Interview with Judy Lippman, December 12, 2005

WILSON: --Peace Corps Oral History Project interview with Judy Lippman on December 12, 2005. Judy, if you would, please, for the record, give me your full name, where and when you were born.

LIPPMAN: Okay. I'm Judith Ann Lynn Lippman. I was Judith Ann Lynn in Peace Corps days. And I was born in Detroit, Michigan, November the tenth, 1945, which now is just sixty years ago.

WILSON: Okay. Tell me something about your family and your growing up in Detroit.

LIPPMAN: Okay. My family were, was a family of strict Catholics. And growing up in Detroit, we lived in a blue collar neighborhood. Most all Catholic families, all white. Went to a Catholic elementary, parochial school. My dad was a house painter. And we had four kids. 00:01:00And putting us in Catholic school was the main goal of my parents. And when all four of us were in the local Catholic elementary school, my mom had to go to work for finances and to keep us in Catholic school. And it's funny how I'm so focused on Catholic, but that's so focal to my growing up. And--

WILSON: So you went through elementary--

LIPPMAN: Yeah.

WILSON: And secondary schools.

LIPPMAN: And, I went to an all-girls Catholic high school. Got a scholarship to that school. And then I went to dental hygiene at the University of Detroit for two years.

WILSON: Okay. But you would have graduated from high school when?

LIPPMAN: 1963.

WILSON: 1963. Okay. Go on.

LIPPMAN: Then I went to dental hygiene, it was a two-year program at the University of Detroit. I didn't really know what I wanted to do after high school. My mom was working as a secretary at UC, and she said, 00:02:00"Well, why don't you do dental hygiene? We can pay for one year of college, but then you're on your own, and if you don't like it, you can go do something else after that." So after one year of dental hygiene I thought this isn't really what I want. And it was the mid-'60s, and there was John Kennedy talking about digging wells and saving the world, and I thought that just sounded wonderful. So I finished my dental hygiene and I filed an application. I worked for a year to pay back my student loans, and then I went in the Peace Corps.

WILSON: When did you hear about the Peace Corps?

LIPPMAN: I don't know, but it must have been some time when I was realizing this isn't for me with dental hygiene. Because I was actually looking for what do I want to do. I really didn't know. But it must have been before that, too, because that was such a, with Kennedy being such an amazingly popular president and this being just a stellar creation that came from his administration. Everybody was 00:03:00aware of it. But back in eighth grade, I was working on the school newspaper. And this priest, who was a missionary in Tanganyika, in those days, came to talk to our class about his experience. And he was going back. And I needed to write an article on what he told us for our school paper. And listening to what he said just made me think, I'm going to see what he's seen. And that was the beginning of my inclination to want to see more of the world. And Peace Corps then was an automatic vehicle for that, too. And the whole idea of being able to do something meaningful was terrifically appealing.

WILSON: Do you remember anything about the application process itself?

LIPPMAN: I don't really remember much about the application process. But I remember the telegram of acceptance, of invitation to go. I 00:04:00still have that. It's all yellowed and decrepit.

WILSON: And that came when?

LIPPMAN: It must have been in spring of '66. Because training started in June of '66.

WILSON: And you were selected to go to--

LIPPMAN: Morocco.

WILSON: Morocco.

LIPPMAN: Which was my first choice.

WILSON: You had asked for Morocco in your application.

LIPPMAN: Yeah.

WILSON: Why Morocco?

LIPPMAN: Well, I was not very world literate. But I had read in National Geographic about the blue men of the Sahara. So faced with what do I want to see and where do I want to go, it had to be on the African continent. Because I thought I want to see people who are so different from me that I can't imagine what it's like. And the concept of the blue men of the Sahara, I mean, it was just fantasy. It was nothing more rational than that.

WILSON: Okay. And training was where?

LIPPMAN: Our training was in Texas. We started out in Austin. Our training was for three months. And we started out at the University of Texas in Austin. And then we went to Galveston, because our group was a group of lab techs. So for the medical science portion of our training, we went to the medical branch in Galveston, Texas. But initially we started out for culture and country and language and everything at UT in Austin.

WILSON: And what was the language and how long was the training?

LIPPMAN: The training was three months. And we had to know French in order, for our work. Because we were going to be working in hospital laboratories. It was, Morocco 8 was the number of our program. And 00:06:00we were, I think, the second group of lab techs. To not do anything except work in the lab while Morocco had opened its new school for laboratory technicians. And they were training Moroccan students to take our places. And we were just filling slots until enough young folks had been trained to replace us. So our background, anybody who was in our group had science background of one form or another. And then they just said, "You're going to do this, you're going to do that." I was going to do serology, so my job was to learn how to do serology. But we all were going to work in hospital labs that were run by French physicians doing their military time. So we had to be able, we had to speak French well enough to do our jobs in the lab. And anybody who knew French well enough to be really conversant could learn Arabic then. And I took a semester of French before I applied, while I was working to pay back my student loans. But I was not conversant 00:07:00in that, so I studied French in our three months of training, and then learned street Arabic so I could shop and count and greet people. But my main language was French. And when we got to the country then in September, we all went over, we had like a week off at home and then we all went over to the capital, which was Rabat. And after a week in Rabat, we were given our assignments. And I was sent to Spanish speaking Morocco. (laughs) So not knowing Spanish, it was a real thrill.

WILSON: So how was that, first of all, how was that first introduction to Morocco? And then the shock of being assigned to Spanish speaking?

LIPPMAN: It was beautiful. It was just so exciting to go. It was all this waiting and anticipation and finally arriving. It was way more cosmopolitan than I expected in Rabat, even though I knew and we had heard and read and seen photographs and whatever. But it was just very 00:08:00exciting to be there. And then to be assigned to go out on our own was just really quite thrilling. We had money to pay for, to find a place to live. And we would just make our arrangement with whoever, with our lab tech.. Since I didn't speak Spanish, I was pretty hard up to introduce myself and say what I was doing there. So I got some help with a little introductory letter, "I'm so and so, and this is what I'm here to do." Which I could physically hand them when I got there. Do my best to talk. When I got there, I started taking Spanish lessons on my lunch hour, which was wonderful. Because once you stumble around in a language at all, everybody tries to help you quickly say it correctly. And by having to live speaking Spanish for everything, in Tetouan, it came pretty quickly. And there were so much similarities 00:09:00of French, too, that it really was not difficult.

WILSON: But you had absolutely no Spanish?

LIPPMAN: Absolutely.

WILSON: And no indication as far as Peace Corps training that anybody was going to Spanish speaking--

LIPPMAN: I was not aware of it. I mean, I don't know if they said that at some point or not, but they said we have to learn French. "And you're going to do serology. And we have certain sites where serology is needed. So this is what you need."

WILSON: Okay, let's do a-- (pause) Okay, so, you were assigned to Spanish speaking Morocco.

LIPPMAN: Right.

WILSON: Doing serology. You had a letter of introduction, is that what I understood? In Spanish, I presume.

LIPPMAN: In Spanish.

WILSON: And did the doctors or the institution seem to know you were coming?

LIPPMAN: I really couldn't tell, because I didn't understand the response. But I did get shuffled into a room where there was a 00:10:00Spanish woman who had been doing serology for about twenty years. And I learned in the first week that I was very redundant. She was able to do the whole thing on her own, and they really didn't need another helper there. And we learned, I was not the only one in a situation, in this situation. And evidently the termination reports of the group ahead of us had not really been processed before our group was recruited. Because I learned that that position was not to have been refilled. And around the country, other volunteers were placed in positions that did not need them. So many folks went home. About almost half of the group that we had sent over went home at that time. And Peace Corps Rabat was saying, which was our headquarters in Morocco was saying, "Just wait, just wait, we're trying to reshuffle everybody." So some people waited, and some people didn't wait.

WILSON: How many were in your group?

LIPPMAN: We were more than, I don't know exactly the number, but it was a little over forty to start with. And there was another, there was a married couple who was sent to the same town as me. And the wife was doing bacteriology in the same lab, hospital lab, where I was assigned. And her job was not needed. And her husband was assigned out in the mountains, in Rif Mountains, at a TB sanatorium. And he was needed at his job. So that was a difficult combination. But I did not want to go home. I really wanted to be there. So I did wait. And so we, Sharon and I dreamed up, what on earth can we do to pass time? So we decided to clean out some of the drawers in the lab where we were.

WILSON: This was--

LIPPMAN: This was in Tetouan. Sharon Castell was the wife of the couple who was also assigned to Tetouan.

WILSON: I see. Okay.

LIPPMAN: So I was in serology, she was in bacteriology. But neither 00:12:00of us had a real job when we got there. So we cleaned out drawers, we washed the glassware and the pipettes and everything under the sun. And we still didn't have anything left to do. There was nothing new coming up. So we decided that we could, from our own backgrounds, and just awareness of living in Morocco, and knowledge, too, that visual health was so bad, and just seeing babies with flies around their eyes all the time, and crawling in. Mothers would, of course, carry their babies on their backs and not see their own infants, so we thought well we could work in maternal health in the little clinic in the town. And asked if that would be welcomed, and were told it would be. So we stopped going to the lab, with permission. And went to this little clinic in town, and sat on the bench outside. We were not invited to come in and do anything. And despite the groundwork having been laid, we thought. So there was a real challenge, then, 00:13:00of now what. And so anyway, my entire preparation to come, aside from the Peace Corps training, was in dental hygiene. And I knew that dental health was obviously very bad. So I said, "I can help out with kids, with hygiene, period. Is there anything taught in the schools?" Because little kids have teeth rotted to their gums. And obviously there wasn't a lot of good oral hygiene happening with young people. So I asked the minister, well, I asked my Peace Corps crew if this was something that would be available for me to pursue. And they said, "Sure. Come on back to Rabat." And so I moved back there and spent a couple of months working out of the Peace Corps office, just riding around, first asking is anybody else doing anything with this? And I was told no. And so I proceeded, then, to contact Crest 00:14:00and the World Health Organization and my own dental hygiene school back home to see about setting up a program to help kids learn about taking care of their teeth and their oral health. And we were going to do a little pilot in schools. And Crest volunteered to send toothbrushes and toothpaste. And I can't recall who was going to donate films on showing how to brush teeth and everything else. And that was going to be translated, then, by USAID into Arabic so that could be shown in schools, too. And we did this little pilot in a little village. And when I came back from that trip, which was just very brief, like a day or two, there was a message from someone in the World Health Organization in Switzerland, and she said contact the Danish embassy in Rabat. And I did. And they had people from Denmark coming and doing oral healthcare in the schools. And I asked to contact the minister of 00:15:00health, who I had easy access to up until that time. And I was never granted a meeting. So that was the end of that. So by now--

WILSON: So you had been trying to work through the ministry of health as well.

LIPPMAN: Yes. Yes.

WILSON: Okay.

LIPPMAN: So at that point, I was without a job again. So there was already now a team in Agadir who were ready for vacation. They needed somebody to come and work in their lab.

WILSON: To do serology?

LIPPMAN: No, no. They were doing chemistry.

WILSON: Oh, I see.

LIPPMAN: And I did not know chemistry. So I said, well can't they train somebody in their lab who can carry on and do the chemistry? And I was told that they needed a volunteer to go out and do that. So I went the week or so and learned how to do chemistry; then they left.. So I was there for about a month. And then a volunteer who had been in 00:16:00Marrakech was finishing her two years, and they were going to replace her at a hospital doing food hygiene. Which meant testing water and testing yogurt samples and milk samples and that sort of thing to see if the bacterial count was low enough that they could be sold each day. So that was my last year, was working in Marrakech at a hospital there and doing that. And doing pregnancy tests with urine from moms and checked it with the rabbit ears. And then I didn't check the ovaries of the rabbits after like a day or two afterwards, they would take out the rabbit's ovaries and see if the woman was pregnant or not. ----------(??) respond in the rabbit. The old fashioned way of doing pregnancy tests. And also then when I was in Marrakech, I taught school, I taught English at a school for the blind, which had been done 00:17:00by another volunteer who was leaving. And he was looking around for somebody to carry this on. And teaching English in the school for the blind was one of two national schools for the blind in the country, where only boys and men were allowed to go. But visual health problems were so bad that when a child would be discovered to be going blind or having evidence of visual problems, most poor families would try to get them in one of these national schools for the blind. Because they would still be consuming food in the family, but not productive. And they just could not afford to keep their children if they weren't helping out with production of food. But they were compounds. The one in Marrakech, anyway, was a compound inside a medina. Gravel on the ground everywhere, and no lights, of course, because they really weren't needed, and it was not heated. And Marrakech would get very cold in the winter. And I thought why on earth are these men and 00:18:00boys wanting to learn English? Because their whole lives were there. And the greatest aspiration at that time was to become a teacher in the school for the blind. But still, they said, "We want to learn English." So I did not really know how to teach English, period, much less to people who couldn't see. (laughs) So I took an orange, the first class, I said, "This is an orange." And I'd squeeze a little bit, and they passed it around. Not everybody spoke, by this time I could speak Spanish well, and French, and a little bit of Arabic. But I couldn't speak enough Arabic to conduct these little classes in Arabic. So I would say it in one or two languages and then the others would translate for those who came from the villages that didn't know any of my languages. It would take about ten minutes for everybody to understand, "This is an orange." It was really sort of farcical. But we kept up for a little while. It was just like twice a week, I think, 00:19:00in the evenings. I went after my day work. I would go to that school. And eventually, very quickly eventually what happened was they would want to know via different translators, "Have you seen my village? Have you been to where I come from?" And that was the most important thing in the world. So that was a wonderful relationship, then. Being able to tell them. Then I would up information, or talk to somebody who had been to their village, if I hadn't. And also, this is pretty crazy--

WILSON: Because they didn't have--

LIPPMAN: They had no vision. Their families couldn't come visit. If they lived far away, their families could not come to visit them. It was along trip, and it was expensive. So some of them really once they were in the school, were on their own, period. Where others would come maybe from their part of the country and be able to tell about them. But they were just hungry for knowledge of their point of origin in Morocco. So one thing that happened, pretty crazy sounding, but 00:20:00this was a big deal, was these guys wanted to get out. They wanted to get out of the school, at least for a little while. And some of them played musical instruments. They loved Coca Cola. So what we did is we worked it out that on a Saturday, I got the bus schedule for the public bus. And we made a snake of human beings holding hands with some who had partial vision at the front of the line, and those with a little bit of partial vision at the end, and everybody else in the middle, just all holding hands. We walked out of their compound. Everybody had their Coke in their hand. And those who had instruments had their instruments. And we walked through the medina out to the highway and we caught this bus. And we just rode on the bus for, I don't know, ten, fifteen minutes, until we were in the countryside, away from town. And then we just said, "This is where we're going to stop." And we stopped and got off the bus. And everybody just laid down in the grass and played their instruments and drank their Cokes 00:21:00and talked away. And we spent about an hour just in a field of grass, and then got back on a bus and came back. (laughs) We did our outing, by gosh. So that was a highlight with the people there. We never got real far in English.

WILSON: But who were, what age?

LIPPMAN: Oh, they were like twelve year old boys, something like that, up through older men. When they went to the school for the blind, it was for the rest of their life, was my understanding. And they could hope to, they studied, and if they were, excelled in their studies, they could become a teacher at the school for the blind. But essentially, they were there for life at that time was my understanding.

WILSON: But blindness was very common?

LIPPMAN: Yeah.

WILSON: What was the--

LIPPMAN: Trichonoma, I think it was. I don't remember all the names of 00:22:00the diseases that they were--

WILSON: That were very common.

LIPPMAN: Yeah. We learned that before we went to, and then when we saw these flies around these babies' eyes, and the flies would be around everything on the street, and then in babies' eyes and mouths. It's easy to see how the transmission would happen.

WILSON: Tell me something about your living situation. I guess you spent a whole year in this last--

LIPPMAN: In Marrakech.

WILSON: In Marrakech. What was your living situation like?

LIPPMAN: Well, it was very nice. I had like half of a, a separate one story home that had a living room and a bedroom and a kitchen. And it had a toilet, the toilet was indoors. And it had a shower over the 00:23:00toilet. So you go bathroom and close the door if anybody was there, and turn on the shower and it would go into the toilet and on you and down the drain and everything. It was really quite elegant. (laughs) As houses went. I mean, it was really very nice. It was in town. It was just fine. My first house, in Tetouan, was on the roof of an apartment building. And it had no hot water at all, or way to heat it up. It didn't have a buta gas or any of those things. And it was on the roof. So I would go into town for public showers, and that was fine, too. It was a real adventure to be twenty years old and on your own in a new country. Everything was different. It was really quite a thrill. And the amazing thing is that people, I thought oh, these guys behave differently than me, they believe differently than I do, it's going to be so different. And the bottom line is it just changed my life in the discovery that the things that matter in life are the same 00:24:00everywhere. And the people who had almost nothing were so generous. It just made me ashamed that I would not give away everything I had as freely as they would offer everything they had.

WILSON: And that was part of their custom?

LIPPMAN: That was just part of their culture, yeah. If you go to somebody's home, they just treat you like you're royalty. And you're offered the best seat in the house, and the first of the food. And I learned also, not before I had arrived, but I learned that you do not compliment people on any of their belongings, because they're obliged to offer it to you. And then you're in the, well I was, of course couldn't possibly dream of taking it. But I felt like I was being offensive--

WILSON: In not taking it.

LIPPMAN: In not taking it. But it was all very awkward. And then I learned, just don't compliment belongings.

WILSON: So did you cook for yourself in this apartment?

LIPPMAN: Yes. Yes.

WILSON: And what were the foods like? Were you able to get food that you 00:25:00were accustomed to?

LIPPMAN: Bread. There was bread and sardines, canned sardines. The fresh vegetables and pomegranates and the fruits were just wonderful. And lots of lamb. Yeah, you could get most anything you wanted. And fresh butter. And like when I was in Tetouan, one of the highlights in the lunch hour, aside from getting my Spanish lesson, was going to the bakery and the bread, there would be a line of people waiting for the bread to come out of the oven. So you'd have this little, I don't remember how many grams of butter, fresh butter, and you'd get this hot loaf of bread. There's nothing better in the world than a can of sardines and this hot bread and butter. And the yogurt was fabulous. And in all honesty, in Marrakech, there was a woman who had been working for other Americans in the community. And she would cook for 00:26:00them. And she lost her work. And so I heard about it. And somebody said, "Do you want her to come and cook for you sometime?" So she came and cooked for me for some time, too. I mean, it's not the concept that I had beforehand. But her name was, I think, Jemia is how it was spelled, but we all called her Shula. And she was just wonderful. And she showed me how to cook. And she was a great cook herself. When you asked me did I do my own cooking, I have to insert that, too.

WILSON: Some of each.

LIPPMAN: Some of each. I don't remember how many days she came. I think maybe two days a week.

WILSON: I see. So she didn't, it wasn't like she lived with you as your cook or something.

LIPPMAN: No. But she needed work around the town. And it was a real boon.

WILSON: And you had electricity?

LIPPMAN: I had electricity in Marrakech. I did not have electricity in Tetouan.

WILSON: But you lived by yourself.

LIPPMAN: I lived by myself.

WILSON: In, can you give me some idea what a typical day might have been like?

LIPPMAN: Well, I guess I'll use Marrakech as an example since that was a lot of it. It's funny to think back. It's been nearly forty years. So what is a typical day like. A work day was getting up and going to the hospital.

WILSON: Well, sort of start--

LIPPMAN: And it was six blocks away, or something like that. Get dressed and washed up and all and that sort of thing, and have some breakfast, and then walk to work.

WILSON: What would you have had for breakfast?

LIPPMAN: I don't know. I don't remember. I don't know. It wouldn't have been-- I don't know. Eggs? Or bread and cheese, or something like 00:28:00that? You know, coffee. Coffee was wonderful.

WILSON: And you walked to the hospital?

LIPPMAN: Mm hmm. It was about six blocks away. And then I would have my day's work. I would go to the lab and I was the only one doing the work that I did. But there were, the lab had small rooms all adjacent to each other. And there were mostly men who worked, young men, who worked in the lab. And we would talk all the time about, they would want to know about America, about life in America. I wanted to know more about life in Marrakech and Morocco, period, from people who, I mean, what was their life like. More than I had learned prior to going and what I had seen. So we spent a lot of time while we were doing our work just talking. And that was, I think, a huge element to understanding how similar we all are. One thing that happened, 00:29:00which I could not understand at the time, was when they were mad at the lab chef, who was French, when they were mad, I don't know for what reason, they would falsify the results of tests that they were to perform. I thought, this is wacko. This could be their mother, their uncle or somebody whose results they're falsifying. But it was to get back at the lab chef. And we would talk about this. And they had their own rationale for why they still did it. And over the years I've just thought, when things would come up in my life in the States, I'd think oh my god, that's the same thing that was going on there. Just in little ways. And I can't think of a good example here in the States, but where knowingly, where feelings, where resentment and retaliation became stronger than integrity in a task or a job or an assignment or something like that. And just realizing, you know, we 00:30:00don't have any hold on goodness or integrity or whatever else in our country. And their curiosity, too, they certainly thought everybody lived like people in California live, and were wealthy and glamorous and had mansions and this kind of stuff. I mean, it was just a real eye opener, the daily life.

WILSON: So what did they think about you being there? And why?

LIPPMAN: Me and other young women who were sent over, people thought we were prostitutes. Young women weren't on their own in an Arab culture. So that was, in the neighborhood where I lived, too, I didn't realize it at first, but Shuma told me, "They think that you're a whore." And I didn't realize that. But the whole concept, though, and it's made me wonder a lot about Peace Corps. If our injection into other cultures, should we dress exactly as they do? Or do we dress as we dress in 00:31:00America? And we knew to dress way more modestly. I mean, this was the mid '60s, and miniskirts and all that sort of thing was the mode. But to intentionally go into another country who had a different position for young women than we were representing. And it was a blast of new awareness and confusion and all the rest. Maybe that is the best way. I don't know. I mean, do we just see each other as we are? But having a chance to get to know each other is, I think, the best thing of all. And then it really challenges all your stereotypes and anything you've been told before. Because you do get to the core of people are people, no matter where.

WILSON: And so did you have the sense that these male counterparts in the laboratory were able to sort out who you were?

LIPPMAN: They really became my friends.

WILSON: Yeah.

LIPPMAN: And not romantically. They had wives and everything, and it was not anything romantic at all. Just lots of conversation and information exchanged. So I enjoyed that a lot. And they told me, "When you go, nobody's going to do your job. They hate that you're doing this work here. If you say that the yogurts aren't saleable today or whatever else, that guy who's out there trying to sell his yogurts doesn't have an income for the day." Or I don't know what they did. I don't know actually how it shook out on the streets. But I just knew that this job was not a valued job, or desired. I mean, it just makes you roil around about how did this position ever come to be a position requested?

WILSON: Who wanted that? Yeah, who wanted the position in the first place?

LIPPMAN: That's right. And as I understand, and I've never followed through in investigation of this, but my understanding is the country asks for the volunteers to do specific tasks. So probably in the effort 00:33:00to Westernize, these hospitals had been built by French folks during their protectorate years in Morocco, and were still being run by French doing their service. So I assume that the Moroccan people who were in charge. They got their independence in '56. So this was '66. It was still a new country at that time, relatively. So the effort was to Westernize and have these, the same types of health support as had been provided before. But it certainly was not valued, as I just mentioned.

WILSON: What, sort of reflecting on it, what was the most difficult part of adjusting to living in Morocco?

LIPPMAN: Feeling useless. For a long time, feeling useless.

WILSON: Because of your lack of a definitive job.

LIPPMAN: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. At the same time that it was difficult to adjust, it was also very exhilarating as a challenge to find something. If they're not going to put it in your lap, you've got to go find it for yourself. So that was very exhilarating to look and to dream up what might possibly work. In the end, nothing did, and I ended up filling in for folks as I mentioned already. But it really was a very easy country to live in. It was just beautiful. The smells and the medina were a place you could, I spent most of my weekends there or traveling around the country, actually to see other volunteers. In those days, and maybe it's the same today, too, when we knew, in our training group, since we were all together for our training group, we 00:35:00were not at different sites, we got to be a pretty close group. So that when we all went over and separated out into different parts of the country, we stayed in touch through letters. Because we didn't have email back in those days. And phoning was very difficult. It was only through the post office you could go and dial up somebody from a post office. And they'd have to go to their post office to get your phone call. So it would have to be priorly arranged. But through letters, we just arranged when we'd go visit each other and see each other's towns. And by bus was, that was the way to travel. So seeing the country and seeing how other sites were set up. And, like there was a chicken farm in Fez that was just, the volunteer there was helping. And people learned how to raise chickens, were fatter, were shorter, I don't know what all the conditions were, but improving the feed, improving the survivability of the new hatchlings 00:36:00and everything else. And the countryside in Morocco was just heaven. There's mountains with snow, the Atlas Mountains. And like in a few hours you could be from the Atlas Mountains down to the Atlantic Ocean. And there's skiing. It's just a beautiful country. Fields and fields of poppies, which at that time, I really didn't figure, were just gorgeous. Red poppies and sunflowers. I mean, it was just a glorious country. And people, riding the bus was fascinating. To get on the bus, the goats and the hens would all get on top of the bus. And they would get strapped down there, a little netting over them. And all the people would get in the bus. I in fact wrote a little blurb on this for our local newsletter once. But the back of the bus was for the women and the kids. And there were no seats back there. I mean, you just get in and there were blankets spread around. You'd sit down on the floor, and they all had their picnics out. And kids were laughing 00:37:00and playing, and moms were nursing their babies and feeding each other and the other kids.

WILSON: On the floor of the bus.

LIPPMAN: On the floor of the bus, in the back. And the front of the bus had some seats. And usually the men were sitting up there. These weren't all the buses, but many of them coming out of Marrakech going to other parts of the country were like this. It was like a party. It was just very sociable. And people would offer you food, and you'd just sit and join the conversations. And then coming home--

WILSON: So as a woman, you rode on the floor in the back of the bus with the other women and kids?

LIPPMAN: Yeah. Or stood back there. That was my place, was back there. If you sit with the men-- when I first got to town, the first bus rides that I took, I sat in the seat. You're asking for trouble if you do that. So I learned not to do that. So I went to the back with the women. But coming back from town, wherever the day had been spent and 00:38:00at night going back, it would be just pitch dark outside. And here are these two little headlights of this bus going in the middle of nowhere. And all of a sudden, somebody would holler out and the bus would stop. Most everybody's asleep on the bus, bobbing around for miles from whatever other town you had come. And they would holler to stop, and the bus would stop, and a whole family would descend from the bus and they'd get their animals from the top of the bus and everything else. And then they would just walk out into a field of pitch darkness. And I could never figure how on earth did they know where to stop. I couldn't see any landmarks because I couldn't see, it was all dark outside. But they could. And then I just wondered how far did they have to go into the darkness to wherever it is that their destination is. And there's no lights that I could see, or any-- and at first, I didn't realize. But then I tended to notice, this was common. And this was the way.

WILSON: So they weren't stopping at a village.

LIPPMAN: No. Nothing.

WILSON: Or a dwelling of some sort along the road.

LIPPMAN: No, just the wilderness. Just nothing. Or maybe, there must have been landmarks that they knew that I didn't. But I did not discern any landmarks. I don't know if you count the bushes, or just count, period, after you get to a certain point, or how they knew. But survivability with almost nothing visible from my standards, having grown up in America. And people were happy. They didn't look to accumulate. And they were just as friendly and outgoing as they could be.

WILSON: What else did you do for recreation?

LIPPMAN: Well, when I was in Agadir, I got a little motorcycle because the hospital was out away from the main town, and this little thing was a blast to ride around in. and there was a beach, too. Agadir is on the Atlantic Ocean. So I would zip around on that. I was there for 00:40:00just about a month. But when you ask for fun, that was fun. I never had access to one here. My little minibike (??) like that before. And have dinner with people at their homes sometimes. Like when I went to Tetouan, there was a young boy, younger than me, definitely, who was fascinated by America. He really wanted to go to America. He invited, I got there in September, and Ramadan was just around the corner. So he asked his family if I could come and break the fast for Ramadan at their house, and they welcomed me. They were very poor. And this was the home, the first introduction to the home hospitality. They put me with the men. I couldn't go back in the kitchen and help with the women. They would not let me go back there. And so they served me. And I couldn't talk to the men. I could talk to this young boy, and it was in Spanish. And my Spanish was fairly limited at that time, but nonetheless, but anyway, every day they said, come and have amazing 00:41:00soup, harira was this big thick soup of lamb and ceci peas and honey and cinnamon. And it was just delicious. So having meals with others, and having other volunteers to my house, and sometimes other Moroccans to my house. But not too many, because I really didn't meet Moroccan girls. And to bring Moroccan boys over was not to do. So I did meet some other Europeans who were living in the city nearby. Young adults. And I got to know some of them.

WILSON: Why did you not meet Moroccan girls? I mean, was that--

LIPPMAN: Because they were out of the work force. And they were in the home. They weren't out in public. And I didn't know how to meet them. I didn't have access easily at all.

WILSON: You were part of the male portion of the society.

LIPPMAN: Yeah.

WILSON: Okay. What other kind of travel did you do? Did you travel outside of Morocco on breaks?

LIPPMAN: Yeah. In fact, my vacation was to be, in '67, in June of '67, two other women volunteers and I were going to rent a car. We were going to drive across, or we were going to rent a car once we got there. We were going to go across Algeria and Tunisia to Egypt. And then we were going to go down the Nile. We just thought that would be a nice thing to do. And war broke out with Israel. And that just tabled the whole thing. So I didn't, we didn't do a joint vacation. We didn't come up with another plan that was as exciting we were all in agreement on. So I ended up the following April, then, going to 00:43:00southern Spain. And I went to Haifa and Granada and Sevilla, for Holy Week, and just little villages around southern Spain with a friend. So that was my month of vacation. Or several weeks of it. Oh, and I did go to southern Morocco, too. I had forgotten. That's a very dramatic part. The southern part, near the Valley of the Draa. The Valley of the Draa is just a gigantic chasm in the earth. It's pre-Saharan, it's very desert like down there. The villages are on the way south from Marrakech become more, it's drier and drier. And the little villages are made out of clay, built into the sides of the mountains and hillside. And then down near the Valley of the Draa, there are dry 00:44:00riverbeds. It's just very dramatic. There are oases already, and it's just very dramatic and beautiful.

WILSON: And you traveled by public transportation down there? By yourself?

LIPPMAN: I went with a friend. We went by bus and by car. And in north, the Rif Mountains, when I was living there, whenever I could, on the weekends, usually, I would see the area where I was living, or another area. The two years flew.

WILSON: Okay. This tape is about to run out, so I'm going to flip it over.

[Side a ends; side b begins.]

WILSON: Side two. A continuation of the interview with Judy Lippman, December 12, 2005. Judy, we've been talking about travel, and I don't 00:45:00know whether you finished on that or not.

LIPPMAN: Sure.

WILSON: Okay. Anything else you'd like to relate to me in terms of your interaction with host country nationals? I guess you've talked about the situation in Marrakech with your working. Was the program originally for the lab techs, were you to have a counterpart? Or no?

LIPPMAN: No. We were just to do the task at hand, and be replaced. But the graduation rate wasn't what was expected. So in fact we weren't replaced, we learned afterward. But also, we weren't allowed, I mean, 00:46:00there was a part of the plan that we teach somebody else to do what we're doing. We just did the work.

WILSON: So you were just a substitute, or thought to be a substitute for a need which, in your case, didn't really exist, I guess.

LIPPMAN: In the case of food hygiene, well, in all the cases, except maybe the chemistry in Agadir.

WILSON: You, did you have a host family at all at any point? No?

LIPPMAN: No.

WILSON: Not in that--

LIPPMAN: It wasn't structured in any way like that.

WILSON: And you just touched on this, but what was your interaction with other Americans, Europeans, other Peace Corps volunteers?

LIPPMAN: Well, mostly through letter writing and visiting others as 00:47:00I mentioned, arranging to visit each other on weekends. And for the Europeans in town, like at the market or something like that, they'd notice another American or somebody who looked like them, so friendships were easy to form in that regard. So going to their houses or having them over to mine was something that happened not uncommonly. And not really in Tetouan, in Agadir, yes. And in Marrakech, I don't know. I guess it was more traveling around when I was on Marrakech on weekends. I didn't have any close friends there in particular who were right there.

WILSON: Are there any particularly memorable stories you would like to relate?

LIPPMAN: Well, I guess things that are memorable to me are not very dramatic. But they were--

WILSON: They don't have to be dramatic.

LIPPMAN: I remember the young boy whom I met in Tetouan when I first got there, and whose family had me come for the breaking the fast during Ramadan, I stayed in touch with. And he got accepted into an art school into Spain. He got a scholarship to go there. And someone had to take him to Essaouira, to the bus, which is not terribly far, it was an hour or two away by bus. But that was a port from which he was going to take off for Spain. And they did not have money in their family--

WILSON: The family didn't.

LIPPMAN: And the mother asked if I would take him to Essaouira, to the 00:49:00boat. So it just felt, that was a thrill, that was an honor. That was really just lovely. And then when I was in Agadir, and I had this little motor scooter, I was on the beach one day, just a beautiful summer day. And I was just zipping along the shoreline where it was all hard sand and everything. And I came to this cove. There was, anyway, there was this little cove. And so I curved around to the curve, and it was a little fishing inlet. And there was a little village there. And all the men had just come in with their day's catch. And they were emptying their nets on the beach. And they were startled to see me, and I was startled to see them. And so I tried my best language of Arabic to say hello, and we just stood there staring at each other for a moment, not quite sure what to do. And they offered me this huge fish! I just thought, that is just so dear. Just 00:50:00the reaction wasn't to frown and turn away. It was to offer something and smile. And without language, that natural sharing or openness to interaction, I just was very touched by. There was no way I could take this fish and ----------(??) (laughs) I'm sure they needed that fish, too. But anyway, that I have always remembered. And the bus, the interactions on the bus, not my interaction with them, but there are tales of the bus. And I don't really know of anything else that's really, those were just little pearls. And it was just a good life.

WILSON: So you finished up then in 196--

LIPPMAN: '68.

WILSON: '68. When?

LIPPMAN: In September of '68.

WILSON: Oh. Did you come straight home?

LIPPMAN: I had never seen Europe. I never had been out of America 00:51:00except to Canada from Detroit prior to going. Nobody in my family had been. So I wanted to see Western Europe before I came back. So I hitchhiked around, and came back in December.

WILSON: Where all did you go?

LIPPMAN: Well, this gets into a whole other story. If you really want me to go into it-- (laughs)

WILSON: Well, whatever you want to or don't want to.

LIPPMAN: Well, okay. An element of this whole story is that when I was in Galveston, Texas, for the latter part of our three-month training back in 1966, prior to going to Morocco, I met a guy who ends up being my husband today. (laughs)

WILSON: Ah! I see.

LIPPMAN: So we wrote this whole time. And when I finished up, we got fairly serious by mail. So when I finished up, he arranged to have some studies in Europe at that time. So I went, I took a train to 00:52:00Paris, to the apartment of some friends of his who were married and waiting for their first baby any day. And he flew to Paris. And so we traveled around for about a month. And then he started all of his studies. And we decided it wasn't going to work after all. So I went on by my own, by myself and went to Italy, Switzerland and Austria. I didn't go back to Spain. And Germany. And England and Ireland and Norway and Denmark and Sweden. And then. .

WILSON: By yourself at this point.

LIPPMAN: By myself at that point. But we kept writing. At American Express offices, you know, you can get mail at American Express offices. You could in those days. So I'd say, "Well, I'm headed this way in a couple of weeks" or whatever else, and I'd just pick up whatever was there. And come December he said, "Come on back." So, 00:53:00anyway, that was the end of my travels. And we decided to get married. And I came back to the States then in December of '68.

WILSON: In December of '68. What was that like?

LIPPMAN: It wasn't as abrupt a change as I think young people have these days because-- Well, I don't know if it was or not, because they come back for their vacations over the course of the two yeas. But bottom line, coming back was not very difficult at the beginning. I was ready to come back. And having been in Western Europe, it was, life was similar to what I had remembered in America. And I had a mission then, and some money earned back in dental hygiene. And went back to school, and got married. It was all sort of a whirlwind at the beginning. So I really settled into American life again pretty easily. But always 00:54:00had the infusion of memories of what it was like in Morocco. And how things were different, and not different. And how the things that I used to make fun of, like when you needed to get your electricity turned on, when I first got my place in Marrakech, and I went to whatever office I had to go to with this piece of paper, and they had to stamp it. And it was a few minutes till lunchtime. And all the guys said, "Well, you wait here. We have to go to lunch now." So an hour later, they come back. And I didn't know how long they were going to be gone, so I was afraid to leave, because I didn't know what-- They come back after an hour and you get twenty stamps on this piece of paper, and you're out the door. And I, why couldn't you have done that an hour ago? Just the piddly bureaucratic stuff that we have here. And those similarities that I thought were so idiosyncratic to Morocco are here in our culture out the kazoo as well. So over the years, that struck me many times. But the bottom line, though, was just this 00:55:00overwhelming realization of how we really aren't different. Despite all of the outer differences and appearance and traditions and all that kind of stuff. To have somebody be sad because of something that was going on in their family, or hungry or in need or worried, and all of the basic human emotions that we have. And just wanting things to be better for our kids, or okay for our kids, and have enough to eat and a roof. There's not a whole lot to, much more than that in life. And on those levels, I just thought I can identify with anybody. And that's a pretty empowering realization. And I still believe that, forty years later. That we are the same. That we look for the differences, and we'll find those. If we look for the similarities, they're there, right in our face. So it's our choice what we want to focus on. Get 00:56:00along or not.

WILSON: What do you think the impact was of your service as a Peace Corps volunteer? Either on the country of Morocco or on people in Morocco?

LIPPMAN: I wondered. I really wondered a lot. I think that being startled by outsiders in their face was something that made an impact. Having had the time with those guys in the lab to form a relationship to work through the appearances of differences I think was really valuable. I think I got way more than I gave in my time there. But I think that they got something from that, too, a realization that it's not just all about stereotypes or what we think of America, or women 00:57:00on their own, or whatever else like that, too. And with Shuma, she was just a very dear person. She was very private about her life. I know she had hard times with her kids. But she sought to, I don't know what. I mean, I really never got to know her well, so I don't know-- She was so kind, though, and she was always giving and wanting to do more. So I don't know what that all comes from exactly.

WILSON: What was the impact on you?

LIPPMAN: Well, the impact on me was, I think what I've just explained is that looking for people who are so different than me that I don't know what to make of them, doesn't exist. You look at people, no matter where they come from or what they're doing, you can identify the people 00:58:00and get along if you need to.

WILSON: Do you, after these many years, still have any contact with either Moroccans or Peace Corps people that were a part of your group?

LIPPMAN: Well, as far as with Moroccans, I had a contact with Drisi, Mohammed Drisi, who was the young fellow who was the artist, for a number of years afterwards. And then we lost contact in the '70s, mid '70s. And then there was an Italian young man who was in Agadir who married an, who I was friends with when I was there, married an American young woman from Ohio. Or Indiana, actually. And for years, we were in touch. And they would come back to visit her family, so 00:59:00I would see him and met her. And they had kids. And then their kids were in school there. So I'd go, and their kids would come to my house and I'd go visit them at Indiana University for a while. And that just stopped. We just lost contact with them without, six, seven years ago, something like that. And it's weird and unfortunate, because with all of this happened in the Middle East now, I mourned the loss of contact with them. I've contacted her mother in Indiana, and already that's four years ago. When 9/11 happened, it did change even the intent, or the thoughts about staying in touch with them, or were they going to think that it's just, I don't know, it just made things weird. But we had actually stopped communicating a year or two before that. In 01:00:00terms of Peace Corps volunteers, I don't know if it was thirty years after, something like that, I tried to get our whole group together. And through the listing from the Peace Corps, National Peace Corps Sssociation, I had a lot of addresses. And I still have the original old addresses from when we finished our program in September of '68. And sent out letters to everybody and asked to have them forwarded. And we didn't have enough of a response to actually pull off having a gathering. So it's never happened. For a while I was in touch with a couple who lived in Wilmette, Illinois. And we still send Christmas cards. And a woman who was working in Bethesda for a while, she became a translator at the mental hospital.

WILSON: What would you say the impact of your Peace Corps experience was 01:01:00on your family?

LIPPMAN: Pretty great. Pretty great. I think my husband and I were attracted to each other because of our international interest. And his parents are from Germany and he's traveled a lot. And that interested me a lot that he had seen the world. And in terms of our kids, we traveled, we took them to Europe when they were little and lived over there for about three months. But our daughter right now is in Ireland, studying. Our second daughter married an Indian man from South India. And love of travel and meeting people from other cultures is pretty broad. And all the time they were growing up, we would always have international, we'd have exchange students over for the holidays, and sometimes we would host them for, actually they never lived in our household, they would live in the dorms. But we'd have 01:02:00them over every couple of weekends, or something like that. And then my husband started a program through his work whereby, this is already ten years now. He would help graduates from other countries qualify for applications for graduate studies here in the States by doing little externships with him. He'd help them see how things run in a hospital, and they'd write a publication together so they would have credentials. We got to meet a lot of them. And every six weeks, whenever there were new people coming, we'd have them over for dinner. So our kids were exposed to people from other countries, all the time. But being in contact, being a world neighbor is just part of the excitement of life. And we can do it right here in our own backyard now, easily.

WILSON: Did Peace Corps have any impact on your own career path?

LIPPMAN: Well, probably not. On my volunteer work, enormously. But 01:03:00on work for pay, when I came back, in Morocco, I realized that what I wanted to understand is how people think. How is it that we all figure out what we do, and all this sort of thing. So I wanted to study psychology when I came back. So I did. I went back to school and got an undergrad and master's in counseling/psychology. But that really isn't international. And then I did not work for pay the whole time that I was raising my kids. Except that the volunteer work that I did when they were starting school was to, we didn't have music instruction at the school where my kids went for the first few years of their schooling. It was a private school. So I offered to have, 01:04:00to teach music. And one vehicle to do that was to have people from other countries come and present their music through their instruments and tell a little bit about their culture. So aside from scales and harmony and all that kind of stuff, I did this, too. And already, we knew a number of international people in Louisville. So I would invite them to go, and they were dying to go to schools and show and tell. And the Indian women brought their saris, and the little boys all wanted to put on the saris and a bindi on their forehead and play the instruments and hear the music of other countries. And then because of that, and how eager international people were in our community to have any recognition and exposure to others, and be able to showcase their culture, I went to the multicultural education specialist in the public schools at that time and asked is there some way we can get these folks 01:05:00to go and talk to kids in school? You know, whether it's their music that they showcase or just tell about their lives or something else? So anyway, she worked with me to develop a directory of, I don't know, we had about 150 people listed, who were all volunteering to go, talk to schools about whatever, their nationality and their address and contact information. And after we got that established, then I would call them up and see if there's anything we needed or how it was going. And across the board, people said they'd never been called. Did that for two years. And then I dropped it, because nothing was happening. But that again was volunteer work. And then now the volunteer work that I do is through LICC, the global education network. And the purpose of that organization is to promote international education. So --

WILSON: I guess this is sort of what we've just been talking about, but maybe you want to sum it up. My other question was what the impact of the Peace Corps service was on the way you looked at the rest of the world. And I think that's what you've been talking about here. And how you look at the world today.

LIPPMAN: We are one. We are one family. We've all got to get along. We've got to see the good in each other. We can feel paranoid and terrorized and all the rest of that, and hate what's different. Or we can focus on our curiosity for what's different. Which is sort of like the hope for little kids. Because they get together with other 01:07:00children and they play. And we all have that when we're little, until we learn fear of difference and things that we don't understand. And I don't remember your question.

WILSON: Then let me ask you a different one. What do you think the overall impact of Peace Corps has been?

LIPPMAN: For me, personally?

WILSON: No, period. As an organization. As a group of now 170,000 volunteers.

LIPPMAN: It's brought Americans to the world. And it's exposed Americans to the world. So for that interaction, I think there's enormous pluses in that. The expectations, there's a lot that I don't understand still today. You know, the expectation of other countries, do we, when we 01:08:00impart, well, I'll speak for myself as a new, as a young person going over, thinking, the way we do things in my homeland are the way things are done, being all I ever knew. And then to learn oh, well, going over there with a high and mighty as I've got the way and I'm going to show you guys how to do this kind of stuff, and realizing over time, they don't need this. They've got, they're managing wonderfully. That might work for me. I think I need to try doing things this way. That discovery was just wonderful. So-- Jack, I forgot your question again.

WILSON: We were talking about the overall impact of Peace Corps.

LIPPMAN: Yeah. And as much as, anybody who travels and stays in another culture for a while has the same discovery that there are many, many 01:09:00roads to Rome. There is not the way to go. There are just many ways to do things in life. And to gain an appreciation and a respect for things that are different than what we know, I think, is one of the most valuable lessons in life. So in that regard, I'm very thankful for Peace Corps as an organization to provide a protected way for us Americans of all ages to live in other cultures for a period of time and have the opportunity to discover that.

WILSON: And do you think there's still a role for Peace Corps?

LIPPMAN: I think there's still a role for Peace Corps. I think that it is getting more and more difficult with our world as it is today with communication, and to be sure that, I know this has always been, I didn't realize this for years as a younger adult, but this is part 01:10:00of our foreign policy, they have Peace Corps. But I think it's really very important to keep it as nonpolitical as possible, given that it's political from the get go. So that the interactions between people, especially others seeing us, are less suspicious than more suspicious of what are we doing there. I think that that's a very difficult line to walk right now in our world today.

WILSON: Okay. That's all the sort of structured questions that I've got. But what haven't I asked you that you would like to answer as a question?

LIPPMAN: That's a nice ending question. And I can't really think of anything I'd like to say, except that it did change my life. 01:11:00Absolutely, it changed my life in a way I never dreamed possible. And it also, in a way, I don't know how to define, taught me to look for the best in people, and to look for the positive, no matter what the situation is. If you look for it, it's there. So that choice, we always have. You can look for the bad, and you can look for the terrorist around the corner. Or you can look for the friend who looks different than you, who will smile back at you if you say hello. Or maybe they won't smile back, but they'll have heard you say hello and smile. So we always have that. So we can focus our energies as a nation and as a world either on looking for the positive or on protecting against what we fear and building our fear. ----------(??) not understood. So if we work for more understanding, for more contact and for more positive relationships, we can get them. It sounds naive. 01:12:00But I believe it. At essence of life, that's what I believe.

WILSON: Good. Thank you. Thank you for your time.

LIPPMAN: Thank you, Jack.

[End of interview.]