Interview with Lauren A. Goodpaster, October 15, 2007

WILSON: Wilson, interviewing for the Peace Corps Oral History Project on October 15, 2007, and what is your full name?

GOODPASTER: My full name is Lauren Alexander Goodpaster.

WILSON: And when and where were you born?

GOODPASTER: I was born September 19, 1975 in Covington, Kentucky.

WILSON: Okay, and can you tell me something about your family and 00:01:00growing up and particularly if there were any things growing up that might relate to your going into the Peace Corps later like travel or family members who were interested in that kind of thing or teachers who influenced you or whatever.

GOODPASTER: Sure, sure. Well, my entire family is from Kentucky, both sides. And we lived here, I was actually a young girl we actually moved away from Kentucky, but always felt close to Kentucky and always had extended family here. And so I think we all always felt the heart strings pull us back home. And one of the areas in Kentucky I don't particularly have family in but that I learned a lot about growing up just because my family is so into Kentucky and Kentucky history is Appalachia and the region there. And as a youth growing up in my youth group we did a program called the Appalachia Service Project, which kind of introduced me to you know really getting down into that 00:02:00community level and not only just trying to go out and do some kind of service work but also trying to learn as much as you can about the community and really try to feel a part of the culture. Granted ASP is one week out of your life as a youth, but I think that's what really sparked my interest and eventually what led to me going to Peace Corps.

WILSON: What kinds of things did you do in that project?

GOODPASTER: Are you familiar with ASP at all? ASP is Appalachia Service Project is an emergency home repair ministry for families in Appalachia. They work in several counties throughout Kentucky, throughout Virginia, throughout Tennessee, and they do a few counties I believe now in North Carolina. And they serve low income families who need emergency home repair. Most people are familiar with Habitat; it's similar to Habitat but instead of building new homes, it's actually providing, it's taking the home that they have so they don't have to leave that home and it's making it safer so that they can stay 00:03:00in their space. One thing that I've always really liked about the Appalachian culture is how close the communities are and how important being home and staying in Appalachia and keeping that culture is to them. And that's something that I really respect and that I think I was 14 when I first started doing ASP.

WILSON: So how many years did you do it?

GOODPASTER: I was a volunteer for about maybe six years and then in college I served on staff, so I would spend my summer months. You train for about three to four weeks on actually construction, so I was trained on you know putting a roof on a home and building a foundation and things that I never thought I would learn how to do. And then obviously you, throughout the construction training you try to get as much culture training as you can. And then you spend the entire eight to ten weeks in the summer hosting volunteers throughout the summer in the various counties and--

WILSON: What were some of the communities that you lived in?

GOODPASTER: Unfortunately I was never in Kentucky. We didn't have a choice; I was put in West Virginia for the two summers. I was in 00:04:00Raleigh County, West Virginia and McDowell County, West Virginia.

WILSON: But when you did it as a--?

GOODPASTER: As a volunteer, oh goodness if I can remember them all. I was in Kentucky, I was outside of Hazard, Kentucky one year, actually two years. I was in Jonesville, Virginia for two years. I was in Maitwan, West Virginia, which is the famous Hatfield/McCoy place. I was in another place in West Virginia and it's completely escaping me right now where I was.

WILSON: But so you learned something about culture and the importance of family. What other kinds of things in culture besides the importance of family?

GOODPASTER: That's what really had the biggest impact on me was you know the construction was fun, you know it's fun as a 14 year old getting to go and crawl up on top of a roof. But for me it was the connections 00:05:00I made with the people there and the families there and the children there and seeing that--you know this is kind of cliche, but they don't have what I was very fortunate enough to grow up with in terms of you know material things. They worried about basic everyday things that we don't have to worry about. But seeing how happy they were and just seeing how they really stuck together as a community and you always hear people say oh you know why don't they just leave Appalachia you know, there's no work there. Well, because Appalachia is their home and there's so much history there and there's so much you know, that's where their roots are. And that just really, that really stuck with me and that kind of was the spark that started where I am today. And you know Peace Corps obviously is a huge part of it but you know my career as well is in leadership and service and that's so it you know I take it all back to ASP really.

WILSON: Anything in terms of your family or school that before you got 00:06:00to college that related to that? Did you see Peace Corps advertisements or did you know anybody who was in the Peace Corps at that point?

GOODPASTER: I didn't know anybody in high school that was in the Peace Corps. My family's--My dad, he's, I wouldn't consider him in a profession that normally people would consider helping people. He's in insurance, which most people don't care. But he, my dad really, he actually came with me on several ASP trips and really believed in the spirit of community. And he and I are kind of kindred spirits and so I think he always, he always really believed in what I was doing and was really interested in it. My mom's a teacher so she naturally kind of has that helping hand. But I didn't know, I never knew anyone in Peace Corps until I came to college, and one of my mentors was a Peace Corps volunteer. She, I cannot remember the country.

WILSON: And where did you go to college?

GOODPASTER: I went to Birmingham Southern College; it's a small liberal arts school in Birmingham, Alabama. It's very similar to a Centre 00:07:00College or a Transylvania University here in Lexington. It's a Methodist school and it really prides itself on its service learning and leadership education programs, leadership development. And that's where I became involved in the leadership studies. It's called distinction in leadership studies. It's like a, kind of like a minor but it's more they call it distinction because you don't really have to be selected for it, but it's much I guess more rigorous and a lot of outside of the classroom experiences.

WILSON: So that was a minor or a major?

GOODPASTER: It's a distinction.

WILSON: Distinction, okay.

GOODPASTER: Which is it's different, but it's similar to a minor. I mean it's not as much work as a major. It's similar you know you take, you have a small core group of classes but then there's a lot of outside community collaboration and work. And the director of the leadership studies program, Jeannie Jackson, she's still there, she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa in the '60s and so she was kind of my first taste of you know a former Peace Corps volunteer. And you know 00:08:00the job that she's in now I think lends obviously to her spirit and her passions as far as you know giving back.

WILSON: So you were in college and let's see this was what? And what year did you graduate from Birmingham Southern?

GOODPASTER: I graduated in 1997 from Birmingham Southern and my degree is in psychology and business with a distinction in leadership studies. And I was involved in obviously the leadership studies program and was also very involved in the service learning part of the school by doing various local projects like you know more volunteer, what we would consider volunteer community service. Then we also I had some service learning experiences abroad where I had one in Zimbabwe, Mutambara, Zimbabwe.

WILSON: Spell, well that's okay.

GOODPASTER: I believe it's spelled M-U-T-A-M-B-A-R-A, Mutambara, 00:09:00Zimbabwe. And my senior year I was, we went and worked in Calcutta, India with the Sisters of Charity. And the way it works at Southern is you're only actually in the experience in the field for a month, but for the entire semester before, it's a very competitive process, you apply the year before, you have to fundraise everything, and the entire semester before you meet as a group to try to learn some of the language, the culture. And they try to really prepare you for what you're going to see. In Zimbabwe we were doing, Zimbabwe was--It's such a, well it was such a happy place. I mean I don't consider myself an expert enough to know what's there now but you know you hear all the things that happen in the news. But the villages in Zimbabwe, that's really what got me to fall in love with Africa. We worked with children in the schools, we worked in the hospitals, we worked--I don't want to say we worked on the farm; we felt like we did more harm than good. But it was just really that exchange of that human interaction 00:10:00and you know they were learning about us and we were learning about them. And it was just such a happy time in my life and it just really gave me such an energy. The next year it was such a different experience in Calcutta and it's still something that I really haven't put together because you know Calcutta is, it's the poorest place I've ever seen in terms of not just you know physical poverty with but just poverty of the human spirit. There's just the lack of love for one another and it's just really sad with the way their system is set up over there that you know people are thrown into the streets because they believe that's where they belong and that's something that was always hard for me to accept. And again those are two more experiences that really kind of helped shape and mold where I am today, including my Peace Corps experience.

WILSON: So you graduated in 1997 and then?

GOODPASTER: And then I knew I wanted to go to graduate school, but I just couldn't quite put my finger on what exactly so I took a year 00:11:00off and worked two different jobs. I worked retail management for six months, which was just kind of out there. It was fun; it was a great experience you know. I've always told people that I really can see myself doing 100 different jobs because there's so much out there I like doing. And then the director of service learning at Birmingham Southern needed to go on maternity leave for six months and so they asked if I would fill in for the spring semester, and of course I eagerly was like, "Of course, of course I'll do it." And went back to Southern, which was great. You know it's one thing to experience leadership and service and you know the student affairs type programs when you're a student, but to see it on the other side is a completely different story. So it gave me a different appreciation for you know for the work that I did as a student and the work that was done for me that you know enabled me to do what I did as a student. And that's when I was also applying to graduate school to come back to Kentucky because I knew, I know I wanted to come back home. So and originally I 00:12:00had applied to graduate school in the counseling program at UK and was accepted and started in the fall, that would be the fall of '98 in the counseling program. And I enjoyed it but I still, I still felt I think from my previous semester of working with students I knew that I wanted to work with college students. I knew they had a lot to give. And so UK at that time had their EPE program, which is Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, really strong program really focused on issues of higher education in history and law and faculty issues. And they were trying to break into the student affairs and student development mold. And so I was one of the first students, I became I guess somewhat of a guinea pig and transferred over that second semester to the EPE program to get my master's, not my PhD just my master's, and finished then in 2000, summer of 2000.

WILSON: Alright, and as part of that did you have practicum kinds of experiences?

GOODPASTER: We did. My first semester in the counseling program I did 00:13:00not, but when I switched over I was very fortunate. Dr. Jim Kuder, he was the former vice president for student affairs for UK and he's since retired. But he was one of my biggest supporters and cheerleaders and mentors at UK and really I think believed in me and knew some of my background and knew my passions of leadership and service and helped me gain a position with the Office of Student Involvement. I think then it was called the Office of Student Activities Leadership; they've since changed names. And I was a graduate assistant first actually at LCC when the schools were connected.

WILSON: Lexington Community College.

GOODPASTER: Lexington Community College, and I was liaison for student involvement and leadership for the students at Lexington Community College and the students at UK. And then the final year I was the leadership graduate assistant. At the time UK actually did not have a volunteer center for students, even though I you know personally I've 00:14:00always seen and I still see you know leadership service diversity, all those they're interconnected. You can't really separate one from another. They didn't have a, you know, separate volunteer center or service learning center, so I primarily worked with leadership education, hoping to pass the message along to students that, you know, leadership is about responsibility and that means social responsibility.

WILSON: And you finished your master's in?

GOODPASTER: In the summer of 2000.

WILSON: Okay.

GOODPASTER: And at that point I wasn't ready to leave Lexington, which really limited my search as far as higher ed goes because there were no positions at UK, there were no positions at Centre College, and I forgot to mention that I, my thesis work was done on a study at Centre College on developing leadership programs at small liberal arts schools. And so of course I would have loved to have gone back there to work, but there were no positions open there. There was a position open at Transy, and it was in admissions, which is a place that I 00:15:00hadn't worked at yet. But again I thought it would give me you know an experience from a completely different angle in higher ed. And I loved it. I was only there a year because my former, a former professor of mine from leadership studies at Birmingham Southern who had since moved to a college called Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, another liberal arts school. He was the dean of faculty at Rollins and wanted to create an office of community engagement at Rollins College and just called to kind of put the bug in my ear that they were searching. And so I threw my name in the hat and it worked out and I went down there to create the office of community engagement at Rollins College, which in a sense was service learning and civic engagement all tied together. It was different at Rollins because I was under faculty academic affairs and not student affairs, which is different than any other school that I've ever seen. But it worked because I think that got the 00:16:00faculty on board a little bit, a little bit more. And that's when I was you know that's when I really kind of felt my energy come up even more because I was back into really connecting with the community. And David, who is he's my husband now and we went to Peace Corps together, we were dating. We dated forever and we had always talked about Peace Corps, but when I had this opportunity at Rollins I kind of said you know not now, I want to do this first. And he understood; he was very supportive.

WILSON: And so that then, you finished that in--?

GOODPASTER: I did that for three years, so I went to Rollins in late July, early August of 2001 and left exactly three years later 2004, and was applying to Peace Corps at the time. David and I, we were getting married. We had been together like I said for several years; we met our freshman year in college in 1993. And we knew, you know, we didn't 00:17:00have kids, it was a good time for me to leave Rollins. The program when I started was all soft money, and by the time I left I had just gotten the program endowed so I felt very strongly that the program you know was strong enough to survive without me. I felt good; I was leaving it in good hands. So we knew that we had always wanted to do this, and if we didn't do it now we were afraid we wouldn't do it. So we talked about it and--

WILSON: Applied.

GOODPASTER: Applied.

WILSON: So this was in 2000 and--? You got married in 2004?

GOODPASTER: Four, forgot about that.

WILSON: Four, and then you went in--No, you didn't go immediately.

GOODPASTER: Not immediately. It was interesting, we were postponed a couple of times. We were told originally that we would be leaving in September of '04 and we got married in August so we said, "Ah, that's 00:18:00perfect." You know we'll spend, go on a little honeymoon, spend time with family for a few weeks and then leave. Another reason I left Rollins that August, because I didn't feel like it would be fair to leave a school in the middle, mid-semester. But for some, the first one I think something with our backgrounds you know I think when you're a married couple it's harder to match up the skills and talents and of you know of you with the needs of the communities.

WILSON: And you applied when, the first application? Because the application process takes a while--

GOODPASTER: I want to say it was February of '07.

WILSON: And you'd said you wanted to go to a particular place or you wanted to be--?

GOODPASTER: Africa was our first choice.

WILSON: First choice, okay.

GOODPASTER: Africa was our first choice.

WILSON: Anything particular in terms of what you wanted to do?

GOODPASTER: We wanted to, we didn't want to do education. We wanted to do health or health education because we felt like, not that education is not important because it certainly is. But we just felt the need in terms of you know HIV/AIDS and childhood diseases and things like that. 00:19:00There was a greater need in Africa for that than for English teachers or something, but we were very open. We just put our top three choices down in terms of region which Africa, Caribbean, and Eastern Europe.

WILSON: And then you got invited to go to?

GOODPASTER: We were nominated for Africa in for September, but that pretty quickly I guess it was.

WILSON: Africa in general, not a specific country?

GOODPASTER: I think it was western Africa because they told me to brush up on my French; they told both of us to so we assumed.

WILSON: Okay so francophone Africa, okay.

GOODPASTER: And then I think it might have been sometime that summer right before we got married, right around our wedding we were told that we might be leaving with a November group. And we were fine with that, we said okay, take a couple temporary jobs you know do a little more traveling. And in October we got a call, because we were 00:20:00expecting a letter any day, saying that there was one medical form that accidentally sat on someone's desk or something and so it lost one of our spots. And at this point I'll admit I was like oh what are we going to do because you know I had left my job, he had left his job, and we didn't have a place to live you know. So we were given a choice. We said well we could either go to I think it was somewhere in Eastern Europe or somewhere in Asia in February or we could wait until the May departure for Malawi.

WILSON: Oh.

GOODPASTER: And so we you know we knew that as easy as it would have been to say February because we were so ready to leave, that you know we felt like, our hearts felt like we belonged in Africa so we waited.

WILSON: And just did odd jobs until you went?

GOODPASTER: Odd jobs. I don't even remember. David went with a temp agency and worked in different places. I actually, where I went to get my hair done at this spa and salon, they were looking for like a coordinator so I applied and they let me do it. And I got free haircuts and other things until I left, so I pampered myself I guess a little bit before we left, so we did that.

WILSON: And everything worked out medically?

GOODPASTER: Oh yes, oh yes, everything worked out medically.

WILSON: Good, so you left in May.

GOODPASTER: We left in May.

WILSON: And where did you do staging?

GOODPASTER: Staging was in Philadelphia.

WILSON: Was in Philadelphia, just for a few days?

GOODPASTER: It was the regular two days and, of course, because of Africa they tack on that extra day for all of your immunizations and extra shots and things.

WILSON: Immunizations, and was this just a group going to Malawi or there--? And how many of you were there?

GOODPASTER: There were 24 in our group to begin with. There was a group that came in as we were getting ready to leave, and I think they were 00:22:00either going to was it Swaziland? One of those countries in southern Africa, I can't remember, but we didn't really get a chance to interact with them at all. It was kind of a good luck and maybe we'll run into you over the next couple of years, and that was about it.

WILSON: You got on a plane and flew to Johannesburg?

GOODPASTER: We flew to Johannesburg and we stopped in Senegal to refuel. They wouldn't let us off, so we just sat there.

WILSON: I've been there.

GOODPASTER: Yeah, long flight.

WILSON: Long trip.

GOODPASTER: And they spray that nasty stuff and wouldn't let you off.

WILSON: Yes, right, right, right.

GOODPASTER: And then we spent the night in Johannesburg and then got up the next morning for our--

WILSON: And flew into?

GOODPASTER: Lilongwe.

WILSON: The capital.

GOODPASTER: The capital, capital city of Malawi. And then immediately, we did I almost forgot, they took us by the Peace Corps office in Lilongwe. But at that point I think we were all so tired and just 00:23:00you know so many emotions running through our head I don't even really remember the tour. I just remember pulling into the training site in Dedza and our bus hit a little metal pole and you know that was just one of the first, the many things where you just kind of learn to laugh about certain things. And somebody had to go to the bathroom so we had to pass her through the window because the bus was too crowded, you know, hence started the fun stories that you always put in your journal from Malawi.

WILSON: So how long was training? You were in, they had what kind of a training site in Dedza?

GOODPASTER: Well you spend--

WILSON: And Dedza is D-E-D-Z-A, right?

GOODPASTER: Z-A, right. You spent your first few nights at the forestry college. Malawi has the partnership with the forestry college in Dedza where that's their training headquarters for Peace Corps. So you're in like a little dormitory type atmosphere and that's where you get 00:24:00your kind of survival language training and you just get some immediate things about the country and--

WILSON: What language were you trained in?

GOODPASTER: Chichewa, do I need to spell it?

WILSON: Everybody? Yeah.

GOODPASTER: C-H-I-C-H-E-W-A and that Chichewa was for anyone in the central and southern regions. And Chitumbuka was for the northern regions, C-H-I-T-I--

WILSON: T-U-M---

GOODPASTER: Chitumbuka, T-U-M--

WILSON: T-U-M-B-U-K-A I think.

GOODPASTER: Yes, B-U-K-A. Never been a good speller, I always have to write things down.

WILSON: That's alright, it's just because I was there this summer that I know how to spell it.

GOODPASTER: Oh okay, good, good. And we were there for gosh I should pull my journal, unfortunately I put it in storage since we're in a temporary housing right now and I haven't pulled it out, which it's going to be great when I do pull it out. But I think we spent 00:25:00three nights in Dedza, four would be the most. They've since changed training and they spend more time in Dedza before they send you off to your host family to the village. But I think we were only there for three nights.

WILSON: And then you were sent as a couple?

GOODPASTER: We were sent as a couple to a small village called Mkhonkera, and spelling M-K-H-O-N-K-E-R-A I believe in the correct spelling, Mkhonkera. They split us up into three different villages so there were, it was about eight per village. And there were actually, the interesting thing with our group of 24 there were three married couples in our group. We were the only two, we were the only couple that COSed , the other two--

WILSON: Oh that finished, really?

GOODPASTER: The other two didn't finish, so they just put one married 00:26:00couple per village. So we just happened to be the one they threw into Mkhonkera. And that first night I almost didn't make it.

WILSON: Why was that?

GOODPASTER: Well we, of course it was freezing and I hate the cold weather, hence one reason I wanted to go to Africa, not the main reason. But Dedza in June is--

WILSON: Because you were arriving in winter.

GOODPASTER: Exactly, and Dedza is the mountainous region so we were very high up in elevation. And it was absolutely freezing cold, you know you're on the mud floor and I literally put on, I put all the socks I brought with me to Africa on my hands and feet at night. I had on skirts with my hiking trousers that I brought. They say trousers there, I'm sure you know, instead of pants. That's very inappropriate, and I think I even, yeah I put on some skirts over that and I mean I looked like if anyone's ever seen the movie "A Christmas Story" where the little boy can't put his arms down because he's so bundled up. That's exactly what I looked like and I was still freezing. But that 00:27:00first night we, for some reason I think I'm not sure what happened but we only had one small twin mattress. So we, they had to get us another mattress the next day. So David and I were on this tiny little twin mattress on the mud floor, and we tried to tuck our mosquito net in and we woke up in the middle of the night and we felt these things all over us. And you know I almost didn't want to turn on the flashlight but I did and somehow there were these tiny, tiny little ants that just really are so small they can get through the mosquito net. And I guess they didn't spray good enough and we were, I mean thousands and thousands of ants just all over us, all in our stuff. And so I was like, "This is it David, we're going home." I was like, "I can't do this! I can't do it!" but of course I'm thankful I did.

WILSON: So what happened the next day?

GOODPASTER: Well of course the next day I called Aida, who was our--I call her our training mom and--

WILSON: And she was Malawian?

GOODPASTER: She was Malawian and you know she brought the stuff so we could, I can't even remember. I don't think it's a spray. It's something you, it's like a dust that you, like a powder that you put on the floor and you know. We survived, it wasn't that big of a deal, I think it was just the first night and I was freezing. When I get cold I'm not in the greatest mood ever, and you know so waking up with things crawling all over you--I would almost rather have mice or something you know, something big in the room than ants.

WILSON: So then what was the rest of training like? How long were you out in the village?

GOODPASTER: We were out, we were in the village between six--

WILSON: And how big a village?

GOODPASTER: Oh it was tiny, extremely tiny. You know no market in the village, less than 100, it was a tiny village, no market. There was a market miles down the road that came there once a week. We actually never made it because we were always in training sessions, but it was 00:29:00a very tiny village. Much I mean the villages that you're placed in a site are tiny but I think these are even more remote and tiny.

WILSON: Because you were how many miles from Dedza or how many miles off the main road, off the M1?

GOODPASTER: We were quite far off the M1 but from the forestry college maybe 30 to 45 minutes, so it was you know. In training you have the luxury of if you go anywhere Peace Corps picks you up, which you know is a luxury that you miss throughout your two years when you know you fend for yourself.

WILSON: So did they come and pick you up there to bring you back to Dedza for training or no?

GOODPASTER: Yes, yes.

WILSON: Okay.

GOODPASTER: So you know the Peace Corps training vehicles drop you off in the village and you know every Thursday was medical day so we had to go back to the college on Thursday to get more shots and you know have the doctor scare us about all the crazy things out there. So each Peace Corps training vehicle would go and pick up the eight volunteers in each village and bring us back to the college.

WILSON: But in the village you were doing what the other days?

GOODPASTER: In the village we, I would say at least 80% of our time was language. You know you wake up and you're in your language class and then--

WILSON: And where was the language class?

GOODPASTER: It was in a home.

WILSON: In a home, okay. And you had an instructor who was just teaching you?

GOODPASTER: Agatha, Malawian, best instructor in Peace Corps Malawi hands down, and I'm not biased whatsoever. And she, we were with her I'd say from 7:30am until at least 10:30, 11:00 and then we would go to technical training for about an hour. Technical training was a much smaller portion.

WILSON: And technical training included?

GOODPASTER: Training on, we were all health volunteers so learning about some of the specific like childhood diseases, learning about--

WILSON: Such as?

GOODPASTER: Such as well malaria obviously is one of them but--

WILSON: But measles and chicken pox too?

GOODPASTER: Measles, chicken pox, cholera, you know even just diarrhea, kwashiokor, is that how you say it? You know just learning how to recognize the signs of malnutrition, and then of course we had HIV/AIDS. It was all very helpful but we all needed the language much more. You know it's such basic health education that we all I think were more nervous about the language and felt like we could just read out of the manual about the actual technical part, so and then the afternoon was spent in language.

WILSON: So you were in the village doing language training and a little bit of technical training for how long?

GOODPASTER: For six to eight weeks, six to eight weeks. And I, June--We swore in July 27 so--

WILSON: And did your whole group get through the training or did some people go home?

GOODPASTER: We lost in training one, two, we lost a couple people in 00:32:00training and then right after swearing in we lost somebody else.

WILSON: Okay, so after this about two months of training then you were sworn in and then--?

GOODPASTER: After you swear in and you're sworn in at the ambassador's residence in the capital city, Lilongwe. The next day they, you pack up your stuff and they take you to your village and drop you off.

WILSON: And before we get to your village when you said you packed up your stuff, what did you bring with you?

GOODPASTER: Well we didn't bring much with us to Malawi, but you do have a chance the day you swear in, because you swear in in the morning, that afternoon to go into the market of Lilongwe and buy yourself a mattress, which is not a mattress like we would know here. You know it's like foam, a piece of foam. We bought the thickest one we could; 00:33:00I don't think it made a difference but we bought a couple of the mats, the grass, the grass woven, the woven mats, the reed mats. We bought a couple of buckets, mats, mattress, buckets, we stocked up on a couple jars of peanut butter and some spaghetti noodles that we found in the store, some tea, some basic things, sugar.

WILSON: And what had you brought with you from the States?

GOODPASTER: Not a whole heck of a lot. We, well we brought too much hand sanitizer and so did everybody else we realized. I think that's all the moms of you know of everyone packing the hand sanitizer and no one ever uses it. We just, everyone laughs because you end up just donating it to the Peace Corps transit house in Lilongwe, which is like our kind of our hostel when we're in town. There's drawers of hand sanitizer. The one thing I'm very glad I did bring was Ziploc bags, I 00:34:00never knew how handy those would be, Ziploc bags.

WILSON: And some clothes?

GOODPASTER: Clothes, a few clothes, a few skirts and a bunch of button down and t-shirts and I brought hiking boots that I never wore the entire two years. I lived in my flip flops and occasionally I would throw on some tennis shoes, but I literally lived in my flip flops and my $8.99 fake Tevas. Everyone else had the Chacos, but I had the $8.99 fake Tevas and they worked great the entire two years.

WILSON: And you knew ahead of time that you would be wearing skirts?

GOODPASTER: Yes, yes. And I remember from Zimbabwe.

WILSON: That that would be, that that was culturally appropriate.

GOODPASTER: That that was just, that's just how it was, culturally appropriate, right.

WILSON: Okay so you've got all your stuff in duffel bags or something, right?

GOODPASTER: Two, one duffel, one soft suitcase.

WILSON: And how do you get to your--? And you've been assigned to a 00:35:00village; you didn't have a choice.

GOODPASTER: We did not have a choice. Our village was Kang'oma, which is K-A-N-G, apostrophe, O-M-A, Kang'oma. It means little drum.

WILSON: And it is, was how far from Lilongwe?

GOODPASTER: We were actually we were quite close to Lilongwe. It only took us 45 minutes to an hour to get to our village, but really I felt like we had the best of both worlds because we were very remote. We didn't have electricity or water and a lot of people that were further away you know had some of those, so we felt like we were getting the rural Peace Corps experience. But we were able to really take advantage of the resources that the capital city could provide. So, for instance, as I was working with an organization in the village that worked with children, I was able to hook them up with UNICEF and some of the resources that were in the city. And the fact that we were so close provided easier access for some of those community members to stay in contact, so I really felt lucky. I think the reason we 00:36:00were put there is several years ago, and this is interesting, I had a small heart condition called oh goodness it's PAT, paroxysmal atrial tachycardia something, and basically it just means that you get heart palpitations. It's very, very common for young women especially with hormonal changes. Nothing is wrong with me, I'm perfectly healthy, but for some reason that meant okay she needs to be close to the doctors. So that's why we were put there but--

WILSON: Not a big deal.

GOODPASTER: Yeah no.

WILSON: So you arrived in your village and what was--? Describe your village. What was your village like?

GOODPASTER: Our village, gosh I don't even know where to begin. It was a small, you know it wasn't the smallest village but it wasn't a huge village. We didn't have a market there, we had--Well they called it a market but essentially you could get tomatoes and onions and usipa, 00:37:00U-S-I-P-A I believe is how you spell that. It's those little dried fish which I wouldn't touch; David loved them. And really not much else, eggs if you were lucky if you could get some eggs from some local chickens. Our market was in area 23, which was actually outside of Lilongwe and it was, we biked. It took you maybe 30 minutes, 45 minutes, maybe a little longer to get there because it was all uphill. Coming back was a much nicer ride because it was all downhill.

WILSON: And you each had a bike?

GOODPASTER: We each had a bike. I will admit--

WILSON: It was provided by Peace Corps?

GOODPASTER: Peace Corps provides bikes. David and his bike became best friends; my bike and I were sworn enemies. Trying to wear a skirt and ride a bike and I'm not the best on bikes anyway, I walked almost everywhere. And yeah that's just how it was and if we would go into town there's, you never really felt well you could leave your bike at 00:38:00some place but you know theft is a problem, petty theft is a problem and especially when you get closer to the city. So if we were to take our bikes and leave them at a place and then take the bus once transportation was available, you know if the bike got stolen it was partly your responsibility. So we normally took bike taxis from the village. That was the main transportation. It was either walking, which you know it's quite a couple hours at least to get to area 23, or bike taxi and that's where on the back of the bike the men would put a little tiny seat and you'd just hop on and ride behind them and hope that you know they don't crash. So a scary--

WILSON: And they would ride up the hill?

GOODPASTER: Most of the time. Occasionally I had to be like, "You just need to stop and let's walk up the hill," but a lot of them would insist on pedaling up the hill. I guess it depended if I had my backpack with me and how heavy it was.

WILSON: So I got you off on transportation but talk about the village.

GOODPASTER: Sorry the village. Our village was, it's a small village but without a market but it still I feel like had a fairly motivated community and some good resources in terms of the people that worked at our health center. There was the local rural health center was that's where we were stationed, at the health center. And the personnel there, the staff there was really incredible and just very welcoming, appreciative of us coming and we had a great relationship with them. There was--

WILSON: And were they, were the people at the health center your formal counterparts?

GOODPASTER: Yes.

WILSON: Okay the people you were working with or your supervisor?

GOODPASTER: Our supervisor was the MA, the medical assistant, the in charge at the health center, Mr. Kachingwe, and that's K-A-C-H-I-N-G- W-E. He was 72 years old, he has been with the Ministry of Health for 00:40:00over 50 years. He knows anything and everything about Malawian history and health care there and he is the most incredible, wonderful, loving but grumpy old man that you'll ever meet. And he turned into our grandpa while we were there and you never see a man hug a woman really in Malawi, and he would just give me big hugs. I mean it was like he was really my surrogate dad or granddad over there. It was really wonderful. And Helen was our nurse, Helen Mvula, M-V-U-L-A. Mvula means rain, Kachingwe means string. And they, we really--They were our neighbors; there were staff houses for the health center and we were in one, and Helen and her family and Mr. Kachingwe and his family was in the other. So that was our kind of hub of how we got started and the health center had nine HSAs, health surveillance assistants that 00:41:00are the field workers that go out into the field to try to you know spread the health education messages. And they do the clinics for the newborns, the under fives every day. And they were officially our counterparts on paper, but by the end of our Peace Corps experience we had counterparts with teachers, we had a primary and secondary school there with youth. There was a youth organization that formed there. With the director of a small orphan care center that they formed in the community, so we had several counterparts by the end of it. We just had to put one on paper officially, so we were very lucky our community I think the youth organization the EU helped them build a building that became like a youth center.

WILSON: The European Union, okay.

GOODPASTER: European Union, and that was probably our most difficult and challenging group we worked with for the two years because they were, 00:42:00it was interesting. David and I always talked about how appreciative everyone is for everything they get in Malawi and we noticed so much was handed to these youth without them having to do anything for it, but they took it for granted and just expected and wanted more, give me more, and it just really reminded me of life over here. And it you know it was just very ironic and seeing how that youth are youth and kids are kids. And if you don't teach them to work for things and appreciate things, that's just youth. And so that was difficult for us, but great young people and they really did want I think to make a difference in their community. They just didn't know how; nobody had taken the time to actually sit and teach them. They were just giving them things.

WILSON: So Lauren for a minute let's go back and you arrived in this 00:43:00village and you had a staff house. Tell us something about arriving and what your house was like and what those first couple of weeks were like in the village.

GOODPASTER: I mean they were a little awkward. You're still not great at the language. I was decent at the language; I worked really hard at the language and I was lucky enough to be selected to give the Chichewa speech at swearing in. David, bless his heart, he just he couldn't pick it up. And so I think he looked to me and so I was kind of seen as that you know, "Lauren, what do we do?" and so you know it was stressful, it was awkward. Thankfully a few of the, Mr. Kachingwe, Helen, they spoke English so they you know that was nice. It was very different I think being a married couple. We heard later on that you know people were, "Oh you know come over for dinner," and nobody ever, we were never invited to anyone's house actually our 00:44:00entire two years. Well no I take that back, Mr. Kachingwe for, had us for a meal at the end. But I think being a married couple is very different. People kind of felt like they needed to be hands off; at the same time the kids would crawl in our windows and try to look in you know all hours of the day. And we would have people that would just walk in without knocking you know so there's, it goes both ways. But those first couple of weeks it's such a blur because you're just trying to take it all in. You do feel like you know what am I doing, I have no idea where to even begin. So it's just about really going out and meeting people and not being afraid to just get out there and maybe look dumb and look stupid if you say the wrong word or you know. We just wanted people to know that we were there and we hoped to be a part of the community. And we had an open door policy. We kept our door open all the time and I think that really helped us integrate into 00:45:00the community. I do know a lot of volunteers that spent time in their house and never let people physically into their home, and that's not the way to build trust and really become a part of the community.

WILSON: What was your home like? It was like the other staff houses, right?

GOODPASTER: It was like (??) other staff homes. We had a tin roof and we did have a cement floor; that was very nice. Our home, a lot of work was done in the home over two years. When we got there it was dirty. The volunteer before us didn't take care of it and had some issues, so I think that's another reason they put a married couple in our village because they wanted to better the reputation of Peace Corps after a troubled volunteer so they said, "Ah let's put a family there." So there were windows busted out that were just cardboard and it had a few things wrong with it, but really we couldn't complain. No electricity or water, which was fine, but we did have a sink basin that actually drained out of the house into the ground, which was very 00:46:00convenient. Unfortunately it was, we weren't there long maybe a few weeks, there was a break-in next door at our nurse's house and--

WILSON: Okay Lauren, we were talking about your house and a break-in, right?

GOODPASTER: Right. I was telling you how our house when we got there you know it wasn't bad. I think when you go you're expecting a you know a little round mud hut that's about as big as your arms can go around, but we were very fortunate. It had four rooms, but it did need repairs. And we were fortunate to get the repairs but unfortunate in how it happened. A few weeks after we got there, there was a break-in at the nurse's home and that prompted the DHO, which is the Lilongwe district health office, to come out and look at the homes and say, 00:47:00"Yes, we need to make sure there's some glass in the windows instead of cardboard." And they actually put up bars on our windows, which was strange. And they added some locks to the doors, so and then they actually painted. So we felt like we had a brand new house; it was great. And that was it, we you know it was a quaint little simple house but I loved it. We, David and I really if we were going to be there for two years we really wanted to set it up and make it our home, so we had some furniture made in the village and really tried to fill it with not things really but just you know fill it with some furniture and mats and pictures and you know we bought a flag and put it up you know. And David found a big map of all of Africa and all the flags of Africa. You know we just wanted to make it a place where, a welcoming place, not just for us but for anyone in the village.

WILSON: So you had children who visited you?

GOODPASTER: Oh gosh every day, every day. And I felt really bad because I had to at one point kind of draw the line and say, "Okay you can come any time but you don't just run in the door. You know you need to learn to knock, and you don't crawl up on the windows and like start banging on our windows," and you know.

WILSON: What did they do when they came to your house?

GOODPASTER: They just wanted to sit and talk. And I did bring a lot of crayons with me and paper that my mom had given me; she's a teacher. And so coloring together on the front porch, me teaching them English words, them trying to teach me Chichewa words became a favorite pastime every afternoon. And you know right 4:00, 5:00 in the evening before it got dark coloring became a huge pastime for us for the entire two years, and I still have some of the pictures they drew me.

WILSON: Oh that's nice.

GOODPASTER: Oh yeah up in my office.

WILSON: What would a typical day be like? When would you get up? What 00:49:00would you eat? And maybe it's hard to think of a typical day but a day.

GOODPASTER: Well David and I, neither one of us are early risers normally so that was difficult. We would sleep in, when I say sleep in that means like 6:30 or so.

WILSON: Because you didn't have, what did you have, kerosene lamps? You didn't have electricity.

GOODPASTER: Candles, kerosene gave us a headache, paraffin lamps, so we just used candles. Yeah we tried the paraffin lamps and neither one of us could handle that so we just used candles. And you would hear people up and about you know 5:30, 6:00 but we would generally wait until about 6:30. And the typical it really depended. David and I did, we did different projects and we can get into that hopefully in a minute about we felt like it was important for each of us individually to establish kind of our roles, but we also worked on some things 00:50:00together. But on a day to day basis we had different schedules. He worked much more with the schools; I worked much more directly with the health center and the orphan care center. So Wednesdays and Fridays I went to the health center, Tuesdays and Thursdays I went to the orphan center. Monday mornings was kind of my just get out into the community and I didn't really have a set place to be Monday mornings. He taught Monday, Tuesday, Thursday; Wednesday, Friday he didn't have set things in the mornings.

WILSON: So you'd get up and what would you have for breakfast?

GOODPASTER: Tea or water and well we would sometimes, we would go--We would try to go to the market in area 23 once a week, generally David because in the afternoons I was usually at the youth center and he would be out of class so he would bike to the market. Like I said he 00:51:00was better on the bike, he was faster, so I was very lucky to have him to help go to the market. And he would try to buy some bread and we would have some bread, peanut butter, and bananas. Bananas were pretty year round you could find bananas. Occasionally we would pop some popcorn, chimanga I think is what it's called, C-H-I-M-A-N-G-A, I might have to check on that but I think chimanga is popcorn.

WILSON: And then what did you have for lunch and supper? And did you come back to your house to eat?

GOODPASTER: Lunch would be--Oh yes, oh yeah we always ate lunch at home. I mean everything was, it was small in our village so everything was right there. And this is where, this is we weren't put in a difficult position but there was a woman, her name was Christina and she was hired to help the person before us get water and help with lunch.

WILSON: Where were you getting water from?

GOODPASTER: From the borehole in the village. And you know it wasn't close but it wasn't too far. When we arrived, you know her biggest concern was, "Do I still have a job?" We didn't want to have any hired help, but at the same time we weren't going to, "No you don't have a job." So we said, "Okay you know great, you can help us draw water and then you can help us with lunch," because we you know would literally sometimes come home and the water thing was great because there were times when it would take her a couple of hours to go get a bucket of water because of the lines and what not. And I really felt like that you know it helped her because it employed her, at the same time it allowed me and David to be doing our projects in the community. Lunch we all usually ended up just preparing it together, I mean she really became kind of a member of the family. She wanted to do more and we kind of had to you know, "It's okay Christina, don't do that. No, 00:53:00please don't do that, please don't do that." She asked us if she could help us with our laundry and so we said okay, so once a week and we would pay her more for that. I tried to do laundry with her a few times and everything I washed, she would look at it, and she didn't know any English but she would look at it and say, "Ah, no good," and do it again anyway. So anytime I wanted to do my own laundry I saved that for the weekends. And so I learned my lesson quickly that all the laundry I wanted to do myself I just did it every Sunday was my laundry day. David, I was kind of the same way to David. I would look at David and say, "Ah, this is no good," but you know she is--

WILSON: And you were doing laundry in what way?

GOODPASTER: You just fill one of the buckets we bought with water and you can buy a little blue bar of soap and we, Sunlight was one of the--And you just stick it in the water and scrub away by hand and hang it up outside. So and they get clean. They get worn pretty easily but 00:54:00they get clean. Christina turned out to be one of our best friends and she cried, I cried, and a lot of the Malawians don't cry easily when we left. But there were times when David and I felt like you know we were living in her house and she was our boss and you know she ruled the roost; she really did.

WILSON: So did she cook you supper too?

GOODPASTER: Oh no, no, no, no. And like I said lunch was kind of a joint effort.

WILSON: And what did you eat?

GOODPASTER: We had of course nsima, not every day.

WILSON: Okay and nsima is N-S--

GOODPASTER: N-S-I-M-A and that's their staple food. It's made from maize corn and they you know take the maize and they take it off the cob and they pound it and they bleach it and pound it again and bleach it and take it to the mill. And so any nutrition that it had, what little nutrition it had whatsoever is gone, and it becomes a powder 00:55:00that you mix with water and essentially makes like, it's almost like grits. It's like a patty. And we would have that at least twice a week with beans; that was our favorite meal.

WILSON: What kind of beans?

GOODPASTER: We would just get mixed dried beans.

WILSON: Dried beans, okay.

GOODPASTER: We had our bean friend we called him at the market; we always went to the same man to buy beans in area 23. And some days we would have one of my favorite things to do was at the market if there were any vegetables, carrots or green beans, tomatoes, onions, I would make a homemade vegetable soup for all of us and you know kind of teach Christina. Sometimes we would have chips, they call them chippies, chips, fries essentially because you could buy Irish potatoes every now and then. And if we had chips Christina was much better at cooking those than I was. We kind of traded off; you were better at this, I'm 00:56:00better at that. And then we would cut up fruit and just have chips and fruit. Chips and fruit, vegetable soup, nsima, beans, nsima and greens, some type of green; pumpkin leaves were my favorite. Gosh.

WILSON: Okay.

GOODPASTER: I mean not a huge variety but--

WILSON: So what--? Go back to, because you started to talk about that, to what your job actually was and your projects.

GOODPASTER: You know I didn't have one particular thing I worked on and I loved that, I loved being involved in different aspects of the community. But like I said before, David and I, we wanted to work on things together and we did a few things together but most of our work we did separate projects, and I felt very strongly about that. I don't want to get into it too much because I mean I think it's pretty well known that I mean the treatment of women and equality, I mean it's obviously not where it is here in America. And you know women are not 00:57:00given the respect that they deserve and most women don't work outside of the home. So obviously I was very determined to go there and you know prove that as a, I wasn't just--It wasn't just David the Peace Corps volunteer and his wife; it was you know David the Peace Corps volunteer and Lauren the Peace Corps volunteer. So you know I wanted to prove that I had a lot to bring and to give to the community. I think what helped me is my language because my language became pretty strong so I was able to communicate with a lot of people. But you know that said I still felt like I had a lot to prove so with the health center, the health center I felt like I was more a volunteer for them. I didn't initiate particular projects in the beginning with them, I just went on Wednesdays and Fridays. They had the under five clinic every day, but Wednesdays and Fridays was their extremely busy days. And I would help; we were not allowed to actually do practical you know administer shots but I helped with you know all the registrations 00:58:00and the recordings and kind of the paperwork type stuff, and I liked it and I kind of saw myself as like the cheerleader because the HSAs, the health surveillance assistants that are there, they don't get a lot of support and I would make them posters and signs. I kind of, I just kind of wanted to show them that what they were doing mattered so that that maybe in turn would help them appreciate their job more and provide better service to the community. My work with--the orphan center was called the name of the place was called Decent. And Innocent is the director's name and he met this guy once. I can't remember if he was an American or a Brit but his name was Dennis and after meeting him he created this preschool one day and decided to put the two names together so it became Decent Preschool, so it was Decent. And I always wanted to, didn't have the heart to tell him that it's not the greatest 00:59:00name, but I worked there. I taught there with the kids two mornings a week, and when I say taught I meant you know I loved on the kids and tried to teach them health to two, three, four, five year olds you know washing hands and body parts in English. You know I was trying to, but it was mainly just being with the children. And but--

WILSON: Why don't you talk a little bit about what an orphan care center is as opposed to an orphanage?

GOODPASTER: Orphanage, yeah orphan care centers in Malawi are very different meaning than what a typical American would think of as an orphanage. The kids, generally they don't live there. It's a day program. There are definitely orphanages as we would know them in Malawi, but this was a day program and not all the kids are orphans. They call them orphans and "vulnerables," and "vulnerables" are kids that you know have lost a parent, have parents that are sick possibly from HIV/AIDS, kids that are vulnerable to becoming truly orphaned. 01:00:00And it's generally a place for the children to come and be taken care of as best as possible for, you know school wasn't all day. It was only for you know a few hours every morning, so that was an orphan care center in our village. They were cared for physically after school by the families that they had remaining or the community. But a lot of the work I did with the orphan center was also behind the scenes. They were registered as a local NGO, nongovernmental--Or I'm sorry CBO, community based organization. NGO is nongovernmental organization or generally the bigger. But they were officially registered with the government as a CBO, so a lot of my work with Innocent was just trying to teach him how to sustain an organization through fundraising, 01:01:00learning how to create and write a proposal or a grant, introducing him to big organizations in Lilongwe such as UNICEF or you know even just the local government there, just trying to show you know point out resources to him so that hopefully now that I'm gone he can continue this work. You know creating a local committee of parents and community members that you know making sure that he informs all of the chiefs and not you know about what's going on, so it's not just him operating in this little bubble. It's the whole community supporting. So that was, I felt like that was my main work with them was trying to help him stand on his own two feet.

WILSON: And then you mentioned working with youth, is that right?

GOODPASTER: Youth, Tsabango Youth Network. Tsabango is T-S-A-B-A-N-G-O. Tsabango was our traditional authority, our tribe, our--I always 01:02:00compare it to a county like Fayette County. Our TA was our traditional authority, that was our area section and Chief Tsabango was over that area. So Tsabango Youth network and they, like I said they had a lot of trouble. They would start up these great programs and then they would kind of fizzle out like a lot of youth. And that would be frustrating because it was frustrating to me because I knew I could go in and tell them this is what you need to do and this is what you should do, but where's the learning in that if you just tell you know if you're just kind of pointing and saying do this, do that. So I really had to learn to let go throughout those two years and let them try a lot of things and fail at a lot of things, and they succeeded in a very small amount of things and failed in much more. But the things they succeeded in such as they, we, I helped them create a library in the little building. And I worked with some of the young women in the group and the EU actually--they had electricity in that building, that 01:03:00was one of the few places in the village--donated an old computer and I taught some of the girls how to type. They did some fundraisers and then they failed at a lot of projects. They had this grew kids day program started but that fizzled out after a couple of months. They had some health campaign like thing, just so many projects fizzled and it was very frustrating but that's part of it, that's part of it. They were just an interesting bunch but wonderful, wonderful to work with.

WILSON: What did you for recreation?

GOODPASTER: Well--

WILSON: The tape recorder can't record your expression.

GOODPASTER: I'm sitting here right now kind of going hmmm--

WILSON: Yes right well--

GOODPASTER: I mean in the village at night David and I kind of, we 01:04:00had our routine. But to me the routine was kind of recreation. It was relaxing you know it--As soon as the sun went down we built the fire and cooked dinner together, and dinner again was we did anything from let's make pancakes if we had any flour and eggs available, you know kind of Peace Corps pancakes you put it together. To if we had any noodles from town we would make some kind of like I would chop up tomatoes and onions and make homemade spaghetti. And then we would heat our bathwater and take turns taking our bath. And the bath was you know you heat it in a metal bucket and then you just take your little candle and go into your little bafa, B-A-F-A is the bath. It's a little tiny room with a hole in the ground so you can take your bucket bath, which turned out to be so relaxing. It really did. It was a pain to get ready for because you know there was just so much to do, but you were there in the bafa it's quite nice. And then we would, we had a little battery operated transistor radio and we would turn on the BBC and listen to the world news every night at 8:00. And there 01:05:00were a couple of other programs every once in a while that we would listen to on BBC and that's really about it you know. But it was fine, it was great, it was great.

WILSON: How often did you go into Lilongwe?

GOODPASTER: We went probably every month once a month and you know we were close. But you know even the volunteers that were far away they would go into Mzuzu or--

WILSON: Sure so they had places to go too. And did you do other things in Lilongwe? Get together with other volunteers or--?

GOODPASTER: Yeah, sure there's always volunteers coming into Lilongwe for one reason or another. And most of the time we were there we were there doing work, but you still had a chance to you know have conversations with other Americans so you, you know, you could talk as fast as you want and you know kind of laugh about some things that you might not necessarily get to do in the village. And even though David and I had each other and we were very lucky for that, it's still nice to have you know another person to kind of--You know the beauty 01:06:00of having your partner there is that you're there to support each other 24/7 but the terrible thing about having your partner there is you're there together 24/7. So if yeah it was kind of, it was good for I think each of us too to get to see other friends. And we actually made two very good friends with a young married couple who he was the political officer for the embassy and she worked for USAID and there was a connection. They met in Peace Corps in Poland a few years ago and knew a very good friend David grew up with who did Peace Corps Poland and they were in the same group. And to this day they are our very good friends. In fact they were in Lexington last weekend. They flew up to see us and we took them to Keeneland and did all the Lexington stuff, so it was nice to have them as a married couple as well that we were able to stay in contact with.

WILSON: And did you travel around Malawi?

GOODPASTER: We did a little bit, not as much as we had planned on. We 01:07:00did go to the lake a few times. Anna and Tyler, the couple I mentioned before, they had a car so there were a couple of holiday weekends that we went and went to the lake, went to Lake Malawi with them. We went and saw a couple of other volunteers but not as much as we had hoped. I think we, at the end of our first year I made this little set of goals like you know finish the library with the youth and you know do this and one of the goals was travel around Malawi. But you'd get so busy you know doing the projects, and David and I had so many things we wanted to accomplish there that we just we didn't do it. And there were so many other projects I haven't even gotten a chance to really talk about. I mean--

WILSON: Well go ahead, say something about other projects.

GOODPASTER: One of our biggest goals with the health center was we wanted to get a VCT, voluntary counseling and testing center for HIV/AIDS at our health center. Our health center did not have one and it took us the entire two years; it was a long process. They had the 01:08:00grand opening a week after we left the village so it was terrible that we missed it but we couldn't have been happier that you know two years worth of sweat and blood and tears paid off. I also wanted to do a training with the traditional birth attendants in our area. I'm not sure how much anyone here knows about traditional birth attendants but you know very old school village midwifes.

WILSON: Midwifes.

GOODPASTER: Midwifes I guess is the way to--And the government, the ministry of health is trying to do away with training traditional birth attendants in Malawi because the government wants all women to give birth in, to travel to the health center to give birth. Idealistic, very unrealistic for women that live 20, 30, 40, 50 kilometers from a health center that have no means of transportation, no money; they can't always make it to a health center. So whether the government 01:09:00likes it or not, these women are going to be practicing. And so it was my goal to at least train them in basic sanitation and things that you know sterilize your instruments, don't use the rubber gloves more than once. I mean very basic things, how to recognize you know warning signs. And it was hard to get support for that because of what the government was pushing. But finally, it was my last--It was four weeks before we left the village. We put on the training and it was a two week, it was a 14 day training for the women, the traditional birth attendants. And it was amazing how they learn because a lot of the women can't read, so it was a lot of learning through songs, through dances, and through pictures. And but something, I worked with Helen our nurse on it, and it's something I'm very proud of. Not for me but for Helen because I know it was something she wanted and it's something that I really know made an impact, knowing that these women now have 01:10:00learned things that can really save the lives of a lot of people. So that was something else. I was also the national coordinator for Camp GLOW, and GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World. That's a big Peace Corps thing worldwide and it's a camp that we do every year to incur, it empowers young women. And I'm sure it's done differently in every country, but here we--It was open to all secondary school girls in forms three and four, the last two forms. And so I coordinated that and that was right at the turn of my first/second year. I was the coordinator for the entire country for that.

WILSON: Wow, that's a big job.

GOODPASTER: It was a big job.

WILSON: Because there are different--That camp happens in different parts of the country.

GOODPASTER: Right, we had the camp near Dedza and so that took a lot of effort too. And it helped that I was close to Lilongwe you know because it took a lot of traveling back and forth. I mean it was just incredible. The way we set up the camp was each day had a different 01:11:00theme, so we had you know career day, future day. I think the day that had the biggest impact for me was we called it human rights day and we talked about not just like women's rights but human rights in general. And a lot of the girls had never heard even that term before and so we were able to you know really enlighten the girls on the rights that they have, and that was wonderful. And we, the whole theme that surrounded the camp, it was called "color your world, create your reality." And the color your world was an art theme, so throughout the entire week we wove a lot of art into it so the girls could really express themselves. And some of the ways they did it was just incredible, like they've never been given a chance to express themselves. And when we talked about a lot of the violation of rights, a lot of them experienced some of the drawings they had. I mean they would, they literally would draw a man ripping clothes off a woman, raping her, and that's just their reality. And so I mean it's--It 01:12:00really gave I think the girls at that camp a chance to get together and really express some of the things they go through.

WILSON: Where are the camps held?

GOODPASTER: Different places every year.

WILSON: Different places.

GOODPASTER: I mean you just have to try to find a venue that will work within your budget because you're trying to fundraise through you know whether it's Friends of Malawi or Peace Corps Partneship you know whatever it is, you know friends and family back home. You're trying to fundraise so we did it at a teaching college for women, which was kind of appropriate that it was at a teaching college for women. So we worked on that and then I did kind of a mini Camp GLOW in my village for girls of a secondary school, and every girl at the whole school was invited. And that was great, it was a three day event so that was wonderful. Gosh there were a lot of other--Oh well David, hopefully he's talking about this. He was really involved with life skills and he was, he traveled to over 20 something schools doing life skills 01:13:00workshops and life skills it's a program, actually I think it was started in Malawi and it's a program that teaches you the skills so you can be successful in life, whether it's decision making, goal setting, obviously a lot of HIV/AIDS relationship communication. And he found, he taught classes to the students in our local, in our village secondary school. But he found that the teachers were just as uninformed so he did a lot of teacher workshops too, and like he--He and his counterpart Geoffrey, G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y Sinjani, S-I-N-J-A-N-I that became our best friend and we still are in contact with him all the time now. Geoffrey was trained, we went to a Peace Corps training on life skills and he was, he came to the training with us and he and David traveled to these 20 something schools and did all the workshops together on life skills. So that was another big project we did. I know I'm forgetting things. 01:14:00I mean there were a lot of things that we really wanted to accomplish.

WILSON: What, you talked about being in contact with him still. Is that through email?

GOODPASTER: It is. We actually, he is interested in--He is very interested in the environment and there is a place in Malawi, Freedom Gardens, and it's north of Lilongwe and it was started by a Malawian and I can't remember his name. And it is this unbelievable garden where they grow everything under the sun, but they do it all--And it's, they do it and I don't know enough about environment I'll admit, and permaculture, but they--He actually uses, the man who created it, uses--He studied history and learned about the Roman I guess aqueducts and the way it's all done and he designed this whole system. And they're providing fruits and vegetables for I think like Air Malawi and I mean he just started this from nothing. And so we took Geoffrey 01:15:00out there just one weekend to see it and this man kind of took Geoffrey under his wing knowing that we were leaving and Geoffrey is now kind of, unfortunately I just heard the man passed away, but Geoffrey is living at the Gardens helping out trying to help kind of learn how it is because he wants to do this himself one day. And so he, we helped raise money from friends and family here to give to Geoffrey so he could have his own bike. So he purchased himself a bike so he can now, he lacked one class to finish secondary school, so he's doing that right now biking to and from school every day, and he bikes sometimes to Lilongwe to email us. So and we've talked to him on the phone. He, somebody gave him an old cell phone, an old Peace Corps volunteer, so we've been able to talk to him.

WILSON: Did you talk with your family by cell phone and did you have cell phones? And did you or did you use email or both? What was the 01:16:00communication?

GOODPASTER: We did have a cell phone. We talked, but we didn't have electricity to charge the phone so we would, I mean we would try to set up like you know once a month Sundays or you know just kind of every other Sunday if there was something going on that we knew and turn on the phone. Occasionally we wouldn't have battery, you know it's like, "Oh hey guys! Sorry!" and it would hang up. But and when we did get into town we were able to email, but it was too hard to try to email everybody so I created--We had this email listserv of like 200 something people and I would write journal stories and they would be you know pages long and hope that people would be interested. So that's how we communicated with people and a few hand written letters. My mom, I did the WorldWise--

WILSON: School?

GOODPASTER: School.

WILSON: Oh with your mother?

GOODPASTER: With my mom's class, first grade class, and that was wonderful because I would handwrite letters and like send little money pieces or--

WILSON: Explain what WorldWise Schools is.

GOODPASTER: It's a program where volunteers are hooked up with a class in America and it's just kind of almost like a pen pal between the volunteer and the students and you share your experiences and you try to teach them about Malawi. And they can ask you questions and it's really just it gives kids over here in America the chance to learn about a place that they're never going to learn about, you know let's face it in American schools, so it was wonderful. And David and I actually we got to come home. My brother got married right at our one year mark so we weren't going to come home, but I couldn't miss my baby brother's wedding. So we came home for this flash visit. I mean we were, it was you know a little over a week and a half maybe to see both families. There were two weddings actually, my brother's and a friend of David's. But we got to go to my mom's class and other classes came in and it was just really a great experience to sit down with these kids and show pictures and share with them our stories, and some of them had the funniest questions and you know. You know, "How do you say underwear in Chichewa?" you know, then you had really 01:18:00serious questions you know like, "Why don't they have food? Why don't they have enough food?" Questions that you know I'm glad six year olds here are asking, you know I think it really opens their eyes to other experiences that people have, so yeah.

WILSON: Are there some particularly memorable experiences, some good stories you want to be sure to tell?

GOODPASTER: Oh gosh, there's just so many. There's just so many. Again I hope David tells this, but our last day in the village we did a training for the chiefs on the hope kit. The hope kit is a kit that was put together by, it's an American, it's not USAID, it's another American international organization that was in Malawi. And it's a kit that you use to teach about HIV/AIDS, it's like a little tool 01:19:00kit. And we were doing a training with the chiefs and so we invited all the chiefs in our village to come, we didn't think any would show because chiefs, especially older chiefs, they're not really a lot of times supportive and progressive in terms of HIV/AIDS education and we have every single chief show up. And they were so into this training and so excited about the opening of the VCT for the week after, and it just--It was the best way to end our village stay. We really couldn't have asked for you know kind of a better grand exit I guess with you know all the chiefs coming and just the children. I mean I can't even--There's so many stories of kids and the, I don't even know one in particular. There's one little girl, Memory, that oh I totally forgot to tell you about this other group we worked with Tiyanjane, which is T-I-Y-A-N-J-A-N-E, it means we are together and it's an HIV/AIDS 01:20:00support group that we became involved with for our second year there. And we did some natural medicine training with them, we did some fundraising training with them. I helped put on a fundraising workshop in the community for them and one of the little girls both of her parents were in the group; they were both HIV/AIDS positive and I found out she is too. She's four years old, her name is Memory and I didn't find out until the very end that she was HIV positive. And I just, I fell in love with her and I wanted to pack her in my suitcase and bring her home. But she would come over every day and she would just sit and hold my hand and we would go on walks sometimes and she really is just the sweetest little thing, the biggest eyes, you know so just not really any particular big stories but just little moments like that that you definitely don't forget.

WILSON: What was it like coming home? You come home and you just--?

GOODPASTER: We came home. We flew into the States June 17th.

WILSON: Of 2007 and so this is hardly three months.

GOODPASTER: So we've--And we flew into Florida; that was our home of record. That's where David's parents live. It was nice, it was Father's Day and so both of our dads could be there, which was kind of special I think for everyone. And I was in the country less than 48 hours and UK flew me to Lexington to interview me and I don't remember half of it because my flight left at 6:00am and I had interviews all day until 8:00pm that night so I was so jetlagged but excited and tired. And I was up at 4:30--

WILSON: Had you applied before?

GOODPASTER: Yes, when we--That was one thing in the spring before we left whenever we were in the city I was on the Peace Corps computer as much as possible looking for jobs because I knew I would need one. So and it worked in my favor and I got the job, but it's--Coming back's been--

WILSON: And the job is?

GOODPASTER: I am the program director for leadership and service in the Office of Student Involvement at the University of Kentucky. So I oversee another professional staff person who is the professional advisor for all of the community outreach programs and then I directly work with leadership development programs. I'll teach a course this spring. I do retreats, leadership programs, things like that for students.

WILSON: Okay, but you were saying coming back was--

GOODPASTER: Oh it's, I mean it's--I'm not really in culture shock in terms of like oh I hate America I'm so--I mean you definitely kind of have to roll your eyes at some things and learn to laugh at others, but you know I'm very thankful and proud to be an American. I mean I had the opportunity to do what I did, but it's been a lot harder than I thought in other ways. Of course I'm--We're still trying to get 01:23:00set up, we're looking for a house, I'm having a baby. So David and I are just kind of like let's just jump in and do everything at once, you know? You know move back to Kentucky, find a house, find new jobs, have a child. We brought our dog back from Africa. I can't believe I didn't say that. We have an African dog that we shipped on a plane back to America but he's our baby and we love him; his name is Snoop. And that is a story, so it's yeah it's hard to just get settled back in I think. You know in Malawi you worry about certain things and you get really stressed out, but here you get stressed out about insurance and you know health insurance and just car insurance and just all kinds of stuff that you just don't think about over there. But yeah I forgot to tell you about our dog. Our dog was the Kachingwe's kind of dog but you know Malawians don't really have dogs as pets and they don't have names for their pets. So I was teasing Simon, he was kind of one of the adopted boys of Mr. and Mrs. Kachingwe, asking him in Chichewa, 01:24:00"Oh what's the dog's name?" you know knowing that there wouldn't be one. And he looked at me with the most serious face. He does not know a word of English and he looked at me and said, "Snoop Dogg." And I was like, "Snoop Dogg?" and I got so tickled that you know American pop culture made its way all the way over to Malawi. So the name stuck and we kind of adopted Snoop into our family and hence he's now in America adjusting to American life ridiculously well.

WILSON: So as you think at this point and I realize you haven't been back that long, Lauren, what do you think your impact was on Malawi? And what do you think the impact of Malawi was on you?

GOODPASTER: Gosh, that's a good question. Honestly I don't think I'm going to know my impact on Malawi because two years when you go seems 01:25:00like a long time but it's so short. It's so short. But if I did my job right then the projects that we started will continue I mean because our goal was to not give them things but to teach them to do it themselves, and that's one thing that I always hate. It always just broke my heart is that Malawians are so capable and so intelligent but I don't think any of them have the confidence that they can do it themselves. I think because so much is--There's so many organizations and groups over there that I don't think they have the confidence in themselves and so I hope that that's what I did was--We requested not to be replaced because we really felt like that yes we agree with them, yes you're poor and you worry about these things, but you're also very intelligent and very capable and if you keep working at it you're going to be fine. And that was my goal was to really empower my friends in the village and my community and to teach them that they certainly can 01:26:00do it on their own. So I hope that's the impact we left. I think it's still too early to tell, but I hope that's what we left. What it left on me, I mean that's--Gosh I think it might be too early to tell that as well because I mean I think right now we're still trying to adjust by just picking up our pieces, you know finding new jobs and things. I mean it's--David and I were actually talking about this earlier. It's been difficult because you get so wrapped up in the things that we're trying to do now, all these American things that you don't talk about. You start talking about Peace Corps less and less but even though we talk about it to our friends and family it's never brought up, but it's such a big part of our lives that that's difficult at times. But to friends and family it's like oh cool you did that okay well now, "Oh! You're having a baby!" oh you know let's talk about--So yeah I don't 01:27:00know that's a very difficult one to answer.

WILSON: What? Think ahead a little bit though. What do you think your experience in Malawi, what impact do you think it could have in terms of your job and what you're doing there? And then also, yes you're having a baby, what do you want for that child?

GOODPASTER: Yeah you know it's interesting. I love my job. I love what I do, I believe in what I do.

WILSON: And you could have done it without going to Malawi.

GOODPASTER: Sure, I mean that's essentially what I was doing at Rollins College. But and I'm pretty driven, I'm a pretty driven person when it comes to my career. But especially now that I am having a baby I feel almost less driven, and this isn't a bad thing because of Malawi, but David and I have talked about so many times moving away from past faced city life and just becoming as Malawian as we can be in rural Kentucky 01:28:00somewhere because we see you know what a beautiful thing that can be. You know just slowing down a bit, and I hope that's what I can do. But realistically it's difficult. I mean when you're trying to buy a house and have a child--

WILSON: And when you get--

GOODPASTER: It takes two incomes.

WILSON: Six weeks leave, right?

GOODPASTER: Exactly, yeah.

WILSON: Which is not what you would get if you were in Malawi.

GOODPASTER: No, no. America is one of three countries and I believe the other two are developing countries, not Malawi but one of only three countries that provides the worst maternity leave. But that's another subject altogether. But you know a lot of people would think that that's a bad thing that we took away from Malawi wanting to slow down and not be, but David and I couldn't disagree more. And definitely just I hope for my child that I'll be able to show him--we just found 01:29:00out it's a boy.

WILSON: Oh okay.

GOODPASTER: Yeah we just found out. So show him, we want to be able to travel and you know show him cultures and experiences, things that I didn't experience as a little girl. So hopefully I can be, we can be that kind of family that gets to do that.

WILSON: And travel is in your future?

GOODPASTER: Yes.

WILSON: Yes.

GOODPASTER: Oh I think so, including Malawi.

WILSON: Back to Malawi, including Malawi.

GOODPASTER: Including Malawi, including our village of Kang'oma. We want to go back sometime. I would love to be able to take our little boy there someday but we'll have to see.

WILSON: This is sort of related, but what do you think your Peace--How do you think your Peace Corps experience has made a difference in how you look at what's going on in the world, whether it's issues like globalization or war in Iraq or just sort of the bigger picture even beyond Malawi?

GOODPASTER: I think you just become more aware of global issues and you become more aware that as Americans we're not aware of global issues. And that's really sad, I mean I really think we are so isolated over here and I can't really blame one person or another. It's just something that's I think just grown and grown; it's kind of like the snowball effect. I mean it's--And it's something that I don't know how to change it personally as one person but--

WILSON: Are you listening to BBC here like you did to--?

GOODPASTER: Well we don't have a radio right now.

WILSON: You don't, oh okay.

GOODPASTER: We don't have a TV or radio or anything. But on the radio--

WILSON: Well but you listened to a different kind of news when you were listening, right?

GOODPASTER: Sure, yeah I mean we always listen to NPR here but it's still, even NPR here is not as worldwide as BBC is. And it's just little things like that even that you, open your eyes.

WILSON: Have you seen anything about Malawi since you've returned? In 01:31:00the news or heard anything?

GOODPASTER: No.

WILSON: Do you look at the Malawi newspapers online maybe occasionally or?

GOODPASTER: No because we don't have a computer either.

WILSON: Yeah okay well.

GOODPASTER: And at work I'm always working. But the only yeah and the only--You know it's really sad I think the only thing people ever heard about Malawi was when Madonna adopted the you know baby David and--

WILSON: Yes, right.

GOODPASTER: You know and the news you do hear about Africa in general is always bad news.

WILSON: Let's see you left before Bill Clinton came because Clinton came.

GOODPASTER: No, he was there while we were there as well.

WILSON: He was there? Okay.

GOODPASTER: He could have come back but he was there. He was there at least once and Madonna was there twice.

WILSON: Twice okay so that made because that made the news here.

GOODPASTER: That made news I'm sure. But you know the news you hear about Africa is always the bad, sad news. You never hear about the good things going on there. And that's true I think about news in general though. You turn on the local news and you don't hear the good things going on so it's tough. It's really tough to know like where 01:32:00I'll be in ten years and how Peace Corps will influence that. I'm sure Peace Corps will influence I mean it already is influencing a lot I think of our decisions but I think right now everything is still so new to us that--

WILSON: What about the leadership things you're doing? I mean do you, do people know that you're a returned Peace Corps volunteer? And did you all go to the recruiting, when the recruiter came?

GOODPASTER: It's Wednesday.

WILSON: It's this week, okay.

GOODPASTER: It's this Wednesday so we're going.

WILSON: And you're going to go to the recruiting?

GOODPASTER: David and I are both going.

WILSON: Good, good.

GOODPASTER: And I've--Students, I love--Students are the most interested, which I think is great because I'm always like, "Oh well come to my office and I'll show you pictures and I'll talk to you about it!" You know I don't want to pressure students but if it's something they're thinking about I encourage them. You know I say you can do it now. I did it when I was 30 I mean you can do it at any point in your life, you know don't--But as far as how it influences my job I mean 01:33:00fortunately my job is something that lends to Peace Corps values you know as far as leadership development and service.

WILSON: To deal with this last question here which is more what do you think the overall impact of Peace Corps has been? And you were in a country where Peace Corps has been, has Peace Corps been there the whole time since 1962?

GOODPASTER: Almost. They took a break I know at one point.

WILSON: And what do you think its role ought to be today? I was interested, for example, that you said you told Peace Corps don't replace us, some we ought to be working ourselves out of a job.

GOODPASTER: Yeah, for any international organization I think Peace Corps has the best outlook on how thing should be done. Grassroots, you're not going in there with tons of money, it's all about educating people, helping people help themselves. I think that is the absolute best way 01:34:00to really get people to stand on their own two feet. But David and I, we, I think we challenged our Peace Corps staff more than any other volunteers in terms of you know I hate to use the word "exit strategy", it sounds warlike. But you know what is the plan because we have, you know Peace Corps has been in Malawi for so long and you know Malawi is still struggling. You know I mean it's at the bottom in terms of you know the Human--

WILSON: Development Index.

GOODPASTER: Thank you, index. Blanked out there for a minute, so of course we should still be there. And that's you know that's only one of the three Peace Corps goals is the technical service. So if you look at all three goals and you measure them equally then there shouldn't be an exit strategy because it is more about the cultural exchange while you're there and then bringing it back here, which is something else I'll get into. But David and I constantly debated and 01:35:00talked with people about just, now I'm blanking out, I don't want to say handouts because it's not a handout, but creating that culture of dependency and I think that's all, I think that's too often done in a lot of international aid organizations that have a lot of money and that are throwing it out there without educating and teaching people how to use that money properly. And corruption and a lot of stuff happens; it doesn't even reach the village level half the time. And so that's where I think Peace Corps is really doing things right because they are putting volunteers at the village level. However, do we want to keep doing this forever or do we want to say hey let's work ourselves out of a job? We can always have cultural exchange in a different, in a different format. On the other hand, I think one thing that Peace Corps should try to do better, and that includes former 01:36:00volunteers, is bringing it back home. And how can we keep programs going here and keep educating people at home? Because that's one thing I feel like when you get home you know there's RPCV groups that are, it's great, it's wonderful, but I think Peace Corps in general Peace Corps headquarters should really focus on how can we use these--Use and I mean use in a good way to educate Americans about what's going on in the world. And that's something that I really I wish Peace Corps did more of. I don't know if that answers your question.

WILSON: Okay, yeah, yeah, no it does. That's fine. Now is there anything else you want to say? What did you forget?

GOODPASTER: Oh gosh. There's so many just little stories. I don't even know where to begin. I honestly don't even know where to begin. Little stories. We had our families come visit.

WILSON: Oh you did?

GOODPASTER: We did.

WILSON: That's great.

GOODPASTER: That was wonderful. That did really help; it really helped kind of--

WILSON: What do you think the impact of, I mean I asked you about your 01:37:00future family, but your families--your parents and your brothers and sisters and so forth?

GOODPASTER: I think it had a fairly large impact. Again they don't talk about it that much anymore and that makes us sad.

WILSON: They each came and came to your village and stayed for?

GOODPASTER: In the village it was only for a couple of days in the village and then of course we you know traveled around and did holiday stuff. But both of them, both sets of parents said the village was their favorite part. I don't think that they would have wanted to stay for too much longer. We had bats invade the house both times, which is an interesting story because all of the Malawians insisted on bats are spirits that want to check out the azungus, which means foreigner, white person, A-Z-U-N-G-U. And the only time bats showed up in our house was when we had other white people in the house, so that is kind of a weird coincidence. And you know walking to the we call them 01:38:00chims, chimbudzi, C-H-I-M-B-U-D-Z-I or B-U-Z-I, the bathroom the hole in the ground outside. You know at night is not always fun but I think they had fun with it. But I really think that they, their eyes were opened and they could really then understand what we were going through anytime we talked to them after that. My mom's a teacher. Being a teacher I don't think is easy work here in the States. I don't think they get the recognition they deserve. She's got two more years before she retires and she's tired. She loves kids but she's tired.

WILSON: Has she taught about Malawi besides the--?

GOODPASTER: Sure and she still she has you know.

WILSON: Yeah even though she doesn't do WorldWise.

GOODPASTER: Even though we're back, yeah. But you know she still sometimes like if she's like, "Oh I had to do parent teacher 01:39:00conference," you know if she says something I'm like, "Well you know at least you have parents that care and at least the kids have you. And she's like, "You're right. You are so right." And you know I have noticed a little bit of a change in her after she saw the primary school, which is you know a dirt floor with I guess you could call them walls. I mean crumbling walls you know and that's about it.

WILSON: No desks?

GOODPASTER: No desks, no chairs.

WILSON: Right.

GOODPASTER: Not even really a chalkboard you know I mean so. My dad again, like I said, he's always kind of been--We're kindred spirits. He's always had that I think kind of same outlook as I have on things, so I think he just enjoyed being there with me and experiencing it with me. And David's parents, hopefully he'll talk about his parents a little bit more, but David's parents are--They're pretty well off and so I think were even more shocked than my parents. They live on the water in Florida, his dad's a very successful dentist down there, and 01:40:00you know his mom doesn't work. And they're just you know a very well off American family and they had never experienced anything like this. My parents came and did ASP, experienced it with me.

WILSON: Oh okay so they knew.

GOODPASTER: I did the Zimbabwe thing and Calcutta thing so you know they had heard stories, but for David's parents--Actually David did ASP for a year or two, but I think it was just very different. I wish they would talk about it more but they don't. I think David and I want to make it a, you know, part of our everyday life here and it's hard, it's a lot harder to do that than we thought it might be.

WILSON: But it is nice to be married and be able to have that to share.

GOODPASTER: Oh gosh. And we've got, in fact I got an email from a fellow volunteer today. Lisa, she's from New York, and she hates it. She's moving to Belize to do something and she says that just nobody understands and you know she's by herself, so yeah we're very fortunate, 01:41:00very fortunate that we're always going to have that to share.

WILSON: What do you--What besides that do you think are the advantages of having gone as a couple? Because they're--I don't know what the percentage of volunteers that go as couples is. Our--

GOODPASTER: I think it's like ten.

WILSON: Is it 10%?

GOODPASTER: It's pretty small.

WILSON: In our group in 1962 we had ten couples out of 100, and that was the first time they'd tried couples.

GOODPASTER: We had 24 people and three couples.

WILSON: People and three couples.

GOODPASTER: But that was extremely unusual. Usually it's no couples or maybe one.

WILSON: Oh really?

GOODPASTER: Now granted the other two ETed, early terminated, they left early. And the reason they left early is because I think all three of us, all three women in the couples were very strong women but I don't 01:42:00think they went into it really understanding that you are not going to be able to go in and change the culture overnight. You know and it just didn't work out for them and you know you have to learn to take everything with a grain of salt and you're not going to change the culture. And you can challenge the culture in appropriate manners and ways, which is what we tried to do but it's going to be difficult. I mean it's just so--But I forget your question.

WILSON: That's okay. Is there an example of when you challenged the culture in terms of women and that worked? Do you feel as though--?

GOODPASTER: Sure, well we actually went to our local CCAP church, and that's Central Church of Africa Presbyterian. And there were a couple times during our two years there that they called us up for one reason 01:43:00or another to the front. And they would always turn to David to talk and David didn't know the language, so I would just step right up there and start talking in Chichewa and at first you know there were these shocked looks on people. But then people loved it and they just, the fact that you know I would just sit there and it would just come out and you know David would just kind of be like, "Uh-huh, what she said," you know. And he was wonderful; he was so supportive because you know he wanted to show that hey this is my wife and I'm going to ask her you know because we confer on everything. You know we talk about everything; I don't just make the decision. But I think that one example in church because I distinctly remember it. You know there were definitely giggles and laughs but it wasn't making fun of us, it was just kind of they were I think they were shocked. But it was everyone laughing with us not you know, not at us. And then they were of course at the end when I finished there were cheers and woo hoo you know. So yeah that's one small example.

WILSON: Okay Lauren, I think you've been on the hot seat for long enough. We can stop and talk some more off tape, how's that?

GOODPASTER: Sure.

[End of interview.]