Interview with Kathryn Hermanowski, September 24, 2020

Partial Transcript: Hi my name is Christeen Pusch.

Segment Synopsis: Kathryn Hermanowski is introduced. She served in the Peace Corps as a health volunteer in Paraguay from April 2019 to March 2020, when she was evacuated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hermanowski talks about her college education and experience with public health. She talks about how the Peace Corps became an option for her after college. She briefly talks about applying and the application process. She talks about her experiences as a tutor for English as a second language, and substitute teaching. She talks about how she ended up in the health sector in Paraguay.

Keywords: Applying; Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); Education; Health sector; Health volunteer; Pandemic; Paraguay; Public health; Sex education; Teaching English as a second language

Subjects: COVID-19 (Disease); College; Education; Evacuation; Paraguay; Peace Corps (U.S.)--Paraguay; Volunteer workers in community health services

Partial Transcript: Did you have a preference in terms of where in the world you wanted to go?

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about visiting Spain and learning Spanish. She talks more about the application process and how she applied. She talks about her reasoning for joining Peace Corps and briefly talks about projects and opportunities in the health field. She briefly talks about training. She talks about how her feelings towards Peace Corps and Paraguay grew stronger throughout the application process.

Keywords: Applying; Foreign language; Health; Paraguay; Projects; Public health; Spain; Spanish (Language); Training

Subjects: Health; Language and languages.; Peace Corps (U.S.)--Paraguay; Spanish; Volunteer workers in community health services

Partial Transcript: What other options were you exploring?

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about the other options she was considering after college besides the Peace Corps. She talks more about teaching English as a second language along with the program that she considered. She talks about why she joined Peace Corps and her interest in being thrown into a new environment and culture. She talks about staging and the fear and nerves of the experience. She talks about arriving in Paraguay and her first experiences within the country.

Keywords: Nervous; Paraguay; Staging; Teaching English as a second language; Training

Subjects: Language and languages.; Paraguay; Peace Corps (U.S.)--Paraguay; Volunteer workers in community health services

Partial Transcript: And so where in Paraguay was your training?

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about her training center and the town of Capiatá. She briefly talks about her host family and her relationship with her host mom. She talks about the different topics she learned in training, and her experiences with the techniques she utilized after training. She also talks about the friends she made throughout the process.

Keywords: Capiatá; Cooking; Friends; Gardening; Health; Host family; Host mom; Nutrition; Paraguay; Pre-service training; Sexual education; Sexual health; Training; Training center; Transportation

Subjects: Capiatá; Interpersonal relations and culture; Paraguay; Peace Corps (U.S.)--Paraguay; Sexual Health; Teaching sexual education; Volunteer workers in community health services

Partial Transcript: When did you find out your, uh--where you were going to be located?

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about the process of finding out her site location. She describes the area and talks about her relationship with her host mom. She talks about the safety of her location and transportation, along with the relationships she made with people on site. She talks about safety training and the process of feeling safe in Paraguay.

Keywords: Host family; Host mom; On site; Paraguay; Primero de Marzo; Safety; Safety training; Site location; South America

Subjects: Host family; Interpersonal relations and culture; Paraguay; Peace Corps (U.S.)--Paraguay; Primero de Marzo; Safety

Partial Transcript: Did you stay in touch with your host mother?

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about her relationships with her host families and keeping in touch with them now. She talks about the important qualities she requested in a training host family. She explains her living arrangements on-site, including her on-site host family, and living on her own later on. She describes the house she lived in in Primero de Marzo. She talks about access to electricity and water, along with the climate in Paraguay.

Keywords: Climate; Family; Host brother; Host dad; Host family; Host father; Host mom; Host mother; Host sister; Primero de Marzo; Relationships; Staying in touch; Training; Training host family; Whatsapp

Subjects: Climate; Host family; Interpersonal relations and culture; Paraguay; Primero de Marzo; Training

Partial Transcript: So I guess, uh, changing topics on you, I haven't even asked you about your work.

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about working in the health sector in her community. She talks about interviewing community members and coming up with ideas and projects to benefit them. She talks about working with students on a school garden, and teaching about recycling and nutrition. She talks about transitioning to the heath post and home visits with community members, along with the nutritional needs of the community. She talks about working with a nurse to change the sex education curriculum and her experience in teaching students. She talks about the difficulties of struggling to fit in at first, and growing relationships over time. She talks about how she was unable to teach the entire curriculum due to schools closing because of COVID-19, and how the students are unable to continue this topic because of the lack of online schooling resources in Paraguay. Hermanowski talks about her hopes to return to her site and be able to do more with her community.

Keywords: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19); Diabetes; Gardening; Health sector; Home visits; Nutrition; Projects; Recycling; Returning; School garden; Sex education; Small projects; Spanish (Language); Students; Volunteering

Subjects: COVID-19 (Disease); Community health services; Health; Interpersonal relations and culture; Nutrition; Teaching; Volunteer workers in community health services

Partial Transcript: Yeah okay, we talked about a few things I want to go back to.

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about arriving on site and her experiences in the first three months during the integration period. She talks about going around town with her host mom and getting to know community members. She talks about the stray dogs in her community and the sense of security they gave her on her walks. She talks about communicating in Spanish and becoming more familiar with the language over time. She talks about how community members treated her as an American woman, and how the relationship with her host family helped her to become more integrated. She talks about the racial and sexual discrimination that some of her fellow volunteers faced, and the importance of establishing boundaries on certain topics.

Keywords: Adjusting; Communication; Community; Culture; Discrimination; Evacuation; Future site training; Host mom; Integration period; Language barrier; Primero de Marzo; Race discrimination; Safety; Spanish (Language); Stray dogs

Subjects: Interpersonal relations and culture; Language and languages.; Paraguay; Primero de Marzo; Race discrimination; Spanish

Partial Transcript: So, uh, what did you do with your free time?

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about the activities she did in her free time, including playing cards regularly with friends. She talks about walking around the community in her free time, and spending time with families in the community. She talks about her parents visiting her on site and traveling with them to different parts of the country, including visiting the Ruins of Jesús de Tavarangue. She talks about spending time in a resort town with other volunteers and visiting the capital. She briefly talks about the importance of friends in Peace Corps. She talks about Paraguay cuisine and describes the food and drinks she had.

Keywords: Chile; Food; Free-time; Friendships; Parents; Ruins of Jesús de Tavarangue; Spanish (Language); Travel; Vacation

Subjects: Food; Friendship; Interpersonal relations and culture; Parents; Primero de Marzo; Recreation; Ruins of Jesús de Tavarangue; Travel

Partial Transcript: So I guess, I mean we can kind of start wrapping up...

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about the importance of people and the role that friendships played in her Peace Corps experience. She also talks about the importance of living alone. She talks about conversing with people about controversial topics and the importance of hearing and understanding others' opinions and ideas. She talks about the religion and culture of those in her community and the openness and understanding that she received when presenting different topics. She talks about the things she learned from the different perspectives of the people in her community. She also talks about the very different experience of another volunteer in relation to discussing certain topics.

Keywords: Communication; Controversial topics; Paraguay; People; Relationships

Subjects: Communication; Communication and culture.; Community; Intercultural communication.; Interpersonal communication and culture; Interpersonal relations and culture; Paraguay

Partial Transcript: What do you think, yeah, I mean what do you think is the biggest--

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about how her Peace Corps experience helped her to decide her future career and apply to nursing school. She talks about the importance of working alongside the nurses in Paraguay during the Peace Corps and the things she learned and gained from the experience. She explains her future goal of taking some of the roles of nurses in Paraguay into her personal career, along with wanting to continue utilizing Spanish in the health field.

Keywords: Career; Chicago (Ill.); Community; Future; Health; Health education; Nursing school; Spanish (Language)

Subjects: Career; Health; Health education; Nursing; Spanish

Partial Transcript: What was--how did--yeah evacuation. How did you find out about it?

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about how she learned about the global Peace Corps evacuation. She talks about the evacuation process and her experience saying goodbye. She describes the communication and connection between other Peace Corps volunteers as feeling a part of a family throughout the situation. She talks about packing and receiving parting gifts from the community. She talks about meeting with her friends on her last night for a small and emotional goodbye party, along with spending time with other volunteers in the hotel and on the plane ride home. She describes the differences between the airports she stopped at. She talks about not seeing her volunteer friends, but continues to keep in touch.

Keywords: Asunción; Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19); Evacuation; Global call for evacuation

Subjects: COVID-19 (Disease); Evacuations

Partial Transcript: So I mean you've been back in the U.S. about six months now, right?

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about returning home and having to readjust to things along with COVID-19. She compares the rules and regulations in Paraguay to the way the U.S. handled COVID-19. She talks about wanting to return to Paraguay, and receiving updates from her country director about returning. She talks about taking this time to start nursing school, and hopes that there will be certainty in returning soon so that she can plan around school and returning to the Peace Corps. She talks about applying to nursing school, and connecting with her U.S. friends. She talks about her slow readjustment to being back home living with her parents and to the new way of things, along with the support from others readjusting as well.

Keywords: Adjusting; Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19); Evacuation; Friends; Nursing; Nursing school; Paraguay; Parents; Returning home; Social distancing

Subjects: COVID-19 (Disease); Evacuations; Peace Corps (U.S.)--Paraguay

Partial Transcript: So I guess, uh, just, you said before that you would be able to go back to your site.

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about wanting to return to her site in Primero de Marzo. She talks about Peace Corps Paraguay and believes they would allow returning volunteers when possible. She talks about wanting to go back to her site because of the on-going projects she has there, and the difficulty of having to start over in a new community. She talks about how she hopes to visit her community if she were unable to return to the site as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Keywords: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19); Evacuation; Paraguay; Peace Corps (U.S.)--Paraguay; Returning

Subjects: COVID-19 (Disease); Peace Corps (U.S.)--Paraguay

Partial Transcript: Wrapping it up, is there anything else you want to say about Peace Corps?

Segment Synopsis: Hermanowski talks about the advice she would give to someone considering Peace Corps. She explains the good mixed in with the hard work of the experience. She talks about being scared at staging, but the importance of getting through the day. She describes a deal she kept with herself on hard days when she considered leaving. She talks about the importance of being patient and open.

Keywords: Advice; Future Peace Corps volunteers; Peace Corps; Peace Corps (U.S.); Peace Corps volunteers

Subjects: Peace Corps (U.S.)