Iris Nagler Oral History Interview
Interviewer(s): Linda Millette
Interviewee(s): Iris Nagler

Linda Millette: Okay. Why don't you tell me your name?

Iris Nagler: My name is Iris Nagler.

Linda Millette: And where do you live?

Iris Nagler: I live in Laverock, Pennsylvania.

Linda Millette: And, um, can you describe what your present work is or your family or current? Your current residence you've given. Your interests?

Iris Nagler: Um, employment. I am coordinator of Title II Part A of the No Child Left Behind Act, and I am a State Department of Education employee from the state of New Jersey. I am married. My husband and I, Stephen, were Peace Corps volunteers. And we have two grown children, our daughter Betsy and our son Matthew. And we also have two grandchildren, Joshua, who is going to be four, and Aaron who is just a year old.

Linda Millette: Iris, what made you apply for the Peace Corps? How did that all come about?

Iris Nagler: Well, we were, uh, actively involved with the election of Kennedy, John Kennedy, and an admirer of him as a person. And when he announced the, uh, development of the Peace Corps, it sounded like a perfect thing for us to do because we, we knew that we would want to do this right after we finished college. I had received a bachelor's degree at Queens College, and Steve had just passed the bar. And so we thought that if we were ever going to do it, it was best to do it then before we decided to move on with our careers.

Linda Millette: What did your parents or if you had siblings and friends, what did they say when you told them you were going into the Peace Corps?

Iris Nagler: Well, um, my parents weren't overly excited about it, but then again, we had already been married a year and a half. We were adults, and so, uh, they accepted it. You know, we, you know, we were free people. You know, we weren't dependents anymore. So, um, it was a very exciting time for us.

Linda Millette: Did you have any specific country in mind when you went to join the Peace Corps and how did it come about that you went to Nyasaland?

Iris Nagler: Well, originally I would have preferred to go to a country in South America, although the only kinds of projects they had were community development projects. So the downside was that if we did something like that, it wasn't as well structured as an education project where we would be teachers, which is what we did in Malawi. But we also were anxious to get started and we knew that once you filled out a form, it could take 6 to 8 weeks. So we went down to Washington, D.C., and we met with a person, Bill Haddad, who was, had been a newspaper reporter and was working for Kennedy at the time, I believe, involved with the recruitment. And so he asked us where we would like to go.

And I suggested South America because I had had five years of Spanish, that was the main reasoning, reason. And but Bill said that there was an opening in Africa, and then we decided to, in fact, do that. And one of the main reasons was that, uh, there, we knew that Malawians were pro-American, that they would be very accepting of us. And, um. And Africa was, you know, much more unusual than going to South America. So we said, yes.

Linda Millette: Where did you do your training and do you remember any of the faculty, the syllabus, any of the activities that took place? Anything special stand out in your mind?

Iris Nagler: Well, we trained at Syracuse. And I don't remember the names except for one. Eduardo Mondlane was one of our instructors, and he was originally from Portuguese East Africa. Um. I do remember that we had many hours of training in the local language, which was Chinyanja. And training in, we received training in tropical diseases, the history of Malawi, the political situation in Malawi. Right now I can't think of. I know there was more to the training, but I can't remember that. And we, we, did I say Syracuse? At the Onondaga Hotel was where we were located. The training was at Syracuse University, New York State.

Linda Millette: Did you have a reaction or do you have any memories of the other trainees?

Iris Nagler: Um. What I do remember was that we did a lot of partying every evening. They were a great bunch of people. What I remember is that they were all, we were all about the same age. Five of us, there were five married couples in a group of, well, I think we may have started out as at something like 48 or 49. So that was a fairly large group of, a large number of married couples. Most of us, if not all of us, were college educated, at least had one degree, which also I found out was a little different from other groups that went over because at that time, a number of the recruits were rather young, 17, 18 years old. Not to Malawi, you know, not to Africa per se, but to other places. They were young people who obviously were younger than we and not as well educated as we were.

Linda Millette: There was a selection process that took place during the training. Do you remember any of that? And were there, were there disappointments of people who were deselected, if any were? Any memories around that at all?

Iris Nagler: No, I don't remember. I don't remember the people who were deselected either. And I was pretty, Steve and I were pretty confident that we would get selected. And as it turned out, we were.

Linda Millette: Did you feel, it's kind of in hindsight, but do you feel that the training prepared you for, for going to Malawi and that it was useful for the Peace Corps service?

Iris Nagler: Part of the training was useful. Learning about the political situation, the history of Malawi, and the language training especially was very useful. But, but what we found out from a lot of our trainers is they really couldn't tell us a lot about Malawi. They knew about other countries in the surrounding area, but not Malawi. That was, that was really a running joke that often they would say, well, I don't know anything about Malawi, but I know about this country or that country. And we were interested in finding out about the climate and what kinds of amenities, you know, what did we have to bring in the way of, of materials to prepare us for being there? I mean just, what kind of clothing and so on. And basically that, that was something that we really didn't have a clue about until we arrived.

Linda Millette: What was your initial entry like into Nyasaland?

Iris Nagler: Well, I remember getting off the plane after close to three days of travel.

Linda Millette: What do you remember about that, that stands out?

Iris Nagler: Something that stands out?

Linda Millette: Feelings?

Iris Nagler: Excitement. Excitement about being in a totally new place. Totally new. I knew that we were going to have a totally new experience.

Linda Millette: Um, was there anything visual?

Iris Nagler: The landscape was very different from what we were accustomed to. The, the low lying trees, the warm climate. I remember being happy that it wasn't as hot and humid as it was in, uh, in Dar es Salaam. We spent one night there and I thought I would die from suffocation. And then we landed in Malawi and it was 100 percent better. The climate was almost like, what I heard, was a lot like California.

Linda Millette: Okay. Can you, would you describe your project and any memories of the staff, uh, impression of people of the country? This was a lot of different topics.

Iris Nagler: Right.

Linda Millette: But physical environment, role of the language?

Iris Nagler: Um, well, first, first the group that was. We were, we were based at a CCAP mission school, Henry Henderson Institute. It was a day school. It had once been a boarding school. Our accommodations were quite comfortable. We, uh, there were initially two other couples. There was another couple, the Taylors, who were there, and then later the Thomases. So on this mission, there were three.

Linda Millette: And they were Peace Corps volunteers?

Iris Nagler: They were fellow Peace Corps volunteers. Um, we became, with, with the local, with the local teachers there. We became very friendly with one couple, the Kotzambes, and they were really lovely people. Mr. Kotzambe was a teacher and Mrs. Kotzambe was a housewife. She wasn't employed there. Um, as I said, our accommodations were beautiful. We had, we each had our own house. And the first year our house was quite large, much too big for us. Three bedrooms, living room, dining room, and so on. All on one floor. Um.

Also we had a houseboy, which was something we weren't accustomed to, having someone who would, would take care of the cooking and the cleaning and the washing. We'd never had servants before, and we frankly went about it a little awkwardly. But he was, he was a lovely person. He was really a very nice person. His name is George. And we, we became good friends.

Um, getting back to the Kotzambes, they were Seventh Day Adventists, so they were, they were very religious people. And we found that they and the other teachers were very formal. I think what we, what I remember is that in Malawi or British, um, ex-British colonies or British protectorates, secondary school, and this was a secondary school. So we're talking about 7th through 12th grade basically. The students were getting training so they could take overseas exams, O-level exams, which is the equivalent of our high school exams, prepared in Britain.

The students were very friendly, very enthusiastic, wanted to learn. Discipline was not a problem. Education was extremely important to Malawians and we found that to be true with our students. The only thing, the only thing that I would call in any way negative with our teaching experience is that they wouldn't allow us to go off and teach additional information other than that was on the syllabus. I learned an awful lot. I was the science department the first year. I helped to purchase all the materials to set up a lab for the students, and that was an experience in itself. I took my students out to catch frogs for dissections. I taught.

Linda Millette: Had they done that before?

Iris Nagler: I don't believe they ever had. This was, this. If I remember correctly, this was a totally new experience, but they were really excited about it. There were girls in our classroom too, which was nice. It wasn't all boys. We knew that these students were the cream of the crop because secondary school education was not free. So parents really struggled, even though, I mean, in relation to the American cost of living, it wasn't that expensive. But for the little that most of these parents made, it was a struggle just to keep them in secondary school for those four years. Many of them, um, had lived with relatives in Blantyre and then came to school during the day and then went back.

What I remember about their diet is that often they would just bring 3 or 4 bananas and that's what they would have for lunch during the day. We, um, we not only taught classes during the day, we taught evening classes. These were adults living in the area who wanted to learn English. So some of us taught, as I did. I would have as many of these adults as 90 people in a small classroom in the evening. We also taught sports. We, you know, I think I was involved with basketball for the girls. Um.

Linda Millette: Did the students stand up? At this school when you went in they stood up?

Iris Nagler: If I remember correctly, they did.

Linda Millette: And you didn't change that? There was?

Iris Nagler: No.

Linda Millette: No.

Iris Nagler: No, no. I preferred to maintain a teacher-student relationship. I felt that I was more comfortable with that. It was, it wasn't a strict, you know, relationship. That is, I was certainly a little more lenient than, than the local teachers. Nevertheless, I preferred to maintain that, that kind of respect because I felt that they would learn more from me than, than if I were a pal. But that wasn't true. My husband's attitude was a little different about that, but that didn't mean that he wasn't any more successful at what he was doing, although I never sat in on his classes. He obviously enjoyed what he was teaching.

Linda Millette: I taught all the sciences from general science to biology, chemistry, and physics. With regard to physics, I was always one step ahead of my students because I didn't have, I hadn't taken more than one semester of physics, so I wasn't that well versed in it. But the textbooks we had, even though they were quite old, were sufficient to provide the information necessary to teach them. So that, you know, if I studied a day in advance, I would have enough information. And I really loved science and had a good enough background to teach them a lot of hands on experimental.

Did you find they asked, raised their hand to ask questions, had interaction a lot? Or were they, did they sit back and rote memory?

Iris Nagler: It was a lot of lecture and writing on the board and giving them notes and so on. But I think as time went by they relaxed a little more and I encouraged them to ask questions. So there was, there was, there was give and take.

Linda Millette: What about Peace Corps staff, your impressions and the interaction?

Iris Nagler: Well, of course, we were friendly with the other couples on the campus. And then in the second year, there was another group that came over and I think we had good relationships with them.

Linda Millette: Who were your staff?

Iris Nagler: Um, there was Dave and Virginia Kaler.

Linda Millette: Peace Corps staff.

Iris Nagler: Oh, Peace Corps staff? Oh, okay. Now I'm mixing them up with Peace Corps volunteers.

Linda Millette: That's okay.

Iris Nagler: There were the Pooles. And, and, um, Nelson. Gordon Nelson. Bob Poole and Gordon Nelson were the ones that I remember.

Linda Millette: And what was your interaction and impressions and how did that?

Iris Nagler: We had a very friendly relationship with them. They were wonderful people. We never felt as though they were pushing their weight around. So it was only a friendly, collegial relationship.

Linda Millette: What did you tend to do in your leisure time?

Iris Nagler: We. Well, we had vacations, but if you're talking on a day to day basis, we often like going into Blantyre, which is a big town. We went to the movies. We enjoyed shopping at the supermarkets. We enjoyed going to the local market and bartering. We, we had a vegetable garden and Steve became quite good at bartering in Chinyanja. So that was another thing that we did. We became friendly with people in town. We met a Goan family. These were Indians. Goa, an island off the coast of India, originally a Portuguese colony. And we, we would spend time in their homes, have dinner with them, and in fact, take some trips with them. We in fact traveled to one of the tea plantations with them and met family members there.

We also became friendly with two men who were British expatriates, one of whom was a teacher I think in, in one of the all white schools, colonial schools. I don't remember what they were called. And the other one was a banker. And I don't remember how we met them, but we ended up going on a number of trips over our vacation with them. So, so we were friendly with locals. We also met some other Americans there who we met up with. And in fact, one couple were Jewish so we celebrated Passover with them. We found that, um, the, we had this attitude about British officials that they no matter where they were, they tended to remain in their little enclaves.

We didn't find this to be true with the two friends that we met, but they weren't British officials. But, but that was, that was the, the going understanding and feeling about British government people. What else? We also had an opportunity to meet some American officials who came in from time to time. I remember going to some official parties, meeting Malawi officials as well. Um. But at this point, I can't remember individual conversations that I had with them. So and we became friendly enough with some of the students, not our students. There was a, um, A- level college nearby, that is the A-level students went two years beyond what we call high school or O-level. And so I would call that junior college.

And we became friendly with a couple of young men. And in fact, on one of our vacations traveled up north to visit their families. And that was very nice. And we had a very, really a very nice relationship with them too. We, as I pointed out, we found Malawians to be very friendly people, very pro-American, and we enjoyed their company. I don't remember any conflicts. I only have very, generally very positive memories of that experience. I always say that we gained more out of it than we put in.

Linda Millette: Did you, did the life that you were leading or the work that you were doing change over the two years, or was it pretty much the same?

Iris Nagler: It was pretty much the same over those two years. We were actually, we were, after all, on the same campus throughout. Henry Henderson Institute. Uh, politics. The political situation after independence became a little sticky.

Linda Millette: Can you talk about that independence at all? Anything you remember?

Iris Nagler: It was exciting, you know, with the fireworks and the pomp and ceremony. And we, you know, to us, this. Here we were in a country actually receiving its independence. The excitement of it.

Linda Millette: [coughs] Excuse me.

Iris Nagler: And, and we really felt so happy for, for the Malawians that they were actually getting their independence. They had self-government beforehand in 1961. But, um, it, everything, everything at that point looked very positive. We didn't see any. In addition, what reminds me about positive is that although they were poor, we didn't see poverty, extreme poverty. We didn't see people starving, uh, except for some people who came around begging, who had some diseases that were debilitating, um, where they lost parts of their hands and feet. I'm trying to remember the name of that disease.

Linda Millette: Leprosy.

Iris Nagler: Leprosy. Other than that, people were healthy. You know, we didn't see kwashiorkor or any of those.

Linda Millette: You were in the city, were you?

Iris Nagler: We were in the largest city with about 70 to 75,000 people. But even our travels up to the villages, people were, you know, looked healthy. Relatively disease free. We didn't suffer from anything, you know.

Linda Millette: You were never ill?

Iris Nagler: Didn't get malaria. We were never ill, other than perhaps a cold. And I don't remember even getting a cold. But that doesn't mean I didn't. Nothing serious. No bouts of malaria. We were careful about, um, swimming in Lake Niassa.

Linda Millette: Why?

Iris Nagler: We heard of bilharzia, at least the southern region. Northern region it was okay. Bilharzia, the schistosomiasis was a problem. The snails, the parasitic worms that live part of their life in snails and part in human beings.

Linda Millette: Okay. You're at the end of your first year.

Iris Nagler: Mm hmm.

Linda Millette: Were there any notable events, reflections on the year, woes, joys, unexpected events, relationships? You said no health problems. You had vacations. Maybe you traveled?

Iris Nagler: We had vacations. We traveled. I think that first year we had 30 days off a year. We traveled to Beira on the Portuguese coast and that was an interesting experience. We were on a train that was, I think, built in the 1930s and there was only one track. So I remember that, uh, there's a side track. The train would pull over to a side track if a train was coming in the other direction. Every time the train stopped, people came around and were selling vegetables and fruits. I remember we went to a reception with the mayor of Beira and that was interesting because, um, I was able to communicate with his wife in Spanish. I didn't know Portuguese and she didn't know English, but we both knew a little bit of Spanish, so we were able to communicate.

We stayed in a rondavel. We went with one of these, one of the guys, one of the two of two of them I remember. I don't remember whether they traveled with us on the train or met us by car.

Linda Millette: One of the guys?

Iris Nagler: One of the British expatriates that we met.

Linda Millette: Oh, okay.

Iris Nagler: Um, we stayed in a house right on the beach, a rondavel, a small one room round tent-like metal structure. I remember that. That was, that was very interesting. Sand constantly. You couldn't get the sand out of you. Um. So that, that was one interest. That's, that's part of it. The vacations that we had were great.

One time we went down to South Africa and we were in Johannesburg and a number of other cities. The political situation there was pretty bad. We had some conversations with South African whites and, you know, the prejudice against Africans was, was pretty strong and Africans and whites were not allowed to socialize together. It was against the law to visit each other in their homes, to drink together. Although the country is beautiful, nevertheless that's what stayed in my mind. The attitudes about Africans, Black Africans by the whites. What was? There was another part of the question that I wanted to answer.

Linda Millette: Any special events in your first year?

Iris Nagler: Events in our first year. Well, of course, the vacations. Oh, one of the things. We had to work also, we had to develop projects during that time. And I remember that Steve was involved. I can't remember what projects I was involved in, but I remember Steve was involved in a road project and then he was also involved with a, with a well-digging project. So, um, that I remember. I don't remember. Wait a minute. I think I went up to Livingstonia and was teaching up there for a while during that period of time. It's amazing how much you forget after over 40 years.

Linda Millette: Where were you all when Kennedy was assassinated?

Iris Nagler: I don't remember exactly where. I believe it was our house, because I was making pizza for a group of, of volunteers.

Linda Millette: Can I tell you where Steve was?

Iris Nagler: Well.

Linda Millette: I don't know if you were with him. You were at the hostel.

Iris Nagler: Okay, we were at.

Linda Millette: A whole bunch of us at the hostel. Maybe you were making pizza there.

Iris Nagler: I was making pizzas. I didn't think it was our, I didn't know where we were though. If I said if I were making pizza, maybe it was our house but.

Linda Millette: It was the hostel.

Iris Nagler: Okay.

Linda Millette: And the Africans were there playing music. And I was playing bridge with Gary Amo and some other people or something.

Iris Nagler: Okay.

Linda Millette: But go on for your experience.

Iris Nagler: Well, for my personal experience, I came out with this pizza and I was standing there and everybody was standing around holding hands and praying. And that's when I discovered what had happened.

Linda Millette: Did you drop the pizza?

Iris Nagler: I didn't drop the pizza. I would have remembered that I think. But it was a shock. I mean, we walked around dazed for days, dazed for days, and we met. And a lot of our friends in Malawi were very, very sad. Very, very sad. They were very, they loved Kennedy. So that was a significant event for us. And that was in November '63, and it was just before the end of our first year. Um. The other thing you said, significant events in our second year. The political climate began to change. We heard rumors about the fact that H. Kamuzu Banda was not, that some of his, um, some of the fellow, uh. What do you call them?

Linda Millette: Ministers or political? Ministers then?

Iris Nagler: Yeah, ministers were, were pressuring him to Africanize more quickly and he was very stubborn about that. He was very conservative. I think that Malawi was probably the only African country, Black African country that actually had business relations with South Africa and.

Linda Millette: Why was that?

Iris Nagler: Portuguese East Africa. He may have been thinking about the welfare of Malawi, feeling that economically it would be a benefit to have these relations with South Africa. But politically, um.

Linda Millette: Did the Malawians need something from South Africa? Did they interact with South Africa in some way?

Iris Nagler: Well, I don't remember the. [tape break] As I was saying, his, many of his ministers felt that he wasn't Africanizing fast enough. For instance, they wanted the schools to be integrated and he refused to do that. That is, the white students and the African students to go to school together. He was afraid to do that because he didn't want to lose the white educated population. At least that's what I heard. And he felt that there would be a mass exodus from Malawi if he did that initially.

So he responded very negatively to this pressure and he expelled a number of them and a number of them ran away. So there was, there was a real crisis there. I remember that. And that was going on for several months before we left. And just as an aside, he, he. Most educated people sided with the, with the, uh, the ministers so that his attitude towards educated people, Malawians, became very negative. And he surrounded himself with local people who were not well educated.

Linda Millette: Okay. Now how did, how did all of that affect, if it did, your teaching and the students and what maybe they were discussing? Or how did all the political changes impact you as a volunteer?

Iris Nagler: I don't remember it impacting my teaching. After all, I taught science. I didn't teach anything that would lead us to get into any political conversations. Any political conversations that we had were outside of the classroom with some of our students. And Steve was more likely to carry on conversations with them. I do believe that we were told not to voice our opinions about our attitudes about this. To be honest, I think that we were honest with our students if, if the conversation came up.

Linda Millette: Anything in their second year that stands out or that you want to add before we talk about reentry or coming home?

Iris Nagler: Not that, not at this moment. Yeah. Yes, there was something that I wanted to mention about Malawi in general. Um. Since, as I indicated, Malawi is a very poor country, we found that many young men would leave their wives and their children and they would travel to the mines in Rhodesia and in South Africa, and they worked there and they would send their money back. And so what would happen is they would often have wives down there as well. They would have a wife and a family where they were working in the mines, and then they would have their family back in, in, in Malawi.

Um, and I'm sure that caused some friction, but it was their only source of income. You really couldn't, unless you became, unless you were well off enough to be able to go to secondary school and then go on to college. It wasn't likely that you would be able to make a living in Malawi other than the subsistence farming that many Malawians did.

Linda Millette: Okay, um. Let's talk about your, the end of your tour. And maybe coming back. The sense of achievement or failure, your pluses and minuses in relations and work with the people of the country. Any regrets, satisfactions, plans for your future?

Iris Nagler: Yes. Well, as I had pointed out before, our experiences were very positive. And, uh, but we were anxious to get back by then and pursue whatever careers we had. Steve, as a lawyer, was unable to practice law. There was no lawyers project until after we had arrived. And so we were in a secondary school project and he remained there, so he was anxious to get back to that. I was looking forward to teaching in, in New York. I wasn't as that, I mean, I could have, I would have stayed on a year. It's interesting because I wasn't that anxious to go overseas. I was a little cautious about it initially. And Steve, on the, on the other hand, was very enthusiastic. But, um, by the time the two years were over, I was the one who really wanted to stay.

But anyway, we, we moved on from there. As I said, it was, it was sad saying goodbye to people. We did keep in touch over the years with a number of people, some of whom are here in the United States, have settled here. I don't remember, um, anything that occurred that we had to do officially with regard to leaving.

Linda Millette: No close of service conference?

Iris Nagler: No, I don't remember that. If there was one, I don't remember it at all.

Linda Millette: Um, looking now at your service and at the three goals of Peace Corps, the one was to provide technical assistance where requested, that's the service that we gave. Then to promote the better understanding of Americans by the people that were served. And to help promote better understanding of other peoples of America. Have you played a role in those or how have you seen those fit into your life now since you've returned? If they have?

Iris Nagler: If at all?

Linda Millette: Yeah.

Iris Nagler: Well, I think it, it broadened, it definitely broadened our perspective on, on the way other people live. The fact that there are people out there who live differently, who have different attitudes. It made us more objective about that, as opposed to our friends who remained in the United States and weren't involved in any way with, with living for any extent of time overseas. Uh, I think that, and my husband and I have said this often, the culture shock was, shock was coming back. It wasn't getting adjusted to living in Malawi. Our friends back in the United States were already settled, were interested in their cars and their homes and their children and really didn't show any great enthusiasm or interest in what we had done.

Linda Millette: I can relate. Through the years, have you continued any kind of involvement in the country of service? Any contact with the people from the country? Any continuing Peace Corps involvement?

Iris Nagler: Only sporadic.

Linda Millette: Just kind of describe to present.

Iris Nagler: Well, very, very sporadic contact with some of our ex Peace Corps volunteers, the people who we went over with, such as you, Linda, the interviewer. Um. But we, we have kept also, and not continuous contact with some of the young men that we met in Malawi, and one of whom I know is still living in, is now settled in the United States. For the first couple of years, we, some of them came over and were here in the United States for visits. I think I mentioned that we became friendly with a Goan family, and their son came to visit. And so he stayed with us for a while and we showed him around. And I also another Malawian stayed with us for a little while.

But this was, you know, within five years of coming back. After that, we had no contact really, none at all. Maybe some very occasional contact. And we just went on with our lives. You know, every once in a while I would, in my work, I would meet people who were Peace Corps volunteers, and there would be some, you know, a feeling of companionship because they had done something similar even though they may not have been in Malawi, they may have been in another country. We had something in common to talk about.

We have thought about going back to Malawi. I think we would like to do it someday, uh, but right now we have no definite plans. We, when we first came back, we were also involved with recruitment and we went to a, we gave a number of presentations and talked about the importance of becoming a Peace Corps volunteer.

Linda Millette: That's it. I thank you very much.

Iris Nagler: You're welcome.

Linda Millette: You have any other thoughts?

Iris Nagler: Not right now.

Linda Millette: Okay.

Iris Nagler: But thank you very much.

Linda Millette: You're, you're welcome.