Maria del Carmen Moreno Oral History Interview
Interviewer(s): Phyllis Noble
Interviewee(s): Maria del Carmen Moreno

Phyllis Noble: Here we go.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Okay.

Phyllis Noble: This is Phyllis Noble. I am interviewing Maria del Carmen Moreno, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania from 1989 to 1991 when she was evacuated, went on to finish 1991 in Peace Corps service in Mali, and then returned to Mauritania as Peace Corps staff, as a trainer of new volunteers. Yeah, so we'll talk about that.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Sure.

Phyllis Noble: Maria. Um. Oh, did I say today is, today is May 1st. It's May Day, 2016.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And we are in Madison, Wisconsin. So Maria, let's, let's talk about who you were before you joined the Peace Corps. Where were you born?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I was born in the Dominican Republic, an island in the Caribbean, but grew up in New York City as part of the Dominican diaspora that started moving to the States after 1965.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And, um, how old were you when your family moved?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I was six.

Phyllis Noble: To New York. You were six. So you have pretty strong memories of being a child in Dominican Republic.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And when you moved to New York, it was you and both of your parents?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Both of my parents. And, um, there were four of us. Four siblings, four children.

Phyllis Noble: Where were you among the four?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I was in the middle. So kind of middle daughter.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, middle. I have an older sister and an older brother. And then I have my younger sister, and then my parents had two more children.

Phyllis Noble: After that.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: After that.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. Born in New York?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: So six of you altogether. Wow, wow. And what did your parents do?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So my mom initially worked in a factory, and then, uh, uh, stayed at home when we lost our baby, our, our, um, uh, kind of in- home, um, caretaker. And then and my dad worked, um, kind of it was, um, he worked for a man that had a lot of properties, and he managed his properties, and then eventually he purchased those properties when this man decided to return to Nicaragua.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, okay. So your father purchased the properties that he'd been taking care of.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. And where were the?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: These were an apartment building in Manhattan, the Bronx.

Phyllis Noble: Huh. Wow. That must have been a good move I’m thinking for your father.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Oh, yes.

Phyllis Noble: Economically, for the family. Six kids plus two parents. That's eight people.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Eight people.

Phyllis Noble: I'm trying to imagine traveling together as a family. Did you ever go anywhere?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No. We never traveled. No.

Phyllis Noble: You couldn't. Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. We didn't go anywhere.

Phyllis Noble: Right. And where in New York did you live?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So we initially lived in Manhattan, which is where the Dominican, uh, community was. And then we moved to the Bronx by Fordham University.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine that. And so, um, when you arrived in New York, I'm thinking you probably spoke only Spanish.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Only Spanish. Right.

Phyllis Noble: And now you speak English without an accent. So you did a remarkable job of being bilingual.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Where did you go to school?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um. You mean undergrad or?

Phyllis Noble: No, no, I mean, as a child.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So first, initially it was in, um, Manhattan. It was an elementary school, and then we moved to the Bronx and I went to high, I went to a Catholic school.

Phyllis Noble: A Catholic school. So elementary school was public school.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. And middle school was, uh, public school. And then high school was a Catholic school, a Catholic school in the Bronx.

Phyllis Noble: In the Bronx. What was the name of the school?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Phyllis Noble: Saint Thomas Aquinas. Okay. And, um, I went to a Catholic school too. That's why I'm smiling. Um, so at Saint Thomas Aquinas in high school, uh, you already spoke Spanish. Were you required to take another foreign language?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, all the school, all the schooling was in English.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah. Sure.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. No, I mean, in high school, no, they counted my Spanish as a foreign language.

Phyllis Noble: So you didn't have to.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I didn't have to take another language or take Spanish.

Phyllis Noble: Spanish, right. You had that.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I already had it. Yeah. It's kind of interesting, but it was an all girls school. I don't know if that's what you went?

Phyllis Noble: I did go to an all girls Catholic school.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I loved it.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. You had to wear uniforms?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes, I loved it. I loved everything about it.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, wow.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Quite the opposite of my experience. And so how did you learn? You must have learned to read and write in Spanish in school?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Because I was in school in the Dominican Republic prior to coming to the States.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. All right.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So even though I was so young, yeah, I was already in school.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So you were already literate in Spanish.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And then when you came here, you had to switch to English.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: What was that like?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, well, that was very hard, but, you know, I learned it. I don't know how, but.

Phyllis Noble: I'm thinking that at age six, to be thrust into.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, I lived in a Spanish community, so everything was in Spanish. The only thing that was in English was school.

Phyllis Noble: Was school.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: But school must have seemed, um, ultra difficult for that first year until, I mean, kids pick up languages quickly, but the beginning must be.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So you're at Saint Thomas of Aquinas. Um, what did you, what did you do as a kid when you were, uh. I'm not, I'm not talking about academics, but, um, extracurricular activities.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. You know, I played tennis. Uh, um, so I spent a lot of time traveling to and from a place to play tennis, so. So sometimes that was a two hour train ride to Queens.

Phyllis Noble: Wow.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Manhattan.

Phyllis Noble: Wow.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. So that's what I did.

Phyllis Noble: So that tennis then brought you into other corners of New York. You must know New York very well then.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, I did before.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah, of course.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That was wonderful.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. Uh, so you played tennis. Um, did you hang out with, uh, both Hispanic kids, girls and?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, you know, not really. I mean, we weren't really allowed to hang out, so my, my dad was very strict. So you went to school, you either went to a job, or you went to sports, and you came home.

Phyllis Noble: You came home?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. And so and we had a very large extended family. So we really didn't need anybody else.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: We were, we were quite a large group.

Phyllis Noble: It sounds wonderful. It sounds very warm.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: What, what about, um, summer jobs after you were 16? Did you?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, no, I played tennis. I played tennis through, yeah, until I went to college. My summers were filled with tennis.

Phyllis Noble: You must have been very good.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, I loved it.

Phyllis Noble: Do you still play?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A little bit. Yeah, not as much.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. Excellent. So then you graduate from high school and then you went to college?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I went to American university in Washington, D.C.

Phyllis Noble: American University, the very place we were just talking about that has the Peace Corps Community Archive, in Washington, D.C.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: So this was your first time living outside of New York?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: In D.C., did you live in a dorm?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I lived in the dorms.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. And what did you study at?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, I, I did political science and Russian studies.

Phyllis Noble: Russian studies. Did you study Russian?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I did, I did, there.

Phyllis Noble: And you hadn't done that in high school?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: So you plunged into that brand new in college.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. I'm thinking how difficult that is.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It was, the alphabet. Yeah. Well, I mean, I did learn to speak the language so.

Phyllis Noble: Radically different from Spanish. It's not like French or Italian or something.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. Well, you took on. What, what drew you, what attracted to?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, I was, uh, you know, I was, I was a, um, an avid reader and, um, my, at the time when I was filling out my, which I think, uh, when I was filling out my application for courses, I must have been reading. I used to go through like phases, like I would read all these French authors, or I would read all these Latin American authors. And I was reading maybe the Russian authors at the time. So I was heavily into Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and some of these other Russian authors. So maybe that's why. And, you know, and I saw that they had Russian language and Russian studies, so I just decided to take it.

Phyllis Noble: Right.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And then made a minor out of it.

Phyllis Noble: Wonderful. And your major was, did you say political science?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Political science.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. And again at AU, did you have to work part time?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I did, I did.

Phyllis Noble: So what did you do there?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I worked at a church on, on the campus. So it was a, you know, ecumenical, um, office. And I worked there the whole time I was at AU.

Phyllis Noble: Summertime too?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, no, just during the year and then during the summer, I'm trying to think, um. Well, I, uh, freshman, um, I think I went, oh, yeah, I went back to New York and I worked. So I had one, in one of my semesters, I did an internship on Capitol Hill, and then it also took me to New York City because I worked for the congressman. So I worked in New York City. And another one, I worked for the mayor's office. So I would go back to the city, to New York, to work.

Phyllis Noble: And work there in the summers.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Summers, mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Which Congressman?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, I. Roberto Garcia. The name. Yeah, I don't remember. I mean, yeah, he eventually went to jail for some racketeering problem. I found it odd, I never saw him in the office the whole time I was there.

Phyllis Noble: So that's an interesting part of your education too.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And then, uh, eventually you went to the Peace Corps. Did you go to the Peace Corps immediately after?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, I did apply to the Peace Corps. And actually, the reason I decided in the Peace Corps was because at American University, a lot of people, a lot of my friends, um. So I was in the political science department, but a lot of my friends were in the international relations department.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And a lot of them went on to the Peace Corps. So that's where.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So, you knew people who were.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I knew people who had been in the Peace Corps or were going to Peace Corps. And then the whole Kennedy, you know, give back to your country, service. I mean, American University put a lot of emphasis on service. So, so I knew that that's what I was going to do after. And I did apply to Peace Corps, and I was accepted to go to, I believe it was Costa Rica, but it was to teach English and I didn't want to do that.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I declined.

Phyllis Noble: And when was that? When was that?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That was May of 1985.

Phyllis Noble: 1985.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: '85.

Phyllis Noble: '85. And you were still a student at AU?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I graduated in May of '85.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So right then when you graduated, you applied.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I had a, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Or you had applied and you were invited to Costa Rica. And you turned that down.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Did they say anything to you about how, oh, if you turn down what we offer you, you might not ever get another invitation?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, no.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So what did you tell them? How did you?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, I just said I choose to decline my offer.

Phyllis Noble: You didn't tell them why?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, that.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. I didn't.

Phyllis Noble: You didn't want it. You wanted something else not teaching English.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes, I didn't think.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, the teaching English just didn't, didn't seem to work.

Phyllis Noble: Had they, in the application project, had they asked you for your preferences? Had they asked if there was any place you would not go to?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, no, that was pre, pre-choice. I mean, it wasn't. I mean, I had Spanish so you know they automatically put me in a Spanish speaking country.

Phyllis Noble: Oh. Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So yeah. I don't remember very much of that process. I know that the, my second time around I was very deliberate as to where I wanted to go.

Phyllis Noble: Where you wanted to go and what you wanted to do.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: So, um. So you decline the invitation to, to go to Costa Rica. And then what happened? Did you have to apply all over again?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, so, I mean a year's passed between that. So then I stayed, I worked in the Dominican Republic that following year.

Phyllis Noble: Doing?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, I worked at a hotel.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, and then I went to graduate school at Boston University.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, you did?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And so you're now in Boston, at Boston University studying?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: International relations. Um, and then, my, uh, I did a two year program because I worked full time at the, at that time. And during the summer, I did an internship in the UN, in the Dominican Republic. And then I realized that I wanted to go work overseas. So when I graduated from BU the following May, I was trying to get overseas. And in one conversation with one potential employer, he was, you know, he showed me the stack of job applicants and, you know, talked to me about some of their qualifications. He says, you must have a plan B.

Phyllis Noble: Ah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And he goes, what's your plan B? And I said, well, I guess it's Peace Corps. He goes, well, you should, you know, put plan B into gear just in case.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Because a lot of the organizations would want me to stay in country, in, work in the United States in their home office for one to two years before they would send me overseas.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. And you weren't sure you wanted to do that.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, I didn't want to do that. So I wanted to go overseas right away.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I went home and I applied for the Peace Corps that day.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Second time.

Phyllis Noble: Second time. Same, same application form, having to fill the whole thing out?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: But this time I selected the continent and the language.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So you said you wanted Africa.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I said I wanted Africa, or I wanted Nepal, whichever was first.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And that I wanted French or, you know, another language. So I wanted to learn another language.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And then I wanted to go and experience another place.

Phyllis Noble: Something radically different from what you were already comfortable in.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. What a character you have, so strong that you just really want to learn as much as you possibly can.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So this is now 1987, maybe?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: '88.

Phyllis Noble: '88. And how long did it take before you got an invitation?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I didn't, uh, so this is, this is May. Um, this is June, June '88. So I applied and then I, uh, I was selected to go into training in March of '89.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, that's a long time. So you had to fill all that.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm. Well, I was working in D.C. at that point, at that time.

Phyllis Noble: In D.C.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. And what were you doing in D.C.?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I was working at PAHO, Pan American Health Organization, just doing odd jobs.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. Using Spanish?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh. Okay. Yeah. And, and now you have a master's degree in?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: International relations.

Phyllis Noble: International relations. You're just so qualified to do so many things. I would think people would just zap you up. So. So you're, um, working in D.C. with a connection with, uh, Panama?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: PAHO, which is the Pan American.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, Pan American, not Panama, but Pan American Health Organization. Okay. And then in, did you say March of '89?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: In March of '89.

Phyllis Noble: You began training?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Began training in Frogmore, which is, uh, where you did the agricultural. You did like six, 6 or 8 weeks of agricultural training.

Phyllis Noble: What's Frogmore?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Frogmore is in, um, I don't know if it's South Carolina or North Carolina. It's close to Hilton Head, not very far from Hilton Head.

Phyllis Noble: Island sort of?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, well, Frogmore, it's on the mainland. Hilton Head is on an island.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, so near and coastal.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, yeah. And this is where Peace Corps would go and do their ag training.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. Yeah. All right. So you were going to be an?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Agricultural volunteer at this point.

Phyllis Noble: Agricultural. But you didn't know exactly specifically. Did you know that it would be Mauritania?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: You knew it would be Mauritania.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So everybody who went to, there were, uh, like 3 or 4 countries. And everybody who was doing ag, ag volunteer in Mauritania was in that training. Well, I think actually every, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Okay. But also people going to different countries?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Tunisia. Um, yeah. There were a number of other countries.

Phyllis Noble: All were francophone?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Not really, no.

Phyllis Noble: No. Okay. So you're not talking about culture or language at Frogmore?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, yes, strictly technical.

Phyllis Noble: Agriculture and, uh, learning the skills you'd need in agriculture. Something brand new.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: For you.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Yeah. It worked well.

Phyllis Noble: Great. How long were you in Frogmore?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, I think it was either 6 or 8 weeks. I can't remember.

Phyllis Noble: How many volunteers?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, there were a lot. I mean, because it was not just the Mauritanias. So, um. I don't know. There were a lot of us. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And what did you?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So we did gardening. Yeah, just farming techniques and.

Phyllis Noble: Organic farming? Or were they talking about fertilizers?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, they don't. Yeah, because I remember they did use fertilizer, because I remember I killed one of my plants because I put too much. Yeah. So, so it was not organic.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: But they're telling you how to do gardening, planting?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Um. Just that whole process and.

Phyllis Noble: Uh, I'm thinking about how that might differ from country to country is the soil and the temperature, the climate and the soil differ in different places.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. You know, but they didn't talk about the fact that where I was in Mauritania was very, it was the desert. So that wasn't, it wasn't brought up. I mean, we were farming in good. And yeah, it was, it was good. It was very different from where I was.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah. So, but so, so you did that training and then you went to Mauritania?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And then we did more training. There was language and culture and some technical.

Phyllis Noble: So, um, before we leave Frogmore, uh, where were you living? Were you in, uh?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: We lived in a, in a house, a dorm.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Everybody lived together.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So, like, maybe it was sometimes used as a school.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Mm hmm. I can't remember. I do remember us was doing a weekend family in the community.

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh huh.

Phyllis Noble: And that was for how long did you say?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It was 6 to 8 weeks.

Phyllis Noble: 6 to 8 weeks. Okay. And then you all get on a plane somewhere?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: In New York, out of New York to Mauritania via Paris.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So at this point, somewhere you have to say goodbye to your mom. You have this big family, and you're all very close. Did you then go home to your family?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. In the Dominican, in the Dominican Republic. At that point, my parents were living in the Dominican Republic.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, so you went back to the Dominican Republic?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

To see your parents, hug them with. Were they worried about you? You're going off to Africa.

I think my mom. My dad was like, good luck.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. All right. He knew you to be the strong person that you are. Moms are, the job description of your mom is to worry. And your siblings? Um, what were they saying?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, I mean, I have, my two sisters are world travelers, so that was fine. And then my brothers were like, oh, why are you going there? You know, they, nobody really knew anything about Mauritania.

Phyllis Noble: Of course not. I would have had to look it up on a map.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So did I.

Phyllis Noble: So, so, um, and so you're, you get together with other volunteers in New York to fly over. How old were you then?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I, um, so let's see. This is '91. 23.

Phyllis Noble: You're 23, you've already got a master's degree under your belt, and you're in New York.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Or maybe 24, maybe 24.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And it's 1989. Um, what month are we in now?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, we are June.

Phyllis Noble: June, June of '89. And you all get on a plane. Was it a special chartered plane going only to Mauritania?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No. It was, we went to Paris. So it was like a United or American.

Phyllis Noble: Did Peace Corps staff go with you on the plane?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: There was a Peace Corps staff person.

Phyllis Noble: Somebody accompanying you. Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, maybe not. No, now that I mention it, now that I think about it. No, they were meeting us in Mauritania.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, so you have to transfer planes in Paris without a Peace Corps staff sort of shepherding you from place to place?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: How many people were there?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: There were about 24 of us.

Phyllis Noble: At the age of 23 or 24, were you older than most of them?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Most of them were 21, 22.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So fresh out of college?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And they're all, you're all supposed to take care of yourselves in a, in an airport where maybe people don't speak French.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And find your way to an international.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Uh, flight that's going, what now? From Paris.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: From Paris to Mauritania.

Phyllis Noble: What's the name of the capital city?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Nouakchott.

Phyllis Noble: Nouakchott. And did the, is there an airport there?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Was it a direct flight from Paris?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And um. So you get in, it's June and we're in West Africa. Mauritania. I'm trying to think, Mauritania is north of Senegal?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. It's just where the continent begins to swing.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Um, Senegal is the westernmost point, and now we're beginning to swing around on, on that part of West Africa. Nouakchott. You get off the plane. Do you remember getting off the plane? Was it walking down?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. On the outside.

Phyllis Noble: The outside. So right away you're hit with a.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A sandstorm.

Phyllis Noble: Oh. Oh, I thought you were going to say heat. A sandstorm?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Wow.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It was horrible.

Phyllis Noble: Oh my goodness.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So immediately.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Immediately there was a sandstorm. And, uh, and so everybody's covered, you know, because apart from the fact that most, most people were covered because the Muslim country, because of the sandstorm, you know, even the women had their faces covered.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Women and men.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And men.

Phyllis Noble: Would have their faces covered. Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So that was. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: But you didn't have, your faces weren't covered.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, we didn't, we. Yeah. That was a mistake.

Phyllis Noble: Whoa. Maybe somebody in New York could have mentioned that to you.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: But, um. Yeah, but that was a, you know, that was like the first shock that the fact that everybody was covered, you couldn't see people's faces. So, you know, and certainly for me, coming from New York City, where, you know, it's so important to see who you're seeing.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And only the thieves would cover themselves. So that was the initial. That was the first, I remember feeling that image of the bandits with their.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I do remember feeling shocked.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and then you're in the airport. You have to go through, uh, immigration and.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, by that point we did have, um, Peace Corps volunteers who were there and Peace Corps staff.

Phyllis Noble: Yes. Yeah. But sometimes that's not the most efficient of things. And you have to get all your luggage and make sure everybody's got their stuff. Um, and among your group, um. What did you say, there were 20, 20?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: About 26 of us.

Phyllis Noble: 26 of you. Um, was it a mixture of men and women?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Men and women, yes.

Phyllis Noble: Um, and, um, any married couples?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: There were, there were, uh, two. Two that I remember.

Phyllis Noble: So then what happened? You get off. You're dead tired.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Get off the bus. Get off the plane

Phyllis Noble: You didn't sleep?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. No, we did not.

Phyllis Noble: So you're exhausted.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And, uh. And we arrive in.

Phyllis Noble: You arrive at?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: In Nouakchott. It's during the day. So we arrived in the morning because it was an old flight. Um, an all night flight. Uh, well, the first thing was you notice, you know, the boys were sent to one side. The girls were sent to another.

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Um, and then.

Phyllis Noble: Of a hotel lobby?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, no, this is the airport.

Phyllis Noble: Oh. Even in the airport, they separated the men from the women?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm. Um, yeah. And then just, uh.

Phyllis Noble: Even married couples had to split up?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Huh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And then, and then there was an emphasis on, on it being a dry country. So make sure that you didn't have any alcohol.

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, yeah. And then the Peace Corps people picked us up on the other side. We got on a bus and then we went to the Peace Corps house.

Phyllis Noble: Ah. What's that like?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That, you know, it was just one big block of cement. I mean, it was nothing. All the houses were either brown or maroon, surrounded by dunes.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. Even in the capital city?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Yeah. And maybe there was one tree inside the compound. So all the houses were, had high walls built on the outside, you know, so you had to go through a door and then there was a guard.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. And the high wall was a concrete block wall?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Painted brown.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: So you went into such a gate in a wall and you found yourself in a compound with maybe a tree in it.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. And then, so it's still late morning, lunchtime maybe.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. And then that was, um, you know, sitting on the floor eating. They started, you know, talking about you eat with your hand, with your right hand, not your left hand. You have to wash your hands before you eat.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, and the way you have to sit in terms for women sitting properly and making sure you don't put your feet out or your knees. So it's, you know, very kind of covered up. And, you know, right away that whole cross-cultural started just because of the importance of having your legs covered.

Phyllis Noble: From the very beginning.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, you know, overall, I think Peace Corps does a good job.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. All right. What were you eating?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So it was rice and maybe fish with, um. Um, well, either fish with that peanut sauce or chicken and couscous, but everything was in one bowl.

Phyllis Noble: And you all reached?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Into it. How do you pick up couscous or rice with your fingers?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, you pick up, um, you grab with your hand and then you make a ball. So you have to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, so, you're squeezing the couscous or the rice to make a ball?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: To make a ball. And then you put it in your mouth.

Phyllis Noble: And you somehow, what, do you make a depression with your thumb to pick up some meat?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, that's all the same pickup.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, wow. Okay, so your hand gets kind of full of rice and.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: In the process of this. Can you lick your fingers?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: No?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Because you have, no, because you have to put your hand back in the bowl.

Phyllis Noble: Back in. That's right, that's right. Of course, it wouldn't be hygienic.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, boy. I'm thinking of all the bad habits I'd have to break if it were me. So you're all sitting around in circles? One great big circle or small group?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, small groups. So it's, you know, 6 or 7.

Phyllis Noble: Because you have to reach to, reach that communal bowl. So you can't have too many of you. Yeah. Okay. And so that was your introduction.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That was. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Then what happened. You probably were allowed to rest for the rest of the day.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. And then we started classes, language classes and cross cultural section with the Peace Corps volunteers of the different regions came to speak to us. We did a, um, during our training, we did, um, family visits. So we went and would live with a family for one week. So we did French and depending on where you were going, you did, like I did Arabic because that was the, I was going to the north. So people who were going south were doing other languages.

Phyllis Noble: Maybe Wolof?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Wolof, yeah. Pulaar.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So you were learning both French and Arabic?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. Wow, what a challenge.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It was very challenging.

Phyllis Noble: Two at once. So let's, let's talk about the language stuff. There's, um, so much that I want to know about your training, but since we're on language, how did you do that? Were you, were you in small groups?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes, very small group. Maybe 2 or 3.

Phyllis Noble: Oh. Oh, excellent. Excellent. Um, for. And then you had a few hours of French and then a few hours of Arabic?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm. And then cross-cultural.

Phyllis Noble: And were you, how were you learning it? Was it, um, I'm still on the language thing. Um, was it all conversational or were you given any written?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, it was all conversation.

Phyllis Noble: So you couldn't see what it looked like in writing?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, yeah, you could write it, but that wasn't, the focus was really on, you know, just learning. It was about living the language.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And, you know, what do you need to know? How do you ask? How do you, when you arrive, how do you introduce yourself? How do you ask where the bathroom is?

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That sort of thing.

Phyllis Noble: So in both French and Arabic.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Um, I, I'm thinking about how I learn languages. Um, visually I need to sort of in my mind's eye, I need to see how you spell it, and then I can move on. But this, that wasn't an option. You just had to remember the sound.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And reproduce that sound for various situations.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. I mean, they did have some booklets, but, you know, the problem with the Arabic was that it was the Peace Corps wrote it, would write it phonetically. Um, so it's, I mean, you know, it couldn't. I mean, you would eventually have to study Arabic, classical Arabic.

Phyllis Noble: Yes. To get the writing.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: To get the writing alphabet, yeah. Um, so that's why the focus was on learning to speak, using it.

Phyllis Noble: Right, right. And who were your language teachers?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: These were Mauritanians.

Phyllis Noble: Mauritanians. Okay. And they were fluent in both French and Arabic?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: And probably something else too.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: So at least three languages.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. If not more.

Phyllis Noble: Puts us to shame.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It does. It does.

Phyllis Noble: So.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I should tell you that during my service, I don't know if it was during the service or right before we arrived. There were problems between Mauritania and Senegal.

Phyllis Noble: Ah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So some of those, uh, trainers that were working with us, with us had been to the capital, not because of the Peace Corps, Peace Corps training, but they came in because of the problems.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yes.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And during that time, and the only reason I say this is so at least it's, uh, documented. Documented because the Mauritanian government put all these Mauritanians who were claimed to be Senegalese in the stadium, and then Peace Corps volunteers were brought in to translate because they knew the local languages of these people.

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. So it was a very ugly experience.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So these were some of our trainers.

Phyllis Noble: But this was a little bit later?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: These were right before, right before we arrived. So we were not sure if we were going to go to Mauritania.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, because that happened. That tension was already going on when you entered the country.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: So and in Frogmore, you're, you're actually living in the Peace Corps house when you're not with a family in Frogmore.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I don't mean Frogmore. I mean in Nouakchott.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. No, we're living in a, um. During the training, we were living in a hotel.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Like, it's like the training center, but it looked like a Chinese hotel or something. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So you were living, your classes, your language classes.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: We're all in this training.

Phyllis Noble: All your cultural, uh, cultural orientation, and everything was all in the same building where you were sleeping?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Um.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And which was right next to the stadium.

Phyllis Noble: Next to the stadium, which you had just been talking about, where people had been held?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Sort of like imprisoned?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Before they were deported to Senegal.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, I see, I see. So by the time you were there, this wasn't. had passed.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. No.

Phyllis Noble: The, the stadium was no longer containing these Senegalese Mauritanians. Okay. Ah. So training consisted heavily of language, very heavy on language learning and cultural things. Can you remember what some of the cultural stuff was? You know, some of it you already talked about. Some of the basics.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. In terms of being covered up, in terms of dress, in terms of, you know, you would go into a meeting and people, men would not, if you were a woman, would not, um, give you the hand.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, so you didn't shake hands.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: If you were a woman.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes, sometimes. Well, you could extend the hand, but they wouldn't.

Phyllis Noble: They wouldn't take it.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: They wouldn't take it. Um, and then just, you know, history of Mauritania, the different ethnic groups and. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And did that seem good?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, that was great.

Phyllis Noble: Like a good orientation?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That was very good.

Phyllis Noble: All right.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: How long were you there?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I, I think that was the whole. We did, we were, um, sworn in in September, so three months.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, good. That's a good, good chunk of time.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And during that training time, did you mention that you were sometimes living with a family?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. So we would do, um. Oh, I can't remember. There was a word where they would go out and you live with a family for a week. So a village. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So a village, in a village setting.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And you didn't have responsibilities other than to just kind of be there and participate in whatever, whatever it was going on with the family.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: What was your experience like? Where did you, what village, do you remember what village you went to?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, I don't remember the village, but, uh, you know, I just remember the discomfort.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, and I did get sick. Um, um, you know, just sleeping outside and practicing outside.

Phyllis Noble: Sleeping outside?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. I mean, you slept outside.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. Under a mosquito net or?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, no, it was dry. It was the desert.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. That's right.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. So it's, uh. And then just eating with the family, um, you know, the hospitality that, you know, they would not have, for a meal they would not have meat, but they would roast, um, a goat because you were a guest.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah. So they were knocking themselves out for you?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. So that was, yeah, it was, it was good. And then, you know, it gave us an opportunity to practice the language.

Phyllis Noble: And this was towards the end of your three months or so of training that you had, you already had some language?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And was your family predominantly speaking Arabic or?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Arabic, yeah. Because I was going north. Yeah. Well, once you left the capital it was Arabic.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So French is not spoken throughout the country unless you're highly educated.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And, you know, you were part of the ministry or. Uh.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. So you were functioning in Arabic?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I must have.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, clearly.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I don't remember much, but I must have been.

Phyllis Noble: Thinking about the, the scary part here is not having any control over the food that you're eating and how it was prepared. So you did get sick.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I did get sick.

Phyllis Noble: You couldn't do your own cooking. You couldn't make sure the water was boiled. It was.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I mean, you know, the, the advice was always you don't drink. Um, you try not to drink, but, you know, one of the, one of their hospitalities is once you arrive, they come and bring you a bowl of milk.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. So you don't know.

Phyllis Noble: There you go.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: I suppose if you drank tea, you'd be pretty sure the water was boiled.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That was fine.

Phyllis Noble: But, uh, milk. Yeah. Um, that's probably what did you in.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I know. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Ah. And then you come back to Nouakchott, the capital, for some sort of, uh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Ceremony, and we were. Yeah. And then from there, we packed up and went, and went with the APCD, which is the person for the ag. And he went and he took us each to our villages and.

Phyllis Noble: APCD means Assistant Peace Corps Director?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, something like that.

Phyllis Noble: But he was the guy who was in charge of the agricultural?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. And he was actually Mauritanian. So that was really good. And he spoke Arabic.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: All right. So he had a vehicle.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And you piled into that.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And you say we. So it wasn't you by yourself.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, I mean it was everybody that was going to this region.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So he took us.

Phyllis Noble: How many of you?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, there were about six of us. So that we were going to different villages. You had, um, English people who were going to be teaching English.

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Then you had some that were doing agriculture.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Okay. So during training, you were mixing not just, not exclusively with agricultural volunteers, but with English teachers as well. But you all had to go through the same language training.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So. Yes. Okay. Um, and then you're taken to your site.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Were you alone at that point?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes, at my site. But then, um, so my first site was called Mekanet and M-E-K, Mekanet.

Phyllis Noble: We can talk about.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So that site, um, we couldn't find it the first time.

Phyllis Noble: Even the, even the Peace Corps assistant director couldn't?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And the problem was, first of all, we didn't speak Arabic, so we were trying to find it. We didn't speak Arabic.

Phyllis Noble: Or read the signs.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, there were no signs. It was in the desert. And we would stop and ask people and we must have been pronouncing it wrong. So we didn't get it until we had our APCD arrived and he knew. And then the person, then they directed us to go through the dunes, zigzag our way through until we came to this flat area. And there was Mekanet in the middle of nowhere.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. Surrounded by dunes. Really, truly a sand desert?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. Mekanet.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mekanet. Which translated to a place that does not exist.

Phyllis Noble: Really?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: That's how you, nowhere.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That's probably why we couldn't find it.

Phyllis Noble: Oh that's nowhere.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Anyways.

Phyllis Noble: Oh my goodness, how isolated can you get?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, it wasn't that far. It was less than ten miles. But it's still.

Phyllis Noble: From the capital city?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, from the, from this regional capital.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. What's the regional capital?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Ayoun el Atrous. Ayoun, A-I-O-U-N [sic], el Atrous.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. We'll worry about the spelling later. Ayoun el Atrous is the regional capital?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: How far is Ayoun el Atrous from?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Probably 20 hours from Nouakchott.

Phyllis Noble: From, 20 hours?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Over land?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: 20 hours.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That could be wrong. I could be wrong. But it seemed far.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. So. Oh, my goodness, that's a long way away.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I'm trying to think, maybe 13 hours, maybe 13.

Phyllis Noble: Even 13 is a long way if you need.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, it's very far.

Phyllis Noble: It's a long way to go. And then from Ayoun el Atrous how far to Mekanet? Oh, you said about ten miles.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. So it was less than an hour to car drive because you had, you're going through the desert. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And thinking about taking less than an hour to go ten miles is shocking.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That's right.

Phyllis Noble: From our perspective here in the United States. Okay. So you get to Mekanet. And, um, has there ever been a Peace Corps volunteer there?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No. That was the first time.

Phyllis Noble: You were the first volunteer.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: In this, um. And so what was happening is that a lot of these, these were Moor, which is white, the white Moors, and they had Black Moors as either slaves or did all the work, physical work for this village. And in terms of, it wasn't really a village. I mean, it was a place that had a few one room cement houses and then next to it is a tent. So the Moors would really use the tent as their living quarters and use the one room house, cement house, as a storage area.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So then they would, I lived with the chief of that village and he rented the one room house to me.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, so you lived in a one room house that maybe was designed to be a storage shed?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. I mean, it was just the one room. Yeah, it was just a one room. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Window?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It was two, two lower windows on the bottom. You know, windows couldn't be on the top because of the sandstorm. So they were on the bottom.

Phyllis Noble: Oh. So you can't really see out, but you get a little bit of light coming in.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Yeah. But you didn't spend any time in that room. Only if there was a sandstorm.

Phyllis Noble: You just slept in there.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: You didn't even sleep there?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You slept outside. Only if there was a sandstorm.

Phyllis Noble: Oh my goodness. So it was a place you could go and get away from the sand if you had to. And that was its reason for being there. So what was inside? You have a chair?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I had my, a Peace Corps trunk. No. My Peace Corps trunk. My Peace Corps mat, my pillow. You know, just posters and postcards. My writing material.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, yeah. I mean.

Phyllis Noble: If you wanted to write, you didn't have a table and chair.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, I didn't.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You just said on, on the, on the mat.

Phyllis Noble: Right. Or I suppose you could sit on your trunk.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Whew. Boy.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, Arab, Arab countries, you don't sit on. You don't, I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen where they have a bunch of pillows in a room. So it was like that.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, in a sense that you sat on, you know, the, the trunk was used as a table, and I used my mattress, my sleeping mattress as a chair.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. Um. Um. I'm still trying to digest this. This is really shocking, um, bare bones situation.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Electricity?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: None.

Phyllis Noble: None in all of Mekanet?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, no. So Mekanet was really just, um, you know, this, this valley surrounded by sand dunes. There was a water well, and so a lot of animals would go there to drink, and it was probably not a village always. Uh, but because of the desertification and the lack of movement of people, they just, you know, it was really a place to store things and to come to. There was a palmery not very far.

Phyllis Noble: A palmery?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A palmery where you go and get dates.

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, so maybe they would come and set their, um, tents, uh, up, um, during the, the date season. And you know.

Phyllis Noble: That well with water seems to be for a reason why.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mekanet.

Phyllis Noble: Something surface to be gathering. Um, telephone?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No electricity, no running water. No.

Phyllis Noble: And you didn't, you didn't have your, you were not issued a phone by Peace Corps because it wouldn't be used?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, there were no phones then.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. This is 1989.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Right.

Phyllis Noble: Um, so no phone, no electricity, no running water?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: Um, if you wanted to drink water, did you have a way to boil it?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, I just, I filtered it.

Phyllis Noble: You filtered.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And then I put, um, drops of, uh.

Phyllis Noble: Chlorine? To kill whatever bacteria might be in it after you filter it?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Okay. And so you sleep outside, so you haul your mat out of your little tiny house, which isn't really a house, and you sleep on it outside. And the reason you do that is because that's what everybody else does?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. And it's also very hot.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, okay. It would be hotter inside that concrete tiny storage area than outside at night?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Did it get very cold at night?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It did like, you know, December, January, you know, the. I don't know if it was very cold, but it was relatively cold. For there.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Um, how close are, so you're on a compound sort of or in a big tent with?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A family.

Phyllis Noble: A family. And this, was this considered your host family?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So you had a host father and a host mother. Let's talk about those people. Because when you came home from wherever you went to do your work, you'd come home to these people.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Who were they?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So he was the chief of the village.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh. What was his name?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: He could have been Mohammed.

Phyllis Noble: What did you call him?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I don't remember.

Phyllis Noble: All right.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And, uh. And her name was, oh my God, Aisha, I think it was.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, and the only thing I remember about, she was very big, physically big and.

Phyllis Noble: Both tall and wide.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Big, wide. Yes. And that was considered beautiful.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. All right.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: For the, yeah, and it was considered a sign of wealth.

Phyllis Noble: Yes.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, but she was one of the people that kept saying, you know, we do not work.

Phyllis Noble: We do not work?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: We meaning women or?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes, women. So because I was always trying to encourage them to go to the garden.

Phyllis Noble: Oh yeah. And this was outside her cultural concept of what women do.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. She said women, they, we do not work. Look at our hands. And all henna.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, of course. They would decorate their hands with henna. Oh, well, that puts you in kind of a predicament, isn't it?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: That you're there to work. And yet the cultural norms of your family are that women don't work.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That's right.

Phyllis Noble: Ah, well, we'll get back to that later. Did she work in the kitchen? Did she, did she have a kitchen? Or who cooked?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: The, the, um, African slaves from the village across that would bring the food in.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, so you're talking again. You talked about white Moors and.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And then the Black Moors would bring the couscous.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So your mother, your host mother, Aisha, was a white Moor.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: White, meaning her skin, her complexion was white.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh. Okay. And so the people who did the work were the Black.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Black skin.

Phyllis Noble: Yes. And were they actually slaves? Were they owned by the family?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, um. You know, there were other families where the Black family lived with them.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, with my family, this, uh, this woman would bring the dinner every night, and her husband did all the physical labor for the family.

Phyllis Noble: Oh. Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, you know, there was slavery in Mauritania until the '80s.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, but, you know, there was, uh, it was outlawed in 1980.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. Which doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct. So I think there was definitely a relationship. Uh, it was not a reciprocal relationship.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I mean, these people, you know, when I decided to visit the Haratin across the dunes, I was told to be careful that, you know, they, they didn't have, they were not very hygienic. Um.

Phyllis Noble: This is what you were told?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Yeah. By the White Moors.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. So they warned you to be careful when you went over there.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So they didn't speak of ownership, but it was a very, um, uh. I mean, other Blacks, other ethnic groups would speak of the Haratin as slaves of the white Moors.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And were they paid, did they get something in exchange?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, they got paid in, uh, in food. Not money.

Phyllis Noble: Ah, okay. So they had to grow the food. They had to do the labor of farming?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: They did the farming of the, um, uh, the, what was turned into couscous. The wheat.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, but they, you know, they, the, the family would bring in produce from the, from Ayoun el Atrous and then they would parcel out a portion to give to this family.

Phyllis Noble: I see, I see. That's what they got in exchange for their labor. And then they had, but they had to provide the couscous.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: And also cook those vegetables and things.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: There were no vegetables.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, there were no vegetables?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Strictly couscous or meat, and milk. That's it.

Phyllis Noble: No carrots even?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. No greens?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No greens. That was my job, to introduce vegetables to this community.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, okay. We'll get to that in a minute. I just want to, I just want to get straight on your living situation here. What, what it meant for you living there. Uh, so the meat that you were eating would be?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A goat, they would kill a goat.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Or a cow or a camel. You know, something special. It would not be all the time that they had meat.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah. So sometimes it's just.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Just couscous and milk.

Phyllis Noble: That's it. Couscous and milk.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Could you boil the milk? I mean, how could you keep yourself from getting sick when you were out there? Yeah. You're shaking your head.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: There's nothing. There was nothing to do. That was it.

Phyllis Noble: Right. That was it. Yeah. You had no access to a little propane burner.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A store.

Phyllis Noble: Nothing. Wow.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, also, you know, like if, if I did, where would I, where would I have done that? You know, like, then you would have done it. If I did it in my house and I would have people coming in, you know. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: It would, it would, it.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I didn't have a private space.

Phyllis Noble: Right. It would have been culturally inappropriate.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Awkward. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Wow. So there you are. And they've never had a Peace Corps volunteer before. And so you're quite the oddity.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Um, they don't get it.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, they did not.

Phyllis Noble: They had, maybe they had not asked for a Peace Corps volunteer?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, they did.

Phyllis Noble: They had?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Why? The family, the family or the?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, the, the village, so I think.

Phyllis Noble: So how big is the, how many families?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I mean we're talking maybe 100 people. Yeah. I mean it was very small. Um, and not everybody was always there. That was the other thing. You know, it was hard to tell how many people it had, because you had elder and little ones. I mean, there weren't those middle aged sort of working population. People would leave.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Or they would. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And the grandparents would take care of the children when, say, if people in their 30s and 40s would go out to do something and, and the grandparents would take care of the kids?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Schools, were there schools?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: There was one school.

Phyllis Noble: There was?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A one room school, but it was all in Arabic.

Phyllis Noble: Yes.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, it was religious school. It wasn't necessarily a school. A madrassa.

Phyllis Noble: A madrassa. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about this. So your first day, the Assistant Peace Corps, the AP.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: APCD.

Phyllis Noble: APCD brings you here, introduces you to your family, shows you what your accommodations will be.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, so you want me to tell? Let me tell you the little story, how it really went.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It was pretty traumatic. So we, uh, because of, um, so the way they did it in Mauritania was that a Peace Corps volunteer would stay with you overnight the first night to help with the language, the translation, and kind of adjustment.

Phyllis Noble: A Peace Corps volunteer who had been in the country for some time?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct. And spoke that language. So it worked with that group.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. All right.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, so as a woman, but I got a man to stay with me.

Phyllis Noble: Oh. That'd be awkward.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, because there were I don't think there were female that worked in the North.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, you were the first female up there?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I'm not sure why. Yeah, I'm not sure. We, yeah, why would they? I don't understand why they sent a man. But anyway.

Phyllis Noble: A white guy.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A white guy. Yes. Who was, who spoke Arabic.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So he stayed with me that night and he had dinner with us, and it was wonderful. And then so I was already nervous because I knew he had to leave the next morning, the minute the Peace Corps driver would come in.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, off you go.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Off he'd go. So, you know, we get up in the morning and we're having our tea because it's what you do in the morning. You have tea.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um. And sometimes eventually they'll bake bread, but not all the time. Um, so you could, you could hear the sound of the, of the, of the car long before you could see the car.

Phyllis Noble: Yes.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Because of the dunes.

Phyllis Noble: That's right, I remember those. Yes.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. And then so I'm sitting down with him and we're talking and, and I can hear the car.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So at that point, you know, I, I get very, I got very nervous and, uh, and then the car is coming and all the kids are following the car. And then the driver gets out and he has a bunch of bread on his arm, and he hands it to me. He says, here, here's the bread for you. Good luck. And then the Peace Corps volunteer turns to me. He takes his mattress, puts it in the car. He says, you're a woman, I cannot give you my hand, but good luck.

Phyllis Noble: What you really want is a hug at that point.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes, yes. And then he goes and gets in the truck.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, and the truck starts going away. And, uh, and at that point, I just started bawling.

Phyllis Noble: I was just going to say, I would cry.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I was crying. And then my family came over. And then one of the young boys who spoke a little bit of French, uh, they came over and said, habibti, don't cry. We're your family now.

Phyllis Noble: Aww.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I know, that was very sweet.

Phyllis Noble: That's very nice.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: What did they call you, habib?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Habibti, which is dear. It's an endearing term.

Phyllis Noble: Habibti?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: How lovely. How lovely.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So that, I.

Phyllis Noble: It was one of the children?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes, uh, no. The mother of the family.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: But the boy translated to me.

Phyllis Noble: Oh. I see, I see.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. So yeah, that was, yeah, that was very touching. But that was very, uh, never to be forgotten.

Phyllis Noble: No kidding. No kidding. You are so isolated.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. And it was far.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Talk about the, the first few days, the first week. Uh, what did you do?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, well, you know, I try to talk. I drank a lot of tea. Um, I was locked in the. So there was only one latrine in the whole village, and I was going to have a latrine built for me because my family didn't have one.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: But there was one latrine, and I'm not sure who it belonged to. But, you know, I had to walk a little bit ways, a ways to do that. And, um. And the kids locked me in the latrine.

Phyllis Noble: No.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. That first week.

Phyllis Noble: They thought that was funny.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: They thought that was hilarious. So, of course, you know, somebody opens the latrine and lets me out, and I go back home.

Phyllis Noble: And were you hollering? I mean, what?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I don't know. I don't think so. I don't know, I don't know, I just kept knocking, you know. Yeah. It was horrible. And, uh, but the kids got a real beating for doing that. So that was nice. So but, but the kids had it in for me. There was one boy who just, you know, um, and he was one of the instigators of the locking of the door. So at another point, he also threw like dung, like cow manure, at me.

Phyllis Noble: Oh my!

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So once again, he also got a beating for that. And after that he stayed away. But, um, you know, that first week was a lot of adjustment. You know, I walked a lot and tried to understand, you know, they didn't really have a garden, a very big garden. And, um.

Phyllis Noble: And what they had was growing wheat to make couscous?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, no, that one was, uh, the wheat was done in where the Haratin lived. It wasn't done there.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. What was this family trying to grow?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, there was just a, a community garden, but, you know, the goats would get in there, and it's just horrible.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, and then I, you know, just trying to make friends with some of the young people. It is very hard.

Phyllis Noble: So you're walking around.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Walking around, drinking a lot of tea.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. And you didn't really have a function yet.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That's right.

Phyllis Noble: So people were looking at you, saying, huh?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. I know. What are you doing here? Why does your family not like you and they've sent you so far away?

Phyllis Noble: Oh! Is that their perception of it?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. How could anyone let their daughter go?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I know. Why aren't you married?

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, because by then you're 24.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: 24, 25. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So. Yeah. But it was, um, so it took a lot of adjustment and then, you know, I did some gardening there, but they didn't get it. You know, I would bring in an onion and they would throw it to the goats because they said it's not red like a tomato. So red, a tomato turns green and then turns red. Um. So, and.

Phyllis Noble: But tomatoes are not indigenous to Africa. They came from here.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: But you know, we were introducing things. We're introducing green peppers and onions and.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, so that was hard. At one point there was a caravan that came in, um, and that had one of the Peace Corps volunteers from the capital, from the regional capital, Ayoun el Atrous, so that was kind of nice.

Phyllis Noble: Arriving in a caravan?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: In a caravan of camels, yeah. Uh, so that was kind of, you know, I remember having just this good feeling like, oh, I'm not as isolated as it seems.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. How, was there a postal service or something like?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: In Ayoun, in Ayoun.

Phyllis Noble: So if you wanted to, really the only way to communicate with your parents at this point is by letter.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: So you would write a letter. Did you have paper and envelopes?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I did, but you know, the letters. We would write the letters and send them to New York via somebody that was leaving from the community.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, you, got it, you wouldn't send it to the Dominican Republic.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: You would send it to New York. And then somebody in New York would send it on.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Would get it to them. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Take a long time before your parents would get it.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: How long from, um, Mekanet? Because it has to go from there to.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, there was no post office in Mekanet.

Phyllis Noble: No. So you would have to, you could only post it when you went.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: In Ayoun.

Phyllis Noble: In Ayoun. And then from Ayoun to New York, how long would it take?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, probably three weeks. 3 or 4 weeks.

Phyllis Noble: Just to get to New York, 3 or 4 weeks. And then from New York to Dominican Republic, another week?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Another 3 or 4 weeks.

Phyllis Noble: 3 or 4 even?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, man.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And so, so there's really no way to have a dialog via letters.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No. So but when I would go into, into Nouakchott in the capital. So we went, you know, probably every three months. I would call my parents.

Phyllis Noble: Call them.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: That must have been very reassuring to them. From the Peace Corps office?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, from the hotel.

Phyllis Noble: From the hotel. You had to pay for that?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. Um, did you get sick up there? I know you got sick in training.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I did not, I did not get sick after that.

Phyllis Noble: You didn't?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, I was very careful.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah. Good for you. So you settle in, you spend some time getting to know people, walking around, getting your bearings about where you are in relation to other things. How often do you get into Ayoun?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, probably once a month, over the weekend.

Phyllis Noble: Well, that's pretty sparse. So for a whole month at a time, you're not speaking English to anybody?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: You're totally immersed.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Out there.

Phyllis Noble: Totally immersed. Um, how did you take care of your mental health?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I wrote a lot of letters, and I read a lot of books.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. You had books with you. Did Peace Corps give you books?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: Did you get a book locker?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, we, I bought books with me and then the Peace Corps library had books. And then when we would go into Ayoun.

Phyllis Noble: You'd switch.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: We would switch.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, yeah. So that was.

Phyllis Noble: Did you have a lantern or something?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. I had lanterns and a lot of candles.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. Yeah. So you're reading by candlelight.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Um, and your host, did anybody else in your host family sit around reading in the evening?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: They might have thought that was kind of weird.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: But um, you had more education than they did. You were, you read.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, they, you know, they would, they would, um, yeah. They, you know, that wasn't done there, right?

Phyllis Noble: Right. So eventually you set into your routine of how you're going to live there, and then eventually you're an agriculture volunteer.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And I realized it wasn't going to work there.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So then I asked the Peace Corps about getting a transfer.

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: To transfer. Oh, so I went from my village. I went to Ayoun, I transferred to Ayoun.

Phyllis Noble: So you realized it wasn't going to work, because any attempts to start a garden were, animals would come in and tear it down, and it just.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And they were not, they weren't, you know, they were not at a stage to work on having a garden.

Phyllis Noble: Right. And I mean.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: They were nomadic.

Phyllis Noble: Culturally, they didn't perceive your role as maybe a white Moor. I mean, if you were going to be living with a white Moor family, that your role was not to get your hands in the dirt.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So that was a pretty impossible situation. So how long did you stay there?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I was probably there until, um. Uh, March. So from September to March.

Phyllis Noble: That's a long time.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, a very long time. I mean, it took the whole process to get me moved took a long time.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A long time. But then I did, and I moved to Ayoun. And there I worked with different groups. You know, I would just go out and seek women's groups, or I did math with a group of Malian women and, um.

Phyllis Noble: With Malian women?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, they were not, you know, they were not Moors. Okay. So I didn't work with Moors after getting out of Mekanet, because most of the women who were doing marketing, working in the market tended to be, um, Afro, Africans, Black Africans.

Phyllis Noble: So Moors, um, are like the Berbers of North Africa.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so now you're in Ayoun and you worked with people of.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Different groups.

Phyllis Noble: Of a different race altogether.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

So there I used French.

Phyllis Noble: Ah, yes.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Because they spoke French.

Phyllis Noble: Yes.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And then I lived with a Bambara family.

Phyllis Noble: Ah. And Bambara is one of the African groups in Mauritania?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And they were originally, they speak Bambara. So I think Malians, there's a group from Mali that speaks that are Bambara.

Phyllis Noble: Bambara. But with them you spoke French?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Because Peace Corps training had not included Bambara?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: There's no way you can learn it out when you're trying to function in a job. So did, did you sort of give up on agricultural work at that time?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No. You know, I, um, I worked with another Peace Corps volunteer who was a health volunteer, Phoebe Jones, and she and I worked in school, and I would do the agriculture, planting, gardening, and she would work on the health component.

Phyllis Noble: Ah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So her and I partnered.

Phyllis Noble: Very nice.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I worked in school. Yeah. Now that I think about it.

Phyllis Noble: Totally different work situation, radically different from just ten miles away.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct. And that was really nice.

Phyllis Noble: Ten miles was a world apart.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Where did you live in Ayoun?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I lived with a family in Ayoun.

Phyllis Noble: A family. Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I lived inside a compound.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. What was that like?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, that was wonderful. I loved it. Yeah. So a house with kids. Um, one, the oldest, young, the oldest daughter, when I moved in, was just getting ready to come to the States. Her husband was working on a PhD. So she left. And then the younger, her sister, who was 16, Aminatou. And, um, so we, you know. Yeah, it was great. It was wonderful, I loved it. I loved being part of a family.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, good.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And, um, I'm writing down Aminatou here. Um, and in that family, the, the host mother did the cooking?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. And, and the young lady, Aminatou, she was also a lot responsible more for, she would go to school, but then responsible for doing things in the house.

Phyllis Noble: In the house. And did you get some vegetables into your diet there?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. They, they ate a little bit more green.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. But it was still basically meat and couscous or rice?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, and fish.

Phyllis Noble: And fish.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Fish. Yeah. Because this is the Black Africans. So they did the couscous with the peanut sauce. The Moor diet was basically couscous, you know, roasted meat and, um, couscous with milk or.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Mm hmm.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Whereas the Black Africans had rice, fish, fish with vegetables.

Phyllis Noble: Where would the fish come from? How close to the coast are you here?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: We were not close to the coast. I think it probably came from, oh, people bring it in. That's right. There was a truck that would come in.

Phyllis Noble: From the coast?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And would, uh, with a freezer, sell fish.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So you're still in desert?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. But there are, uh, Ayoun has, uh, you know, was a, was a, um, colonial town, so it had a grid.

Phyllis Noble: Ah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So you had mud houses, but mud compounds, but yeah. It had a, you know, there were streets.

Phyllis Noble: Yes. And so you have a compound where the walls are made of mud.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct. Baked adobe sort of things.

Phyllis Noble: And was your house like that too?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And what did you say, and rocks?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And rocks. Because this, Ayoun is very rocky.

Phyllis Noble: Ah. Did you have a room yourself?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I did, I have a one room. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So now you slept inside or inside?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Inside.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. This is really quite different from that experience.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: How difficult and how rich that experience had been up in Mekanet that now you can sort of, uh, relax from that and get some work done. Wow. Kids in that family? You talked about Aminatou.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Yeah. Young kids.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, and then Aminatu was a young lady, so maybe 15, 16. Her older sister who was leaving, Aisha, she was, I think it must have been 18 or 19. So that was, you know, that. I mean, there was an eye opener because I noticed that people would socialize in the evening, like the young people would get together. Yeah. So it was very different, you know.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And to drink, you would be drinking tea?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And again no alcohol?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No alcohol. It was a dry country.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I mean there was alcohol, but I don't know where.

Phyllis Noble: You were probably encouraged, if you found out, not to join in.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: It was probably all men.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. That's right.

Phyllis Noble: So, um, do you have electricity now, in Ayoun?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, no.

Phyllis Noble: Running water?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, no.

Phyllis Noble: And there's a latrine that's not too far away.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. That's on the compound. Inside the compound.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So let's talk about the work. You mentioned, let's talk a little bit more. You started talking about how, um, you partnered with, with Phoebe, Phoebe Jones, and you were doing the agricultural.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. So that was interesting. And we would go to school and she would do the health.

Phyllis Noble: Yes.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, of eating vegetables and washing your hands. And then I would work with the students to work on the planting of the garden.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, boy. How fun, school garden.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I know, so that worked out. Yeah, that worked out well.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. And was it one school or did you travel around to various schools?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, we traveled to schools, but I don't remember how many. I do remember just traveling.

Phyllis Noble: Mm hmm.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. And then I worked with women, uh, these market women, teaching them how to write the numbers.

Phyllis Noble: Oh good. How to write them in Arabic?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, no. Numbers.

Phyllis Noble: No, these are, these are not Arabic speakers. In our alphabet.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Because they knew the number. They knew how to do math, but they didn't know how to write it.

Phyllis Noble: Aha. Wow. To have to do all that math in their head is another skill.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. And then I also, um, when I was there, I worked with, uh, like a women's cooperative planting trees. So, you know, different things. It was good.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It worked out well.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Better situation than my first one.

Phyllis Noble: Clearly, clearly. And so you stayed there for how long?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, I stayed there until the Gulf War. And then that's when we were pulled out.

Phyllis Noble: And the Gulf War. Now the Gulf is way far away from Mauritania.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. But Mauritania received the family of Saddam Hussein. So we were pulled out.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, Saddam. Saddam Hussein.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Sent his family.

Phyllis Noble: Sent his family to Mauritania, at which point that meant that Peace Corps had to leave?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Really?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Wow.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Peace Corps pulled out of the Arab countries.

Phyllis Noble: Did they think it was unsafe or just a political?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Unsafe. Um, I think they thought it was unsafe. I mean, they went to a skeleton crew even in the embassy.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So when was it that you were pulled out?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That was January. I think January 20th, maybe something like that, of 1990.

Phyllis Noble: It must have been '91.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Right.

Phyllis Noble: And then you went to Peace Corps Mali.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So we all went to Peace Corps Mali.

Phyllis Noble: All of you from Mauritania.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: The plane took us, took, it was a charter plane. And they picked up all the volunteers who were called in during that Christmas. So traditionally, Christmas we would have a conference in Nouakchott. So we all came in for the conference.

Phyllis Noble: For the conference.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: But from there we got on a.

Phyllis Noble: Now, wait. Did you know that was going to happen?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: So you left stuff behind in Ayoun?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Things that you maybe, your trunk.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Everything.

Phyllis Noble: Your books.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Everything.

Phyllis Noble: Oh man. How hard. And, and you had to leave it all behind.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And get on a plane. You left clothes behind.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Everything. Yeah. You just had whatever you had.

Phyllis Noble: Whatever you had with you to go to a conference that was going to be a pretty short conference. Woof. You get on a plane and you go to?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mali. And we were there.

Phyllis Noble: Bamako?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Bamako. And then we were there for, um, a few days. And then Peace Corps gave you the option of terminating your service or continuing.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So that's.

Phyllis Noble: So you didn't have that option in Mauritania at all.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: They wanted, they didn't even want you to think or talk about anything until you got out of that. They wanted to get you out of there.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So you're in Bamako. And what, what was the ratio of people who chose to go home or people who chose to extend, uh, in Mali?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Oh, the people who extended were very small, I think, in Mali. Um, so I, I remained a Peace Corps volunteer.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And two other people decided to stay and work for an NGO.

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: One woman went to Chad. Um, so I would say Mauritania had probably less than 50 volunteers. Uh, five people maybe stayed as volunteers.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. And the rest just.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Most people left. Yeah. Most people left or, uh, those who didn't, who weren't volunteers stayed and worked in Africa, were working in Africa.

Phyllis Noble: For some NGOs. Um, did Peace Corps or anybody compensate you for all that you had to leave behind in Mauritania?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: If you're going to stay in Mali and work, you're going to have to go shopping. You need clothes. You need books.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. They didn't. Nothing.

Phyllis Noble: Nothing.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, that was weird.

Phyllis Noble: That seems very harsh. So, okay. But you decided to stay?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. And then I went up to Peace Corps Gao.

Phyllis Noble: Why? Why?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, I wasn't ready to come back home.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It was weird.

Phyllis Noble: You wanted, you had thought you'd have more time in Africa and you wanted that whole experience.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, sure.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I extended and I was posted in Peace Corps Gao in Mali.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Which is, and that was a 30 hour bus ride from Bamako. That was a nightmare.

Phyllis Noble: Oh my gosh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: God. Um.

Phyllis Noble: Did you go with somebody?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I did. Luckily, I did go with someone. Another woman, another volunteer. She was one of the volunteers who extended from Mauritania.

Phyllis Noble: From Mauritania. Okay. So you knew her?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. And, uh.

Phyllis Noble: But it wasn't Phoebe Jones.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No. Phoebe decided to leave.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And, um, so I went with this woman. Um, unfortunately, she didn't cover her head. So we were on this bus, and we were. At one point, like, eight Tuareg heavily armed men got on our bus. So that was the beginning of knowing that we were going somewhere that was very far away.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, so that was kind of an uncomfortable. Um.

Phyllis Noble: But when you mentioned that you didn't cover her head.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, she didn't cover, yeah. So she.

Phyllis Noble: Against the sand, you mean?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, just covered.

Phyllis Noble: Like culturally?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: We were moving north, it was more and more Arab looking.

Phyllis Noble: Yes.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And some of it were not Arab. They could have been Tuareg. Just, they were just covered.

Phyllis Noble: Right.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So, you know, you would.

Phyllis Noble: And the women too?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. So in a situation like that, you just make sure you cover yourself too. You don't want to stand out.

Phyllis Noble: That's right. So. That's right.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So we stood out on that bus.

Phyllis Noble: Did you have a scarf on your head?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I did have a scarf but she didn't.

Phyllis Noble: Did you cover your face?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I didn't cover my face, but. And I could pass actually as a Moor if I didn't speak. Um, I don't remember if she was a blond, but she, we stood out.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So we got a lot of stares, which was uncomfortable.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Um, I would think that after her time in Mauritania, she would have.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, but she was a teacher, so she was in the capital.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, that's, that is different.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. And, um, so we got to our site and there was nobody waiting for us. So after this 30 hour bus ride, we arrive and there's no one waiting. The Peace Corps volunteer, we were told there was a Peace Corps volunteer up there. She doesn't know who we are. So, um, we actually were sent to the Vision, World Vision house, and the person there told us that they had just had a bunch of visitors and they just needed a little bit of rest. So they didn't have room for us. So we had to wait and find this Peace Corps volunteer.

Phyllis Noble: And you've been, you've been on the road for 30 hours.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Oh, it was a nightmare. And, um, you know, we are, we had to. The driver then said, well, the Peace Corps volunteer is not there. Why don't you come to my house, rest, take a shower, have something to eat, and then we'll go look for her again in the afternoon. So that's what we did.

Phyllis Noble: That's kind of risky, but it turned out okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Yeah, that worked out well, so. Thank God.

Phyllis Noble: What's Gao like? Gao is in the northern part?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. It was, it was very desolate. Much more desolate. It wasn't as pretty as Ayoun. Ayoun had, um, you know, very dark rocks. A lot of the houses were made of rocks or adobe, whereas, in Gao the roads were wider, but the, and the houses were cement, but they weren't painted. And they just had a drab feeling about it.

Phyllis Noble: I was going to, on that 30 hour bus ride, what were the roads like? Is it a paved road?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. There were paved roads the whole way.

Phyllis Noble: Potholes or?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, yeah. But you know, there was a road.

Phyllis Noble: There's a road. Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And at one point we had to cross the river or like over, over a river probably.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: But it was a long, long ride. That's all I remember.

Phyllis Noble: My geography, my knowledge of the geography isn't very good in Mali. But I'm wondering where the Niger River starts somewhere?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. So that must have been the.

Phyllis Noble: That might have been the Niger at its very beginnings.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Um, and what, you know, what made it seem so long was just that we were traversing very desolate areas.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. And you had been through a somewhat of a trauma. I don't know, maybe that's too strong a word, but you'd been plucked out of.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: I, uh, you, you're very shaky. You know, you're in a very shaky situation where you're going to a totally unknown place. What was it? What were you, what were you expecting to do in Gao?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, I was supposed to work with this Peace Corps volunteer, ag extension.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So what I actually ended up doing was working with the people in Gao with the World Vision people.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So you never did find that Peace Corps volunteer?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I did find her. And she showed up that afternoon.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: All right. Um, you know, I lived with her. Well, I lived with her the whole time I was there, but I think I had intentions of moving and finding a family because I didn't like the fact that she left. She lived in a house by herself.

Oh, okay. And you wanted, you liked.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, I liked the warmth and the security of having a family. Um, so I worked with World, I eventually worked with World Vision. We patched up the, uh, relation after that first day.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, when they sent you off, we don't have room for you. No room in the inn.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I know. And, um, so I worked with them and that, that turned out well. But then, you know, eventually we had to call Peace Corps because there were fighting in Gao of the Tuareg, the Tuareg rebellion. And they were they were killing people ten kilometers outside of Gao.

Phyllis Noble: This is way before ISIS came in and took advantage of that Tuareg unhappiness.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. Um, so at that point, uh, and then you know that, at that time there were these consultants visiting, uh, which was good, because then we used them to get down, to get to Bamako, um, because we told Peace Corps there, you might want to talk to the embassy.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: There are problems up here that.

Phyllis Noble: Right. Yeah. So you, you it was your decision to leave Gao and go down to Bamako?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No. It was, we called Peace Corps. And then they said, well, can you get out?

Phyllis Noble: Okay, so you did have, World Vision would have had a phone.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, no. No, we had to go to the post office. They didn't have a phone.

Phyllis Noble: Oh my goodness.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Wow. Wow. So you had, but there was a phone in the post office. You were able to call Peace Corps and describe what was happening.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Happening in the, um, across the street from the house where this volunteer lived was the main house of the Tuareg, which was surrounded. Yeah. No, it was a very, uh, shaky situation.

Phyllis Noble: No kidding. No kidding.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So at that point, they told us just get out.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Did you feel unsafe? Was it scary?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Uh, it was scary because you could hear a lot of shots.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, wow. Oh yeah. So how did you get out?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: With the Peace Corps, with the two consultants who were visiting.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, okay. And they drove you back?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: In a Jeep or something.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: On a Jeep. Yeah. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I know. So pulled out twice.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. How long had you been up in Gao?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Probably 3 or 4 months.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It couldn't have been that long.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Did you feel that you accomplished something in that short amount of time? Well, you were teaching. You were working.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, I was working. You know, I was working with another person, a counterpart. So that was good. Yeah. There was a there were a lot of good things about that situation, you know, working with World Vision, they had villages that they were working in, working with a counterpart. That was all good. And she spoke French.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And the local language. So.

Phyllis Noble: But now your French is getting better.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: That was much better.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. So now you're back in Bamako.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: In Bamako.

Phyllis Noble: And it's.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And Peace Corps just told me take your time, whatever you want to do.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, okay. So what did you do?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I decided to leave eventually.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: But then Peace Corps Mauritania reopened.

Phyllis Noble: Aha. Because things calmed down.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: In Mauritania.

Phyllis Noble: Was Saddam Hussein's family still there?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Left. They had left.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, they left so it was okay for Peace Corps to come back.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes. So Peace Corps went back. And then at that point, instead of. So I took about two months and not sure what I wanted to do. Then Peace Corps decided to.

Phyllis Noble: Where are you during those two months, in Bamako?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: In Bamako.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And um, at that point.

Phyllis Noble: And Peace Corps is still giving you your living allowance?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes, yes. And they, and then at that, at one point I went and I stayed with the doctors, the doctor's house. Um. Yeah, no, they were very nice.

Phyllis Noble: Good.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Peace Corps was very, very supportive.

Phyllis Noble: Good, good.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I wasn't ready and, you know, it was very. It was not a good, I was not in a good place because you know psychologically I think I was a bit traumatized by that.

Phyllis Noble: Well, sure. Sure. You being pulled out twice wherever you were trying to figure out what to do.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And then before being pulled out of Ayoun.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Peace Corps Mauritania.

Phyllis Noble: That first placement wasn't working out either. So that's really three separate places where you had to leave. And then, and then you, you're offered an opportunity to work as Peace Corps staff back in Mauritania.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Well, no, in Mali. So they trained, they brought the volunteers to Mali first and we did training there, cross-culture, language. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And then we went back to Mauritania.

Phyllis Noble: So people, these were brand new Peace Corps volunteers coming in from New York or someplace, flying in, flying into Bamako, into Mali to begin their Peace Corps training.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Peace Corps training.

Phyllis Noble: Had they already done something like you did in, um, in the Frogmore?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Right. No, no.

Phyllis Noble: They were fresh out of college.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Or someplace. And, and you were. And so there were people doing language training and cultural orientation?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Language and cross-cultural, yeah. All this stuff.

Phyllis Noble: And what was your role?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So I was a cross-cultural trainer there.

Phyllis Noble: All right. Well, you had lots of experience of.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And that was good. I mean, I think it allowed me to sort of, um, you know, come full circle. So after, after doing training, I was ready to leave Mauritania.

Phyllis Noble: Yes. And did you accompany these volunteers into Mauritania?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, and then I did another training. So two sets of training and then.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, two trainings in Mali or?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, in Mauritania. So once we did the first training in Mali. Then we went back to Mauritania and then it was fine. And then they figured out they could start doing their training there.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So yet another group came in from New York and you did their training in Mauritania.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: A couple of those.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: And then you decided it was time to go home.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So at this point you had not yet gone back home.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No.

Phyllis Noble: You'd spent this whole time between Mauritania and Mali.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Had you ever had a chance to do some traveling or some?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I did.

Phyllis Noble: When you were in Bamako at least, did you?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah, I did, I went to, um. Ivory Coast.

Phyllis Noble: Oh yeah. For a little vacation.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A little vacation with some of the volunteers.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And that was good, just realized.

Phyllis Noble: Abidjan?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Abidjan. Just realizing that, you know, other places were much better than where I came from.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. You were in really a hardship.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. I mean, it was, you know, it wasn't typical, typical Peace Corps experience, I think. Um, so that was nice just to see, and the fact that, you know, people ate much better.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Had electricity and water.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Posh Corps. And you were able to speak French in Ivory Coast too.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: So that was.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. That was very good.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, it was, it was good. Overall, you know, I had a very good experience. I mean, and I think for me, so I think the fact that I stuck around and allowed it to run its course and then I was ready to come home.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. That's good. You made very good decisions all the way around. And I don't know how many people going through what you went through would be able to say, it was a very good experience. There was very hard experience. And you're looking, you're, you're looking at the positive side of it and talking about the good that you got out of it. And it was a ultimately a good experience for you. You're a very special person. Then you come home. Home to where? To New York or?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I came, I came to New York, and then I went to the Dominican Republic and visited my parents. And then I decided to go to France for that summer so I could practice, so I could perfect my French.

Phyllis Noble: French. Yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. So I lived with a French family.

Phyllis Noble: Wow.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And I took classes at the Sorbonne. And then in August decided I was going to come to Madison. So I came back to the States. I went to Yale, to New Haven. And to think, I thought maybe Yale would be the school where I would come and do my PhD, and I didn't like it. And then I came to Madison and I stayed, and I've been here ever since.

Phyllis Noble: So you came here to the University of Wisconsin. You got a PhD here. In what?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Cultural anthropology.

Phyllis Noble: Cultural anthropology?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Well, you had such a wonderful grounding in, in living in deeply inside other cultures that you brought with you to your academic studies. How wonderful. And, and, um, do you think you would have gone on for a PhD in cultural anthropology had you not had that Peace Corps experience?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, yes, because in my graduate work, the reason. So at Boston University, my one professor said, um, when I was finishing my master's and I wanted to do anthropology, she said it would be good for you to go out and get experience and then come back to do your PhD.

Phyllis Noble: And that's exactly it.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: It took me five years, but I did it.

Phyllis Noble: You did it.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, five years kind of roundabout way from starting from that, yeah, to the coming to.

Phyllis Noble: It was all.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: All, you could look at that as one big educational experience.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And it was good. You know like I mean, yeah. You know, sometimes you have to, you know, even though you come, you go full circle, it's, it's part of the, that learning.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. So you finished your PhD then, in what, 1992?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, 2004.

Phyllis Noble: 2004.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: I finished, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: You finished. Yeah. And what have you done since then?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So you know, I've.

Phyllis Noble: That was 12 years ago.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah. No, that's a long time. Uh, you know, I've worked in numerous capacities in Madison at, uh, I was a knowledge management coordinator at the World Council of Credit Union, where it was really my anthropology that got me that job. I, uh, I've been very interested in engaging young people in science. So I've done a lot of science outreach through Edgewood. And then the last four years I've been working at the Earth Partnership, uh, at the Arboretum, UW Arboretum, on ecological restoration, which is training teachers and community members to do restoration and the reasons why. And my position is really multicultural. So I bring my anthropological to the work. So I work with Native American communities, I work with Latino communities. And now I'm taking UW students overseas to do restoration in other countries.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, wonderful.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: So, you know. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And in somewhere in all this time you've married. You have.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Married, children. Yeah. So I have my twins, who are going to be 17 in four days. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And you married a guy who himself was.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: A Peace Corps volunteer.

Phyllis Noble: But you didn't meet him in the Peace Corps?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: No, but we met through mutual Peace Corps people. So I met him through my, at a party of my, um, Peace Corps trainers, Julia and Emmett, Julian Paulsen and Emmett Millen. And Emmett studied with Charles, my husband, at UW doing his master's. So they're very good friends.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, that's, it all comes together, doesn't it?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Anything else you'd want to say? Would you recommend it to a young woman today?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yes, I would. I think, you know, you have to go in, you know, clearly with, uh, open eyes and open mind and, uh, and be very aware that, you know, it's not the same world as when I went in. You know, I was very lucky to go to a dry country, so I didn't have to deal with a lot of issues that I think countries where alcohol.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, there's that.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Is prevalent. Yeah. So I was very grateful for that.

Phyllis Noble: I'm thinking dry in two ways. Okay.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: And then, um, living with a family I think was critical for me. So I would highly recommend that.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Um, yeah. No, I, you know, for me, I would say that my defining, the moment in my life that has defined me was my Peace Corps service.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, wonderful. Thank you, Maria.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Thank you. [tape break]

Phyllis Noble: Hello. Um, we're going to get back to this discussion with Maria because she's written a piece that she just read for me. And I think we should include this in the interview. It's, it's very lovely. So here's Maria reading now to you something that she's written. Who did you write it for?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: You know, I wrote this when I was for the 50th anniversary. The UW did a celebration.

Phyllis Noble: 50th anniversary of Peace Corps.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And that would have been 2011?

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Correct.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's hear it.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: All right. So I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania, 1989 to 1991, and in Mali, 1991. My experience in Mauritania has had the most lasting impression on me. Originally born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York City, here I was, a young Spanish speaking girl out of college, sent to work among Moor nomads in the Sahara Desert. The Sahara, with its desert colors of different shades of brown and its size equal only to the ocean in its vastness and complexity. On my trip to my village of Mekanet, the vastness of the ocean dawned on me and I realized I was like a speck of sand. This realization instilled in me a fear of the desert, and a respect for those who managed to carve a life for themselves and their community. As of that moment, my initial plans and wishes to travel across the desert by camel became a nightmare. As of that moment, I was simply happy to travel by car the 12 hours on the road of hope to my village of Mekanet.

However, as desert tales go, finding Mekanet was not so simple. Driving to my assigned village were mountains of dunes everywhere and our rudimentary Arabic as no villager we encountered on the sandy landscape spoke French, we could not make our way across the dunes. But eventually we did manage to find a guy who helped the driver steer the car through the dunes to behold the golden sight. A village, if you could call it that. With a few one room stone structures and a scattering of fixed tents. The name of my village was Mekanet, which translated in English as "the village that did not exist." But the translation was the least of my challenges.

I came to live in a village whose daily life revealed itself in similar fashion as might have occurred in the 15th century. Slow, hot, devoid of the western colors of my Caribbean imagination, with a diet consisting of boiled rice, couscous with milk, and on special occasion with the arrival of a guest or a stranger, the roasting of meat. The initial boredom arising with the sun and going to bed with the sunset was difficult. The irony, the irony was that I was an agricultural volunteer in a village that had slaves or slave-like relations with individuals of darker skin who lived across the dunes. The Haratins, as the workers were identified, did all the physical work in my village. And every night you saw them traversing the dunes to bring us our evening meal of couscous.

To deal with the boredom, I put my all into my work. My emphasis on gardening resulted in the harvest of a green pepper here and there, or an onion, but otherwise bore little fruit. During those initial months in the village, I wonder what was worse, the lack of work interest on the part of the women, or the fact that the garden was located close to the only well in the village whose daily presence of goats, camels, cows, and children and women pulling water made working a difficult task. But I trudged on, writing two letters a day, reading endless books and practicing my rudimentary Arabic over my ninth glass of tea.

While my experience in Mauritania was cut short by the first Gulf War, the lessons learned are still with me. I still think of those nights staring at the stars while my Muslim family finished their prayers, of our family gathering around the bowl of couscous for our evening meal, of the long stretch of evening drinking our three cups of tea. My Peace Corps experience reinforced for me the importance of family, the importance of focusing on the here and now, particularly the person in front of you, and that your lasting legacy is measured by the number of times we extend a helping hand to a neighbor or stranger, regardless of religion, color of skin, or national identity. Shukran mas allah. Which means thank you and God be with you in Arabic.

Phyllis Noble: Thank you.

Maria del Carmen Moreno: Oh, you're welcome. Thank you.