON: Because there for a while, there were a lot of Malaysian
students--DARE: Oh, I know, yes, yes, we did have some.
WILSON: Malay and Indian and, and--
DARE: Yeah and but the funny thing was--
WILSON: Chinese?
DARE: Yeah, the Chinese, Malays, Chinese Malayans tend to be easier to
have than the Malay Malayans--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Because Malays, the Malay Malays are Muslim and that has, that has
a, they sometime have a problem with animals in your house--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: We don't have animals in our house but they would have trouble
with that, well, now we do but and food--WILSON: And food--
DARE: Yeah.
WILSON: You have to be careful--
DARE: Yeah.
WILSON: Sure.
DARE: So it's not as easy to and we did have some but that was a problem
even thought where we were, yeah, we just, we didn't, that was not an issue where we were.WILSON: Mm hmm.
00:56:00DARE: There were, it was not a Muslim area like everybody ate pork,
everybody ate--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: You know, it was mainly--
WILSON: They had become Methodists or they were--?
DARE: Oh, sort of, hahaha, no, no this town was way before the missions
came but there was a church there--WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: And they were very and the hospital, of course, was run by the
missionaries so that was, they were very grateful to that and some might say they were Christian and maybe they were, you know, as much as me or anybody else in their own way so--WILSON: Mm hmm, you mentioned that you thought that the fact that you'd
been in Peace Corps probably had some impact on the fact that the kids you adopted--DARE: Yeah!
WILSON: And you mentioned also your niece and talking to her, what do
you think the impact of, of Peace Corps was on your family, I mean, you know--DARE: My family, oh, wonderful--
WILSON: And extended, yeah, yeah.
DARE: Wonderful, my mother, I think, would have come had we invited her
and you know, we talked about it once but--WILSON: In those days, that didn't--
DARE: Yeah, that didn't, no, because we, we, we were half way around the
00:57:00world--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And she had always wanted to travel and when she retired, she
ended up traveling a lot but she never got to Asia and that was, that was before she started it and I, I just was a little nervous, I just didn't think that far and she said she thought she probably would have come had we really invited her but she also one that if she really wanted to come, she would have come, hahaha--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: But we sent tapes backs and we sent pictures and they were doing
things before we realized some of it. They were taking them to church and playing the tapes and showing our slides to people and we tried to send along a narration but you know, that's a very difficult thing to do. You don't know your audience, you don't, it's a really kind of touchy kind of thing and we would make judgments about things. Not there, but things about home that really maybe we probably was not well 00:58:00received--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: But no, my folks, before we went, both my folks and his folks came
to us separately and said you know, you don't really have to go if, you know, if you don't really, really have to go if you don't want to do this and just because Phil wants to go--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: Phil's, they would say just because Nancy wants to go doesn't mean
you have to go, hahaha so they tried to talk us out of it and not, and not, not an organized way but you know, neither of us had ever flown before--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: So we get on a plane in St. Louis and fly from there to L.A. to
Hawaii and then, to Kuala-, in fact, our ticket when we got it in St. Louis had it all the way to Kuala Lumpur.WILSON: Wow.
DARE: So that was kind of interesting too but I, and my, my mother is
extensively rich. She loves archeology. She loves that kind of thing so this was really just up her alley. My dad was a little less so Phil's folks were just flabbergasted and really entered into it though 00:59:00once, once we went. They were always afraid because we were not, no email, no computer--WILSON: Mm hmm, right.
DARE: No telephones so you know, you were out of contract with them and
as you're being a grandmother now and you know, you, there's a little different point of view than when you're young and can go and you have no fear and don't even think about it--WILSON: No, hahaha!
DARE: That you're not going to have contact for two years
WILSON: Right, hahaha, my--
DARE: We'll write letters.
WILSON: Mm hmm, what have you done since the Peace Corps? I guess you've
already said that--DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: And was there any impact on what, what you did as, as work, as
a career?DARE: No.
WILSON: Afterwards?
DARE: No, mm, mm, not really, if we planned our life better, it might
have been but we didn't hahaha. I was always, you know, Phil was working on his, a degree here, a degree there and--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: When he got his Ph.D. in History, there were, that was when it
01:00:00was nothing available--WILSON: Right, right.
DARE: So--
WILSON: And he had started that before you went and then came back and
did his dissertation?DARE: Yeah, he had started the Master's--
WILSON: Oh, okay.
DARE: And he finished the Master's when he got back so he's really
working on his Master's Thesis that first year when we got back--WILSON: Oh, okay.
DARE: And then, again, he knew he'd have to have PhD--
WILSON: Right.
DARE: If he was going to do it in History--
WILSON: Exactly.
DARE: So he went ahead and then, when that happened, that was when there
was nothing so--WILSON: Right.
DARE: So he then, we went to Richmond for a couple of years and he was
dorm person. There, we lived in a football dorm--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And then, decided he'd go to library school and then, he went so
we came back to Lexington and he finished the library thing and that's why we stayed here, hahaha.WILSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah--
DARE: Circumstances.
WILSON: But you didn't, but you didn't go on?
DARE: I didn't go on, no--
WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: I took a course here or there but I never--
WILSON: Right but you're a librarian none the less--
DARE: Well--
WILSON: Sort of.
DARE: Sort of, hahaha.
WILSON: Hahaha, -----------(??)
01:01:00DARE: That's where I work.
WILSON: That's where you're working.
DARE: That's where my retirement job is.
WILSON: At the library, that's your retirement job.
DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: Oh, I didn't realize that was you, you because you worked at UK--
DARE: Yeah.
WILSON: And then, retired from UK--
DARE: Retired from UK--
WILSON: And then what?
DARE: In, right, that year when we got back from our trip so '95, '96
and then, I'd been working, I laid off for a couple of years just to see, I did a lot of work with Habitat and then, decided I needed to have a little more structure to my life--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: So went and applied at the library and I really, really enjoy that
and--WILSON: And so you, but you're not working full time?
DARE: No, part time.
WILSON: Part time--okay, let's see what the, I think we've covered most
of these. I think we've talked about this but let me ask it because I haven't asked it that this way, what has been the impact of Peace Corps service on the way you think about the world and what is going on now? 01:02:00DARE: Makes one a little skeptical about what you read, what you hear,
more empathetic, more sympathetic, angry, and the older one gets, you know, there's a lot of hope but there's a lot of distrust--WILSON: Of?
DARE: Well, of government but I mean, because even when we were in the
throws of all this and the Kennedy era and then, you come back and you read and all that, you know, there was a lot of baloney, some of it and you know, that, that sort of disillusions one so you get disillusioned pretty quickly so but I think we've leveled off. I think we're pretty mellow about it all now and hopefully, with Phil's retirement next, this summer, we'll be able to do more traveling and-- 01:03:00WILSON: Where do you want to travel?
DARE: We'd like to go back to Asia but I, we still haven't done England,
you know?WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: I still want to do that, ha.
WILSON: Mm hmm, -----------(??) forgot about that--
DARE: And I just think it's important for us to know all of that and be
but we, I, we have grandchildren, a granddaughter and my mom is still around so we're kind of constrained, ha, with what we can do but we will do what we can.WILSON: What do you think the overall impact of Peace Corps has been?
This is the last question. In contrast just to Malaysia--DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: And what do you think its role should be today, 2005?
DARE: When I think some of what's happening, you know, and there are,
are needs in the world, the Peace Corps can be called upon. Those people who have been there and seen it can be called on as workers, as consultants and I know some of the people, especially in our group 01:04:00have done that very well with the A.I.D. and I think there used to be a real distrust of the Peace Corps when we were especially there at that time, early Peace Corp that we were CIA agents and, and I never felt that but I know there was a lot of talk that don't get yourself involved in anything that would even hint of that and I don't think that there's any of that anymore. They'd be mistaken. I still think it's a wonderful concept. It's not as new or as original as I first thought it was, of course. We got there and the Canadians were already doing it--WILSON: Hahaha.
DARE: And the Australians were already doing it, hahaha so but I think,
I think it's the best the U.S. has to offer actually. It's the best face we can have and I, I hope those that go out now realize that because there's a lot of bad stuff out there about Americans and the 01:05:00Peace Corps could be a really wonderful face to have and people still do remember that in a lot of villages around the world.WILSON: And you found that in 1994 and '95?
DARE: Sure did, sure did.
WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: We were, you know, a lot of people said you can't go, you know,
it just isn't going to be the same but it was wonderful. Mrs. Pohghee put us up and ha, it's just and we still have friends like that, you know, so--WILSON: Is there anything you want to talk about that I haven't asked
you about? That's always the last question.DARE: Hahaha, not that I can think of right now. I may think of
something later. This experience with the blind children was something that was wonderful and for me to see that, I, I had nothing to do with them except you know, they, they thought it was, they would come in 01:06:00and they had interesting little concepts like Mr. Juwin was the one that made them work so they weren't, the one little boy who was, who had recently just come down from being in engulfed with his family in his longhouse, if he didn't want to see June, if he didn't want to go anything, he'd go into his room and cover himself with his blanket and pretend like nobody could see him, hahaha--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: But they'd rub your arms because they had no hair on their arms
and of course, oh, that was so funny and, and just like blind people everywhere, you know, we, we did, I saw how, how wonderfully Juwin reacted, interacted with these boys. They were all boys by the way and I don't know if there were girls that just didn't but anyway, they were all boys that happened to be there.WILSON: But the school that you were working at was co-ed?
DARE: Yes, yes.
WILSON: It was just that -----------(??), yeah--
DARE: It was just that, the blind children were and by the time I left,
they were well integrated into the classroom and Juwin would just do 01:07:00special things with them. He would, he would do all of their work in Braille, I mean, their books and anything that they needed, he would, he had a Braille machine that he--WILSON: Do you know what happened to any of them?
DARE: Yes, when I went back, not good actually, they, once they, the one
who was really, really bright and he was in, was eligible to go onto school. He did but then, there was nothing once he got out of school and someone, Rose, this nursing student, told me that she had seen him begging on the streets--WILSON: Mm.
DARE: So a lot of what we did was in, and that wasn't us--
WILSON: No.
DARE: It's just what happens with progress--
WILSON: Right.
DARE: If you say that and education and a lot of these kids are being
educated and there was, there were no jobs for them. They would just have to go back to the longhouse and--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: That's where discontent breeds and--
01:08:00WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: So I don't, I don't know. We didn't see any of those kids when
we went back. The main ones we saw were the Chinese who were living in town and, and this Malay woman and her family--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And Malaysia is becoming more and more orthodox. They didn't,
weren't when we were there before as far as to be Malay and also to be Islamic, Muslim so the government, if you were Muslim and you spoke Malay, you got government jobs. If not, you didn't so there was only a certain, a certain way, distance people could go unless you did it privately and commerce and that's what the Chinese were doing of course as they do best, ha--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And, but some of the indigenous people didn't have that option so
01:09:00I'm not, well, I do know one of the, one of the boys, Mrs. Pohghee's sons, who was living back there then. The others had, have all scattered. In fact, one of them is in Tennessee but one of the boys was one I had actually in grade school. He was writing essays in, stirring up trouble about the logging so I don't know what's going to happen there because that, you know, they, they're just denuding the forest there. There's not going to be anything left.WILSON: And you, and you could see a big difference from the time that
you were there and now--DARE: Oh, yes, I, that, logging was the big thing said this one guy--
WILSON: Yeah.
DARE: Ha but yeah, you, when we flew in over Borneo, it was awful to
see whole hillsides just, you know, you could see the logs lying on the ground. It wasn't as, wasn't that they'd even pulled them off yet, 01:10:00they were--and this guy told us when he was doing the logging, he said you know, it takes us a lot for us to get any good wood out of here. We have to go maybe and do a whole acre to get one, we'll have to, you know--WILSON: But they cut them down?
DARE: Oh, yeah, cut, cut with a bulldozer actually to get one good log
out of here so you know, it's up to the government I guess to tighten patrols and find out that that's necessary, you know, you've got to stop it. Maybe they've already gotten as much as they get out of there. I don't know. Of course, they blame the Japanese a lot for that. Japanese use it most.WILSON: But going back in '95, which was thirty years after you'd been
there, right?DARE: Mm hmm, mm hmm.
WILSON: You, you felt you saw some progress?
DARE: No, that's where they saw it the worst. I mean, all that had
happened.WILSON: No, no, yeah, no, no, no, I meant but aside from that, did you
feel as though things, aside from, from clear cutting of forests-- 01:11:00DARE: Mm hmm.
WILSON: Did you feel as though things were better for people in 1995--?
DARE: Well, economically, yes--
WILSON: Economically, yes--
DARE: Economically and technology, yes.
WILSON: Okay.
DARE: Oh! One of the, one of the most wonderful things you see is an
Iban in his boat going up river with a cell phone in his ear--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: Hahaha, we saw more cell phones in '95 there than we were doing
here. I mean, that was, it hit Asia long before it hit here--WILSON: Right.
DARE: And that was just hilarious and there were roads being built. From
Kapit, you had to go every place by boat. There was a small air strip that if it didn't rain too much, you know, the small planes would come in but there were roads being built now too and we saw a lot of little white vans with Iban families in them and that looked very strange. I don't know where these white vans came from, hahaha, but there were just enough roads that they could get back to their longhouses--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And so it, it all depends on what you mean by things being better
01:12:00but like I said, we, it was, it was not an economically depressed area when we were there before. I mean, everybody was, you know, when you're in a place like that, first of all, they didn't have the flooding problems that we were up just enough that the Rajang would flood but it didn't do damage to people and it's warm so people were always warm enough and there was still lots of forests. People could have enough to eat and the Chinese seemed to be able to make enough money trading that food was wonderful and especially when we went back. That's one thing that had really changed; they were eating like five times a day and that was beginning to be real problem. They were, the government was really worried about that because people had a lot of money--WILSON: Hmm!
DARE: And this Rose Chung, she was talking about that because she
01:13:00was a nurse and worked at the hospitals and she said that that had become, was just rampant. People were eating all the time and they had restaurants were just packed with people and open air markets. I mean, we went at ten o'clock at night down there with her and there, the whole market was full. People, that's something that's different about Asia than here too. There's always people out. Of course, it's warm--WILSON: Mm hmm.
DARE: And people can be out all times in the night and they were eating
while they were doing it too because the food is so good too so that was one of the big changes we saw.WILSON: So that says prosperity at least
DARE: Yes, prosperity.
WILSON: Yeah--
[End of interview.]
