Linda Meinders Webb Oral History Interview
Interviewer(s): Robert Klein
Interviewee(s): Linda Meinders Webb

Robert Klein: This is Bob Klein, and today is November 3, 2008. I'm interviewing Linda Meinders Webb, who was Peace Corps volunteer in 1966 to '68 in India in an applied nutrition project. Let's go back maybe a year before you joined the Peace Corps and talk about what was going on.

Linda Meinders Webb: I was, I was in college. I was in college the year before. And when I was a sophomore in college, I took a test, the Peace Corps test, and was interested in joining then. I took the Peace Corps test and I said, I think I need to finish college.

Robert Klein: Where were you in college?

Linda Meinders Webb: I was at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Robert Klein: And what was your major or what were you studying?

Linda Meinders Webb: Uh, I majored in history.

Robert Klein: And what was your intent? I mean, did you have a career goal at that point or?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, I had no career goal, actually. When I was, I didn't. The spring of my senior year, I did not have a job and I wasn't successful applying for jobs. And so the Peace Corps recruiters came and it just sounded like a good deal to me.

Robert Klein: Okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: I sent in my application and almost right away I got a telegram. I mean, I guess you don't send telegrams anymore, but I got a telegram. And it's saying I'd been accepted into, you know, Peace Corps in India, about less than a month after I applied. That was great. I knew what I was going to do for the next two years.

Robert Klein: Great. Well, let's go back. Where did you grow up?

Linda Meinders Webb: I grew up on a farm in Wood, near Wood Lake, Minnesota. And I know I had that, some of the things, it actually prepared me for a lot in the Peace Corps.

Robert Klein: And large family, small family?

Linda Meinders Webb: It was a large family. I have three sisters, three brothers and two sisters.

Robert Klein: And did you go, where did you go to high school?

Linda Meinders Webb: I went to one school for 12 years, Wood Lake Public, and I had no kindergarten, just that's where I went to school. And then I went to Hamline.

Robert Klein: And during your high school, did you do any volunteer work?

Linda Meinders Webb: Oh, yes. Yes, I was, I was active in my NYF youth fellowship and I was active in 4-H. I actually got a 4-H Key Club.

Robert Klein: This is in high school?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes, in high school. Right. Which, Key Club is as high as you can go in 4-H.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And, uh, I helped publish the yearbook in high school. And also I was a yearbook editor in college too.

Robert Klein: In high school, were you able to do any travel?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, my, we were on the farm. My parents didn't travel much. When I was in sixth grade, my neighbor invited me to go with their family to the Black Hills and I decided to go. And my sixth grade teacher did not like it because I was ruining my perfect attendance at school. But I said yes, I'm going.

Robert Klein: Okay, so that was it. But were you the first in your family to go to college?

Linda Meinders Webb: Oh, no, my, I have an older sister. She graduated from Macalester and I went to Hamline.

Robert Klein: Okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: My parents, my mother had gone to college for a couple of years.

Robert Klein: So when you finished high school, you would decide next step was college?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes.

Robert Klein: And you ended up studying history, not being quite sure what your goal was. Did you expect to be a teacher or?

Linda Meinders Webb: At first, when I first went to college, I thought I would be a teacher, but and I thought I was going to major in English or math, which I had done well in high school. But I didn't, I took. What threw me off is I was put in advanced classes from tests in both English and math. And compared to people from big city schools, I shouldn't have been in advanced classes. And that hurt me. It threw me off. So it took a while to adjust to that.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: I mean, if I had just been in regular classes, I would have been fine. But trying to put me in advanced classes when I really wasn't prepared for it.

Robert Klein: During your four years of college, did you do any travel, any volunteer work? Did you study any foreign language?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes. In high school I studied German and in college I had, I studied German. We had a language requirement both places.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: Uh, I didn't travel around when I was in college. I had worked in the summers and I did do volunteer work when I was, uh, one of the first things, just community activist. I volunteered to, uh, go in. This was in, you know, in the sixties. Right when I was a freshman, '62 or '63, I volunteered to go into a suburban Minneapolis or a suburban neighborhood and ask them about a Black family. I think when one had moved in or done anything, that was my activist. And it was it was a little shocking to hear that. But I mean, Minnesota was like 98 percent white.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: It was a big deal.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: For someone doing that. I like I said, I published The Liner and I was in a sorority in college.

Robert Klein: Do you remember, do you remember when you first heard of the Peace Corps?

Linda Meinders Webb: I think that I heard it right at the very beginning. Well, I mean, Minnesota. Hubert Humphrey was from Minnesota. And Hubert Humphrey got some credit for the Peace Corps, at least in Minnesota.

Robert Klein: Sure.

Linda Meinders Webb: So, yes, we did hear about it at the very beginning and said I wanted to go into it.

Robert Klein: And as it developed to go in the Peace Corps, what was the reaction of your family and your friends?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, my friends, especially from college, thought it was great. My family, my father especially thought, what? You were raised on a farm. You went there. Now you go to college and now you want to go to India for two years and work in a, you know, you know, on a farm or do all that. And applied nutrition we were working with.

Robert Klein: And what did you say?

Linda Meinders Webb: I said I was.

Robert Klein: I'm going.

Linda Meinders Webb: I'm going. Right. So he didn't have much to say about it, but he didn't. He didn't, he thought I should be, you know, working, getting a job or just something else. My mother thought it was great. My mother always wanted to travel, and she loved the fact that I could travel.

Robert Klein: Well, so as you came near graduation, you had already been accepted to the Peace Corps?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes, I applied in May. I graduated on 6-6-66 [June 6, 1966].

Robert Klein: Okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: And I went into the Peace Corps about a week afterwards or ten weeks after was the first time I flew in an airplane. I flew from Minneapolis to Boston and we were supposed to fly to Lebanon, near where Hanover, where Dartmouth is.

Robert Klein: Yes.

Linda Meinders Webb: But we couldn't, that was, visibility was poor. So they actually, we went by car from Boston.

Robert Klein: Yeah. So it was the first, your first time flying?

Linda Meinders Webb: First time flying.

Robert Klein: But when you received the telegram from Peace Corps saying you've been accepted for training and India, at that point did you have any second thoughts? I mean, now the idea of Peace Corps has suddenly become a reality.

Linda Meinders Webb: No, I didn't have any second thoughts. One thing, though, I did not know until I got to Peace Corps, until I got there, is that, I mean, I didn't have to do anything. I was, I was going straight out of college. I didn't own anything. I just, you know, if I go there and it didn't work out, I would get something else. But when I was in the Peace Corps, unlike what it is now I think, is we were at, there were 70 people invited for training or 75 or something and only 50 made it.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: So it was competitive. You didn't necessarily go to training and become a volunteer.

Robert Klein: Well, we'll talk about that. So, uh, you, you are accepted into a program in applied nutrition, but you had no background in studying nutrition?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, but I think it's, I think it said something about it was an agriculture program or something. Because with the applied nutrition program, we started nursery schools with the mid-day meal, but there were people that were nurses and nurses and, you know, Peace Corps nurses and nurses, and there were people that worked with poultry and some people worked with eggs.

Robert Klein: So you think it was because you grew up on a farm?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes, it helped me. And I think there was something about the overall description. Yes.

Robert Klein: Okay. Now you report to Dartmouth, you flew, got into Boston and they took you up to and you're at Dartmouth College. Is that where the training is?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, that's where we were told. So we spent a whole week at Dartmouth and then we went to the hills of Vermont.

Robert Klein: Well, let's go back to just the very first getting together in Dartmouth. Now you're in the presence of, what, 70 other people who've joined the Peace Corps, and it's your first chance to look at others who made the same decision as you. Do you recall your reaction?

Linda Meinders Webb: No.

Robert Klein: Okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: Not really. Not my first reaction.

Robert Klein: You felt comfortable?

Linda Meinders Webb: I think I was just, yeah, I was just taking it all in.

Robert Klein: Okay. Okay. And so you spent a week at Dartmouth, and what went on during that first week.

Linda Meinders Webb: In the, we basically got settled into what we were doing, had some classes. I'm not even sure we spent a week, because we, right away they told us we would be going to a ski resort and we would be. The couple, there were some couples there. They would be building their own places to live for the evening, their cots, their little tents that they had. And we, uh, we were in more of the camping. The girls were all just.

Robert Klein: What time of year was it?

Linda Meinders Webb: It was in the summer.

Robert Klein: Oh, okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: It was a really, we went in June. We left in September, but it was very cold, wet summer.

Robert Klein: Yeah. Now, the group was mostly women?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, no, no. Most, when I was there.

Robert Klein: In the training group?

Linda Meinders Webb: Right. The training group was mostly men. Actually, I mean, this was in 1966 and there were just a lot of the men getting out of the, not going to Vietnam for the war.

Robert Klein: Right. Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And so, no, they were mostly, mostly men I recall.

Robert Klein: Yeah. Yeah. All right. So you then go from Dartmouth to the ski resort where you build your own?

Linda Meinders Webb: Right. We, we didn't, the women didn't have to build our own, but we were pretty rustic and we had no heat. Like I said, it was cold. We slept in our sleeping bags. And in the end, because we were doing with the nursery school, they ended up bringing up some children, boys from the slum. I don't know if they were, I got, was assigned a boy. I think they were all boys from the slums in New Haven that they said, and we were supposed to practice with them and they absolutely wore us out.

Robert Klein: So what were you practicing? Just working with the child?

Linda Meinders Webb: Just working with them. Right. And they thought it would be a good idea. But studying the language, learning everything else, it was hard.

Robert Klein: Now, who, do you remember who ran the program?

Linda Meinders Webb: Uh, Wright. I forget his first name.

Robert Klein: Was it, was it under Dartmouth or was it some company or?

Linda Meinders Webb: I think, no. I think that these people probably did. And they had it.

Robert Klein: Yeah,

Linda Meinders Webb: They were the, Wright was the one who was in charge and did all that. He had some, he was more affiliated with Yale because that's where he came from, New Haven and everything. And a lot of the staff were all returned volunteers.

Robert Klein: From India?

Linda Meinders Webb: A lot of them, it must have been in India, yes.

Robert Klein: Okay. Most training programs have several components. One is language. Language training.

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes.

Robert Klein: Let's talk about the language training you had.

Linda Meinders Webb: We learned Telugu and we did have English. I mean, Indian, you know, speaking who is native tongue was Telugu.

Robert Klein: Now where is Telugu spoken?

Linda Meinders Webb: Telugu is spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh which is in South India.

Robert Klein: Oh, in the south.

Linda Meinders Webb: Yeah. It's, where we were as in the very south. Hyderabad is the capital of Andhra and we were closer by bus to either go to Madras or Bangalore.

Robert Klein: And was the entire group learning Telugu? And you are all going to?

Linda Meinders Webb: All of us were going to Andhra. This was at a time when, after Indira Gandhi and Johnson had written, had a proposal, and the United States was giving money or something. And they had a lot of Peace Corps volunteers that went with it. We had, just in our state, we maybe had three or 400. I didn't even know all the volunteers in Andhra.

Robert Klein: It was an enormous project, India was.

Linda Meinders Webb: India was enormous project. We had, every state had like two doctors assigned to, Peace Corps, doctors assigned to the Peace Corps there.

Robert Klein: Well, we'll get to, let's stay in training and then we'll get overseas. So there was language training. Were you told that you had to get up to a certain proficiency in language or you wouldn't go?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, we really didn't, because one of the, this, the, at that time, the south wanted English as a national language and the northern India wanted Hindi as the language. And so a lot of people spoke English.

Robert Klein: So it was.

Linda Meinders Webb: We learn Telugu, we were stressed Telugu, but I don't think it wasn't as important as maybe some other groups.

Robert Klein: Another component of training often is technical studies, whatever work you're expected to do. They try, the Peace Corps tries to prepare you.

Linda Meinders Webb: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Robert Klein: What was that?

Linda Meinders Webb: We had a lot of professors that would tell us about India. You know, we took history courses, geography courses, and also we worked with applied nutrition and. And so what, our job, our part of it was starting nursery schools and so we used a lot of the Head Start, which Head Start was just starting in the United States and we used a lot of the Head Start principles.

Robert Klein: Now, this was all while you were up in?

Linda Meinders Webb: In training.

Robert Klein: In the ski resort area.

Linda Meinders Webb: In Berkshire, Vermont.

Robert Klein: Okay. So did anyone from Peace Corps India or Washington say, well, when you get there, the job you're going to do is this? I mean, or was it left a little vague?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, it was always left a little vague. I think that we would be doing community development and working with that so.

Robert Klein: Yeah. So there's language training, area technical, and also area studies. I gather the technical and area studies went together. You learned about India.

Linda Meinders Webb: We learned about India. We also learned technical. We learned, even though mine was applied nutrition and I had that, oh, I had to learn about chickens, I had to take poultry exams and the other things. And we learned all about unfertilized eggs and everything.

Robert Klein: Oh, okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: We had tests. So yes, they were serious. There were people that, I mean, as a matter of fact, I didn't do well on one test. I had to repeat it. And I was scared stiff that I wouldn't make it repeating the test. I mean, I studied and got everything there, and, I mean, I aced that test. Ooh.

Robert Klein: Even though you had grown up on a farm?

Linda Meinders Webb: Even though I grew up on a farm, I think I thought I didn't have to study it so hard.

Robert Klein: Yeah. Yeah. Now, the other, the other major part of training is what's called selection. And it has been done in different ways, in different programs. Were you aware of the selection process?

Linda Meinders Webb: Oh, yeah, they did tell us about that. We had.

Robert Klein: How did it go, how did it work?

Linda Meinders Webb: We took the, uh, we had to do the Minnesota Multiphasical [Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory] which I had taken in high school and college. So I was used to it, but it scared other people. And my roommate actually did not make the training.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And so we, at mid, we had sort of like a midterm. There were some people that were sent home right at midterm.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And some people were just warned. My roommate was warned at midterm, not, she didn't have to leave then.

Robert Klein: What was the warning she got?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, she just needed to be stronger in, you know, in her subjects and doing all that.

Robert Klein: Okay. It wasn't she had to be stronger psychologically, I mean, because?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, maybe that too. But just, I mean, I, I don't really know because I was, I felt that I got strong encouragement that, yes, I was going to make it and doing everything. I, I know that she was a little worried. I listened to her there, but I guess it was so competitive that a lot of people just, you just didn't sit around and talk much about it and especially since you were living in, you know, and it was so cold and doing all that, it was more truly a survival. And you were, you were, you know, being kind to people, but you basically were worried about yourself.

Robert Klein: Yeah. Did. [tape break] Okay. So you mentioned in selection that actually your roommate was deselected or was warned at mid selection. Did you have, were you interviewed separately by a psychiatrist or psychologist?

Linda Meinders Webb: Oh, yes. We all had separate interviews. We all were tested. We had separate interviews with psychiatrists, we had separate interviews with other staff.

Robert Klein: And did it shake you? I mean, I mean, most of us aren't accustomed to going, having psychiatric interviews and?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, not really. I just, I don't know. I guess I didn't know. I guess I didn't know enough not to know, not to be afraid or anything, but it didn't bother me.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: Other people talked about it and I guess I never, I really didn't know what a psychiatric interview was, except I, the only thing experience I had with is we had foster children in our home. And, you know, we had a boy that used to go to his, he would always see the psychologist to play games he would talk about.

Robert Klein: Mm hmm. So was there anything else about training? How long did it last?

Linda Meinders Webb: It lasted three months. And one weekend we did get to go, I went with a group of other people. We went to Cape Cod.

Robert Klein: Just a break from training?

Linda Meinders Webb: Just a break from training. A weekend, a couple of days.

Robert Klein: And were you working with a child for the whole training part or just a week or so?

Linda Meinders Webb: It was just towards the end. They gave us different children. They assigned to us. And one of the things is we took the children on a field trip and I was driving. Another lady was with me, an older lady. And this is in Vermont, up and down the hills. And I was coming down the hill. These were old cars. And I said, the brakes aren't working. Very quietly. And she said, well, use the handbrakes. And I said, I tried.

Robert Klein: And?

Linda Meinders Webb: And we, I mean, I never used the, I never put my foot on the gas after that, just trying to see what we could do. And when we got down, since, you know, since we hadn't given it any gas, it was lower, but we just went around in circles and just stopped. And then she got out and called the camp. And the people at the camp thought we were wonderful, but the children thought we were terrible. And after that, the person that I was supposed to be taking care of didn't even want to talk to me.

Robert Klein: Huh. But that didn't affect the training as such?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, not really. They, they asked me then if I wanted to be assigned to someone else. I said no.

Robert Klein: Yeah. So then were there any other components of training?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, we had a physical, this was a very much physical fitness. I mean, we had someone from the New York Times that came out and wrote it was the Fort Dix of the Peace Corps. And we had, we all had to do a ten minute mile or we couldn't make it. And I was, you know, study doing hard, staying up all night, running, chasing the kids. It was hard. But one morning, I got up, I did the ten minute mile. I made it and never got up again for any physical education. But we had to do a ten minute mile. Yeah, we had lots of.

Robert Klein: Did anyone try to justify why they were doing it, the physical training part of it? You weren't going to be going to India to climb mountains.

Linda Meinders Webb: No, we weren't. And that's what some of the people were complaining about and talking. And we, I guess even more so when we got in the country, is that India is hot and it's hot, hotter, and hottest. And we were going in the south where it's hottest.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And it was a cold summer. Temperatures weren't the same. We were not going to be walking up and down mountains.

Robert Klein: Right, right.

Linda Meinders Webb: Doing all that. But they guess, they just, I mean, it was like the challenge. I mean, you it was we accepted whatever it was, you know, this process.

Robert Klein: Because you knew it was part of the selection process.

Linda Meinders Webb: It was part of the selection process. And I mean, when if you went there, you really wanted to go to India. And I think that was what, just deciding to see if you really wanted to go. That was what they tested.

Robert Klein: Did you also have health training?

Linda Meinders Webb: What?

Robert Klein: Health?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, we had, we had people that especially that were in nurses training. We all had to have a couple of health courses, yes.

Robert Klein: Yeah. And were there volunteers who had served in India who took part in the training?

Linda Meinders Webb: Oh, yes. Most of the, most of our instructors had all been to India.

Robert Klein: So they, you could talk to them about.

Linda Meinders Webb: We could talk to them. There also was one volunteer who had been raised in India with missionaries and she spoke Hindi, although we were learning Telugu, and she had a hard time during training because they thought that she was just trying to get back to India. So even though she was good, but I mean, we would of course ask, she would tell us all kinds of stories about India. We liked that. It was easier to talk to her than, you know, some of the staff.

Robert Klein: Because they weren't, you weren't worried about selection with her.

Linda Meinders Webb: Right. And with the other thing is that what we had to do to prepare us for India, I guess. But one day we had to cut up the chicken and then that evening was the first night that we had to eat without our without silverware, with our hands, because you didn't eat with the hands in India. And there were a lot of people that were hungry that night.

Robert Klein: Did, uh, did the group, if people with disappearing from training all the time, did the group protest at all? Did the group come together and say, what's going on here?

Linda Meinders Webb: Oh, no, no. No. Because we knew at the very beginning that everybody would not make it.

Robert Klein: Okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: And it was just the people were deselected, but there was only, it was just at the midterm and then at the final. But what was really almost unfair that people that would, we knew they had the deselection process. But in the end, and we even voted on the people.

Robert Klein: Oh, you did?

Linda Meinders Webb: And we had to vote which team we, what people we'd want on our team to see who was liked by the other people, do a lot of other things. But the one thing that we didn't find out until the very final day is it didn't, they didn't exactly have a set number before. They still had to, talking to India, talking to some other place, and finding out that maybe this person could make it, maybe this person couldn't, or that they could take that, because I mean, it found out later India had a lot of volunteers and I guess.

Robert Klein: Yeah. And the group didn't object to doing the rating? Well, my vote might get someone kicked out.

Linda Meinders Webb: No.

Robert Klein: Okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: Because in a way, it was just the way it was. We thought that that was what we were taught.

Robert Klein: Well, since it was the time it was, where was there any discussion about Vietnam?

Linda Meinders Webb: This was in '66. So it was a little early.

Robert Klein: It was before the big buildup.

Linda Meinders Webb: We were reading about Vietnam. We talked some about Vietnam. But really, I mean, I guess I don't remember much of the other discussion because it was, we were working and studying, you know, 12, 13 hours, and then trying to get our sleep. I don't remember, but I'm sure there might have been people that were talking about it because there were some guys in other groups I know, and probably in this group, who were in the Peace Corps instead of being drafted.

Robert Klein: And because you were going to India, which was known to be a third world leader, sort of a neutral, were the discussions of politics and how to talk when you met Indians?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, yes, there was, there was a politics, especially politics, where we learned a lot about the history of India in our training. Are we still talking about training?

Robert Klein: Mm hmm. Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And with the, with the Indians in training. Well, I think. I don't know, maybe just from my perspective, I was thinking more from the history than anything. I know afterwards, I was surprised to find that some of the volunteers were put in villages that were very socialist or, you know, everything. But we were, we were taught, of course, that the British had left India, and that was not, you know, and that India was going through its independence.

Robert Klein: You don't recall anyone saying, well, you're going to be, because you're American, you'll be attacked about Vietnam? And it was still early, so probably.

Linda Meinders Webb: No, the other, what, no. We were Americans and what we were taught in training and we certainly did, is that the women were, we were dresses. We did not wear jeans. We weren't wearing slacks. You were doing that. And you were also supposed to be well dressed. You were not mistaken for all the people, the hippies that were in India that were, that were avoiding the draft or.

Robert Klein: Looking for ashrams or.

Linda Meinders Webb: Right. So I remember more about talking about the hippies than about Vietnam. I became interested when I was in India about Vietnam but not before.

Robert Klein: Okay, so final selection and you're chosen. What happens at that point?

Linda Meinders Webb: At that point, we were told. We were told about the team that we had and they combined our team with the other split training group that went, that was trained in Williams, Williams College. And I ended up, most of my, all of the people that I worked with had been trained in Williams College. So they weren't the people that I was trained with at Dartmouth. But then we went home. We were, we went home for a while, like about a week. And then we were supposed to all meet in New York.

Robert Klein: While you were home, was there a grand celebration going or is just quiet? And did you have any second thoughts?

Linda Meinders Webb: No. I was just looking forward to the adventure.

Robert Klein: Did anyone and nobody tried to say, oh, please don't go?

Linda Meinders Webb: No.

Robert Klein: Okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: I don't think at that time.

Robert Klein: Yeah. So then you had the week home and you report to.

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, then we were supposed to meet in New York and go out of there, but we ended up spending an extra couple of days in New York because they didn't have visas for us. We had a problem with the visas, and so we didn't know how long we'd be in New York, but we were. So we were put up in hotels for a couple of days in New York. We finally got to go, so we were tired.

Robert Klein: And that was your first time in New York City?

Linda Meinders Webb: That was the first time in New York City.

Robert Klein: Did you have a chance to do a little tour?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes, we did. We did, we went to some of the things. Uh huh. But we also couldn't do a lot because we never knew, you know, in a couple hours we might get a visa and leave or whatever.

Robert Klein: Mm hmm. And talk about the trip, how you got to India and your initial reaction and arriving there.

Linda Meinders Webb: Okay. So we, we then got our plane and because we had been held up a couple of days, I think we might have gone in different, different routes. But we, we had a couple layovers. One was like in Holland actually, and in Belgium. And I remember and I went with some other people, we wanted to get our exercise, we had been sitting there, and I went to see Anne Frank's home.

Robert Klein: Oh, okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: And then came back and we flew to Pakistan. But there we just were there in the airport for an hour or so. And oh, the heat, the heat, the heat was almost too much. The first time realizing we were, the heat was going to be a big, big factor.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And then we went to Delhi and it wasn't the heat. It was the smell.

Robert Klein: Oh, okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: It hit you.

Robert Klein: Yes. So you arrived, you arrived in India. You went into Delhi. Was there a reception or just?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, there was a. Well, actually, we stayed at a nice hotel in Delhi for a couple. [tape break]

Robert Klein: Okay. Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: As opposed to Delhi, we went to. Yeah, we went, went to the embassy. We did that. That was kind of nice. And then we were divided into our groups and we took a long train ride and my. The train ride from Delhi to Hyderabad.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: We were told, do not drink the water. Do not drink the water. Even when you brush your teeth, do not drink the water. Well, I drink the water. I spit out, but I drank the water. I got dysentery. And I got sick.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: I, as a matter of fact, I ended up in the hospital. Then we went on a bus from there to go to our village.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: After that. And I ended up at the hospital for a few days before I went to my village.

Robert Klein: So you were in the hospital in Hyderabad?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, not in Hyderabad. I was beyond that in, uh, near Bangalore. When I was out there, it was, it was a town that had, it was, had a lot of the big mission hospital and where they had a lot of leper colony. I don't remember the name of the town.

Robert Klein: So you mentioned, you mentioned that you became part of a team and most of the team trained elsewhere. What was the team concept? I don't, how is that supposed to work?

Linda Meinders Webb: Right. The team concept was that one person was the boahdi, which is nursery school, to start the nursery school. But the reason to start the nursery school was not for education, but it was to feed with the mid- day meal. And so you had someone else that was the, was my roommate. Then later was the one who was working on community gardens. Someone else was raising poultry. And we had a nurse in the group.

Robert Klein: And on that team, who were you on the team? Which role were you playing?

Linda Meinders Webb: I was, I was the starting nursery school.

Robert Klein: Oh, okay. And that had been part of your training?

Linda Meinders Webb: That had been part of my training, right, with the Head Start, just doing that. It not as, I guess what I wasn't trained at and what I, or I don't remember being trained as much, but a lot of what we did was more for starting nursery schools, it's more community organization than working with our coworkers. And then there was money from CARE to get the money there that I was able to do that.

Robert Klein: Now, a lot of the program was based on distributing CARE food in a school lunch program?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, it wasn't. It was, we got the UNICEF packets were the, for the garden, the beans, something else. And then someone raised the poultry and you had eggs with the poultry.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And so for food for the community garden. So my part was just getting a teacher and getting the building and getting, you know, the part for the, for the nursery school.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And so I spent a lot of time, I had a coworker and most of us had coworkers. I got along very well with my coworker.

Robert Klein: Yeah, well, let's, let's. So what's the name of the village you finally ended up in?

Linda Meinders Webb: Chandragiri.

Robert Klein: Chandragiri. When you got to Chandragiri, you must have been a little late because you were in the hospital.

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes.

Robert Klein: The others on the team had already been there? Were you the first Peace Corps to go into that village?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes, we were the first Peace Corps to go in that village.

Robert Klein: And was, had someone arranged housing for you?

Linda Meinders Webb: Oh, yes. Yes. Or at least lately the way I've known it. But at that time, every volunteer was to be given a house, the village gave us the house. A very nice one that my roommate and I stayed there.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: It had electricity. And also we were given two Raleigh bicycles.

Robert Klein: Uh huh.

Linda Meinders Webb: And we were given, they were supposed to be Raleigh. We had Raleighs. Some people didn't. But that we, because we were told, they were told that the Indian bicycles wouldn't hold Americans.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: So we had English, we got three speed bicycles.

Robert Klein: Yeah. Talk about your living arrangement. You first come into the village now. You're finally at the end of your Peace Corps journey in a way. I mean, because you've finally come to the point where you're going to work. Talk about your reaction and settling into the living arrangement, and then we'll talk about your work situation.

Linda Meinders Webb: Okay, right. Well, we worked in groups, but Wendy Cutter and I were the only ones assigned to our village, were there. We were in a mahila mandel, it's an area group. So the other two people that were doing the chickens, as she was doing the garden. I was doing the nursery school.

Robert Klein: Wendy was doing the garden?

Linda Meinders Webb: Two people that were in chickens were in a different village. But we could, with our bicycles, we could get there.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: In another village that was a little further off, a couple lived there and she was the nurse. I'm not sure his role.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: But they were, we had to go through. And Chandragiri is right at the foothills of Tirumala and Tirumala is a big shrine, a Hindu shrine and a temple. And it's, people go there when they thank for everything. And I mean, it's a very wealthy temple and they, they gave Nehru his weight in gold during the Crimean crisis. And so a lot of people would come up there. We would see a lot of, you know, Indian tourists that would go there or that would come from other states do that.

Robert Klein: But those weren't the people you were working with?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, but we were, we were working with more than, I guess, the typical villagers. Almost all the people that we worked with spoke some English.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: Some of them were working with the temple in some way, doing that. There was a, a government compound that my coworker lived in. She lived there with her husband, and they would have some type of meetings in this compound that we would go to and do that, which is. And then, then I would. She would go out to different mahila mandels, which were women's groups, and just talking about different things, you know, for sanitation, for sewing, for different like that. And I would go with her to these different villages to do that.

Robert Klein: Now, what was the, the local government structure or organization with which you worked? I mean, you weren't working on your own. You must have been.

Linda Meinders Webb: We were not, it were, right. It was this, a little area wide development that was the government compound that served that village that we lived in, plus other villages. And it was sort of like we have.

Robert Klein: Like a county government?

Linda Meinders Webb: Like a county government and county, say, the county extension people that did everything. There wasn't a post office, but these were ones that were supporting the agriculture in the area.

Robert Klein: Mm hmm. And so you had a counterpart whose work was identical to yours?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, her. Her work, her work.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: Was with the nursery school, was with the community groups, the women's groups in the different communities.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And so I worked with her doing that. My job was to start the nursery schools and she sort of introduced me to people.

Robert Klein: Well, how in the world do you start nursery schools?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well.

Robert Klein: Had they ever had them before?

Linda Meinders Webb: Uh, yes. One of the, one of the villages had a school, but it wasn't just a nursery school. It was different levels.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: The grades. And we went there and it was so her. She just added younger children to her school. This was one that we sort of worked with and did that. I've kept in touch with her, you know, to this day.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: Do that. Another one, what we wanted to open a temporary one. And so we did it in what was a closed temple and.

Robert Klein: We being you and your counterpart?

Linda Meinders Webb: Right. But so to start this. But one of the ways that was, that she said she really accepted me and felt that is because at the beginning of the, when the compound by where the temple was, there was a leper who was guarding it and doing that. And that didn't bother me. And she thought that was wonderful.

Robert Klein: Yes.

Linda Meinders Webb: Because she, she, they were she was so afraid that American and being so clean and healthy and everything would say, oh, we can't, have to move to remove that person. But I didn't see any need to.

Robert Klein: You didn't have a problem with that?

Linda Meinders Webb: I did not have a problem with it.

Robert Klein: In your first week there, did you have any chance to use your Telugu?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes. We tried to use some words, and also the most words that we had to use is we were given some extra money. And some of this because I was sick at the beginning, I didn't really understand. But my roommate then got the money and it was off to hire a cook.

Robert Klein: Yes.

Linda Meinders Webb: And the cook, of course, would basically, didn't speak much English.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And so we had a cook. But the cook, what the food this cook, this young man had, I don't think he'd ever cooked before. And he didn't last long but.

Robert Klein: Yes.

Linda Meinders Webb: We had to use, yes, Telugu whatever. Right. My roommate actually, because she had been trained at Williams and I guess because she had more experience and was good with languages, she was, knew more Telugu than I did.

Robert Klein: Right. So let's talk about your domestic arrangements. So you had, you and your roommate had your own place?

Linda Meinders Webb: Right. We had our own house. It was really quite nice.

Robert Klein: Yeah. And you had a steward who would take care of the house as well as cook?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes.

Robert Klein: So describe, in the first few months, describe, tell me about a typical day. You get up, you had breakfast.

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, we, it did not take us long where we couldn't. We got very much. Breakfast was really hard because, I mean, we couldn't eat just what was cooked for us or anything. And I had been sick and lost more weight and needed something. So we, we, there was somebody that was selling eggs and we would buy an egg. Oh, yes, this egg we could cook. We could cook an egg.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And the other thing is somebody on the street sold buffalo milk and we got buffalo milk. We took a long time. I mean, even this, the cook we ended up having to fire and we spent a lot of time just feeding ourselves, especially at the beginning, getting food because we needed some food and it was hard for us to do everything. So we'd get the buffalo milk, we would get the eggs, and then we even found a bakery that was there that we could buy bread. The bread was expensive, but we could buy it, but we could have that.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: So yeah, we could, then after, after that, then we could go to the. With my coworker, then I might go with her and just go to a village.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: That we would walk to the village. I would go with her. My roommate would not.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: She was assigned a male who was harder for her to.

Robert Klein: And her field is what, your roommate?

Linda Meinders Webb: She was supposed to start the community gardens and she had more trouble doing that, Wendy did.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: So I would go out or else, and us because we, we would use this CARE, this upma which was sort of like a grain, a cereal type, that we would give right away and everybody that, they would have in the nursery school. So actually we would end up, maybe I would end up being around there at noon and that would be my lunch.

Robert Klein: Yes.

Linda Meinders Webb: They would serve, get hot peppers to, Indian peppers, to make it tasty.

Robert Klein: Yeah. So over the first few months, there was one established school that you worked with and.

Linda Meinders Webb: Right. There was one established school that we worked with that teacher and we had a couple other teachers. No, there were two. One other teacher did something else there. Yeah, I guess maybe one at the beginning.

Robert Klein: And did you actually start any nursery schools or work with the community to get one going?

Linda Meinders Webb: To get a building, a permanent building?

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, we, I mean, we started the nursery school in what was the temple. I arranged with all the CARE people and everything for a building to be constructed. It was going to be constructed. We got the land, we had everything arranged. It was time for me to leave.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: I went back actually later and I'm not sure it was built. Or if it was built, it was not used for nursery school.

Robert Klein: Right. Right. Well, let's, let's talk about, oh, six months into your service. How did you feel about the work you were doing? Did you feel there was something for you to do? It had shape. Could you, did it make sense?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, I mean, I think we understood that we were learning as much as they were, you know, as much as we were teaching them. And so to do that, trying to have an exchange with the other people and to do that. But we did, say every six months, we did then go in. We had conferences. So maybe after six months we all went to Hyderabad and we met with Peace Corps staff with everything there. They, we'd have to do that to keep up our shots, do everything else.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: But then we would have a chance to compare experiences with other people and to see exactly what we were able to accomplish. We realized that we were sort of lucky, being in a house by ourself, having electricity and a bicycle.

Robert Klein: Yeah. But as far as the work you were doing was, where others making the same kind of progress that you were or were you out ahead of it or?

Linda Meinders Webb: Most, I think most others were not making as much progress. And some people even, I mean, were not accepted at all in the community. I mean, where, you know, didn't want Americans there.

Robert Klein: Who had decided to place you in that village and the people in the other villages?

Linda Meinders Webb: Who assigned them?

Robert Klein: Yeah. I mean, Peace Corps couldn't simply say we're sending people into a village, was there?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, no. I think because this was a government building, I think that there was probably some pressure for them to take some Peace Corps volunteers and they agreed and they found all the other things. And so I think the same thing with some other villagers, they were, they might have been told, you're getting this and you're also getting volunteers with it. Maybe they didn't quite understand.

Robert Klein: No, was AID involved with food supplies or?

Linda Meinders Webb: I don't think.

Robert Klein: It was CARE.

Linda Meinders Webb: CARE and UNICEF. I don't remember AID at all.

Robert Klein: Oh, okay. So after six months, you, you met in Hyderabad?

Linda Meinders Webb: Oh, yes. We met in a nice, nice hotel. And it was like culture shock.

Robert Klein: Yes.

Linda Meinders Webb: We weren't dressed. What is this?

Robert Klein: Yeah. Yeah. While you were in the field during the first six months, were you reporting back to a Peace Corps office at all or how did they know what you were doing?

Linda Meinders Webb: Uh, one time the Peace Corps director did come out.

Robert Klein: Mm hmm. Do you remember who it was?

Linda Meinders Webb: We may have had to fill out some forms in order to get some money. My roommate did that. I don't remember having a lot of contact. I do remember Peace Corps doctors coming out once visiting our site and we had to get shots. And I remember the director coming to our village, which was a big thing.

Robert Klein: And the director was?

Linda Meinders Webb: Joyce Russell was the director in Hyderabad. She came and I, one of the things that she was, that I couldn't believe is, she had this very nice jeep that she was there and she had a driver. But her theory was, you know, she didn't feel that she necessarily had to lock it, which I guess we locked everything. Our basic was in everything not being stolen, but. And she, she, she always wore punjabis. I mean, you know, every day.

Robert Klein: Punjabis are?

Linda Meinders Webb: Punjabis, you know, as opposed to saris. Right. That were made of cotton and, you know, with the white pants on the legs and more like a skirt.

Robert Klein: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And then a scarf thrown around the top.

Robert Klein: Right. Right. Um. So during the six months, once after the bout of dysentery, your health was okay?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, it took me a while. I know it took me at least a month.

Robert Klein: So you must have lost a lot of weight and then you slowly began regaining?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, I lost the weight in the beginning. A lot of people that are, that I know who are volunteers either lost weight or gained weight. Didn't stay the same. I think my roommate may have gained weight. Actually, in the end I know she lost. But I had lost quite a bit.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And I was, I didn't want to lose, keep losing that much. So then I just stabilized.

Robert Klein: Yeah. During, during the, when you were first there, were you writing home a lot?

Linda Meinders Webb: I did. I wrote, I wrote home a lot. We had, uh, the air mail.

Robert Klein: Air letters.

Linda Meinders Webb: Air letters that we would write. Yes. And I would write home a lot. I know I had, I started even when I just, you know, when we stopped when in Holland started sending postcards home. I would send those. I always sent postcards home and I, I wrote a lot. Yes. I had a friend that I wrote from college.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And she didn't tell me afterwards till I came to visit her when she was in Washington. But she said it sounded like something out of National Geographic, which I liked. But yeah, I like to write to people.

Robert Klein: Yeah. So let me. During your first year, were you able to become personal friends with any of, any Indian counterparts, any people from the village?

Linda Meinders Webb: I think my coworker I was the first a friend. Yes. We were.

Robert Klein: What was her job? Same as yours?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, she was, she was working with the community in the different villages. She was doing her community work, which was sort of the same as mine. She, her job wasn't to start the nursery school, but was to support me. So she was there. We did, because I guess we were Americans there. There was a college in Tirupati, which was about seven miles away. And we, some of the teachers there had been to the States. And we got to know some of those. And they also had a pork college.

Robert Klein: A what?

Linda Meinders Webb: They raised. This was basically a Hindu population. And so they raised pork, which they had learned in the States. And we would sometimes go there and buy pork.

Robert Klein: Oh, okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: It was, we didn't, didn't buy beef. It wasn't really sold. And we would go there. We felt at the college, it was better to buy the pork. And also, even though one of our members was Jewish, we would go to the Christian services with the Christian missionaries because of the meals.

Robert Klein: Yeah. Yes.

Linda Meinders Webb: Again, we were all losing weight, anything, I mean.

Robert Klein: Now, in the village you were in, were there other non Indians, were there other Americans or the Europeans?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, no. There was nobody in our village.

Robert Klein: And the missionaries you talk about, were they Indian missionaries?

Linda Meinders Webb: No. The missionaries were from Canada.

Robert Klein: Okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: They were Canadian. They had, they were in a village a couple of villages away. We would have to take busses to get there.

Robert Klein: Okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: So they weren't in our village, but we would see them maybe once a month. They would invite us. We would go into Tirupati, go to the church, or go and visit them. We, there were some Indians, a young couple that their father had some business or something at the, in the town. And they were, they lived in Tirupati, but he was a medical student. And his, I guess I think they might have gotten married. We went to their wedding. They were engaged at first. And they, a lot of the, some of the students would want to come and meet us and become friends and they would like to practice their English.

Robert Klein: Right. Right. Do you recall, sometimes it's a difficult time being the first Thanksgiving and the first Christmas while you were, when you were in India?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, I especially remember the first Christmas, because Wendy and I went to Madras and we walked on the sand. And that was the first, I guess I remember writing about the sand, I guess I thought instead of snow, I was walking on the white sand.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: But we thought that was very nice, going into Madras just for the day and spending that, doing that. I remember maybe, I don't know if that was the first Thanksgiving or another one, but anyway, of all the people I could cook more than some others and so we were. One of the volunteers asked me if we would cook a meal for Thanksgiving and they would bring some, they got some pork and did some other things, you know, what we could do. So we did eat that. Ah, but I remember one, maybe the first Thanksgiving we went with someone from a different village and someone else and it was a, we went to, there were some other volunteers that lived there at another town and they were living in an old palace.

Robert Klein: Old palace?

Linda Meinders Webb: It was an old, it was definitely an old palace.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And then there was. And the men went out hunting.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And they were supposed to get the food for us to have for Thanksgiving. We did not have a lot of food that Thanksgiving, but we went there and stayed in this old palace.

Robert Klein: And these are the Peace Corps people?

Linda Meinders Webb: These were the Peace Corps people, but the Indians were the ones that were taking them with them on hunting.

Robert Klein: Okay, okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: And they didn't, you know

Robert Klein: They weren't very successful.

Linda Meinders Webb: India has a different concept than we do of time. You don't have to do this. We didn't have deadlines. It becomes dark. You don't have food yet.

Robert Klein: Yeah. So it was a different Thanksgiving.

Linda Meinders Webb: It was a different Thanksgiving, yes. And I remember that one Christmas, yes, walking on the white sand instead of white snow.

Robert Klein: Right. During your first year, I mean, you didn't spend all your time on the job. You know, at some point you come home from work, you had weekends. How did you spend your?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, weekends, I don't know that we really distinguish much with weekends, you know, then the rest of the week. But you're right, what we thought was in the evening was ours.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: That the day is sort of when we were working, doing all that. On Sunday mornings I do remember in town, we would go into Tirupati and there would be English movies. Or sometimes English movies, but sometimes even Telugu movies, but for a Hindi movie. But we would always go to the cinema.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: We went to a lot of cinemas. We, it helped with the language, doing that. And they would have popcorn. No butter, pepper on the popcorn, but it was popcorn. So we would, we would, we would go to movies. Yes. And going into Tirupati, going to eat in a restaurant or eating food off there and, of course, talking like to the missionaries or to some of the friends that we'd met, going to their house was something that we did.

Robert Klein: So the restaurants were, would serve good food.

Linda Meinders Webb: I mean, the ones in Tripathi were serving pretty good food. It was Indian food and there were separate restaurants that were. Most of the best restaurants were vegetarian because the temple, the Hindus were very, the good vegetarian foods with the different vegetables and the rice was always good. You could go in the, the ones that served meat were not as nice, the restaurants. They would serve meat and just chapati but you, that's all you would get, or maybe whatever there. So most, I didn't much go into restaurants that served meat.

Robert Klein: Yeah. Yeah. So coming on to the end of the first year, usually this you're entitled to some leave time, some kind of break, and sometimes a time of reflecting about, well, after a year, what have I accomplished? And as I look to my second year, what, what do I want to do before I go home? Do you remember that time and what you did on vacation?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, I remember that when we were in India, we could either take vacation in India. The only exception you could get with special missions, you could go and climb. If some people weren't go to Nepal, they could try to climb with the mountain I guess that was there. But most of us just traveled around India. And of course, India had a lot. I went to, to Kashmir.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: You know, and bought some. I was supposed to go with other friends and something happened that we didn't connect. It didn't work out. So I ended up by myself. But I, I met other Peace Corps volunteers who were traveling, you know, and so I'd be with these other friends at this place and someone else at this place or anything doing that. But yes, I went to Kashmir, went to Delhi, went to the Taj Mahal, went to Calcutta. Which Calcutta was really an eye opener, was quite different because it was, I mean, there were just so many people were in Calcutta and there was so much poverty and.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: You know, Benares and Calcutta was really, you know, it was just, there were, there are fewer people in the south.

Robert Klein: Mm hmm.

Linda Meinders Webb: And there, you know, the pace maybe was a little slower and they were shorter. It just looked like, I mean, Calcutta was almost like, ooh, you were afraid to walk around, to do anything. But then and then just coming back.

Robert Klein: And during your time, your travels, and in your time in the village, did you have any problems of thievery or, you know, where you felt endangered or?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, some things were lost. I guess the only time. Well, Indians will even tell you now, if you can go, you're going to play with them or do anything. It's like, so the last bus leaving from Tirupati going to Chandigarh, everybody that wanted to get on couldn't go on it. Well, when we were still new, just there, we always got out of the bus. But after we'd been there for a while, forget it. They weren't nice to us.

Robert Klein: No special treatment.

Linda Meinders Webb: We had to walk seven miles back home.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: But the time that I guess I was most afraid, and I was with some other volunteers, I was just supporting them. But there were just crowds of people that were just pushing and shoving in some of the festivals that we went to, like in Bangalore. And so there, yeah. And walking the streets at night, we did sort of feel danger, but also felt somewhat secure just because you were bigger than most of the other people.

Robert Klein: Right. Right. Did you encounter people who expressed anti- American feelings or said, what are you doing here and?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, there were other people that had that. We didn't have as much anti-American feelings where we were in the community. Talking about being afraid. I guess the only thing is just being young and female. But anyway, my roommate and I, once there was this man who was, uh, I forget his title. But anyway, he was the government liaison over all of our area. He had some high powered anything and he. [tape break]

Robert Klein: Talking about the time you and your roommate were invited by this gentleman?

Linda Meinders Webb: We were invited by his place. His place, which he lived in, sort of like an old palace or whatever. He was there. But it was sort of a higher power one. But I mean, I think he got the wrong impression. It was very hard for us. So we had to be very diplomatic to say that how we were not going to spend the night at his place, but we were going back to our place.

Robert Klein: Yes.

Linda Meinders Webb: And we still. And we did it, I guess. And I don't know what some of the people in the village. We did come home kind of late, but that was more scared, more than anything else. And we, and for some reason in the crowds, they would just grabbed you, like your boobs. People would be coming and then just walk away, like they did that like it was common.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: I mean, it just sort of, that way, I guess they were treating you, you know, you were an American and you just were sort of, you know, that's what were you doing there?

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: That was, more than anything else, more than anything verbal.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: Or, uh, you know, I never, nobody expressed any anti-American or really discussed anything. But we did see it much more in the north. And that's, you know, it was, when I was there, it was before Bangladesh was ever formed.

Robert Klein: Ah, okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: And you had East Pakistan and West Pakistan and everything. So there was a lot more people like in the south that you had and they accepted, that's where Christianity was still strong. They accepted that and.

Robert Klein: In the south?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes. And if you were converted or not converted, you know, it was okay.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And you had the Hindus, you know, the religion was very strong. And in our village we also had Muslims and we went to one of their ceremonies too.

Robert Klein: Yeah. So one, one of the reasons some people join Peace Corps, or one of the things about Peace Corps service, is a chance to get to know another culture and to get to know another culture means a lot of different things. And do you recall having a sense that you were learning about India or becoming part of it or?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, yes. Well, I think, I think we ended up, you know, we had a temple.

Robert Klein: You keep saying we, is it you and your roommate for the most part?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes.

Robert Klein: You pretty much operated together.

Linda Meinders Webb: Wendy Carter and I. Yeah, we would. And I guess Steve and there were a couple of, uh, some of the other. We'd usually. I guess we did things. I don't usually remember going just by myself, even into town. I'd either go with Wendy or with Steve, and I forget the name of the other guy that lived there. So someone, we would usually go biking or go to something together. Maybe the three of us, or with other people that lived there. Yes. I mean, it wasn't many individual things, but even to talk to. But at the end, we lived almost on the street. At the end of our street was the temple.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And we would go to that and really felt, you know, and the people, you know, that brought us the milk every day. And we had our own. They had given us the yogurt culture, we had our yogurt every day. And we felt good in developing, even becoming. And we were eating rice and the yogurt and, you know, the vegetarian meal, this would be coming in, doing that. The other thing we did is we would chew paan after our meals, which included betel nut, which of course can turn your teeth red.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And I mean, I even brought some betel nut home with me. I mean, you become sort of addicted to it but.

Robert Klein: Sometimes people are able to make a friend who becomes kind of an informant or a mentor about the other culture. And so will explain what a burial or a birth or a marriage or. Did you have, were you able to get someone who could explain what was going on?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes, I think, I think my coworker, she would do that. She, she had, she was Indian and she was a Christian. And she would but she still had family that were Hindus and would tell about the custom and everything. And or when we would go with some of the women's clubs, either she would try to explain or sometimes the other people would try to explain.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And so and some of the other, uh, the same, we would meet with the same people in the villages, yes. And they would always like to, I mean, they would be. They wanted us to learn about their culture and they would be sharing their food or sharing this or giving us experience and teaching us. Yes.

Robert Klein: So most of your traveling around, it was you and Wendy who went to places?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes, either, yes, with Wendy, sometimes with Steve or.

Robert Klein: Let's now talk about going into the second year. In effect, your project was to create these, the schools, nursery schools. Did you project some kind of goal or?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, what my goal would have been to have actually got a new permanent building and got the school started.

Robert Klein: The one school?

Linda Meinders Webb: That was just my goal. Yes. If you could just get that.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: So before I left, I never did see the school completed, but we had made all the arrangements that.

Robert Klein: Well, what did you do to make the school happen?

Linda Meinders Webb: You know, working with the CARE people, then we would do that, and then working with the government, Indian government, villages there. And it was on that property that the school was going to be built. So I felt good that everything was coming together and doing that.

Robert Klein: Right. And were you working with people in the community?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes.

Robert Klein: Who in the community would you work with?

Linda Meinders Webb: It was basically the community that we worked with were these government workers.

Robert Klein: Oh, okay. Okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: In that they had this little government compound and that's where the school was going to be.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: So it was the government workers. And they, of course, it was easier to work with them because that was their job, to work with us.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And also they spoke some English. And they had to do all that. So yeah, we worked with them.

Robert Klein: So as you're coming to the end of your tour. What was your sense of what you had accomplished? Were you satisfied, dissatisfied? I mean, you had just spent 16 months or more of your life. Did you have any sense of what it was about or?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, I think so. I had, I felt good about what I had done, everything. I did, uh, my time would have been up I guess in June, at the end of July. I spent one month afterwards in helping Peace Corps staff in Bangalore. And we, I went around with another Peace Corps staff person, and they were trying to find places where female volunteers could come, because at that time they were then getting more female volunteers. Or more females who were volunteering and they were trying to get places that were situated for them.

Robert Klein: So someone on Peace Corps staff must have considered you a very competent volunteer?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes, I could have stayed longer, but I didn't.

Robert Klein: Yeah. And so at the end of your tour, you spent the extra month helping Peace Corps?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes, I got paid for that.

Robert Klein: But you were content to leave the village and feel that, with the feeling that you had accomplished something or?

Linda Meinders Webb: I left feeling that I had accomplished something. Yes. One, because I really felt the staff, the Indian staff that we worked with in the government compound, understood what we were doing and were doing good job themselves. And so we were all working together in doing, you know, doing that with a purpose. And so we didn't feel like they were fighting them, but still didn't feel like I needed to be there. I still felt like it was their job. It was their country.

Robert Klein: Yeah. During the second year, had additional volunteers come to the village?

Linda Meinders Webb: Not in our village. Two additional village volunteers came to Tirupati. And before that, no volunteers had been in Tirupati, even though that was a bigger town.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And, uh, we had a few problems with them. They were not interested in really working. They, they were seeing how much they could learn about India or anything, but they were two self-proclaimed people that were avoiding the draft.

Robert Klein: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, leaving. As you were leaving, were there plans to be, for you to be replaced? Were other volunteers going to come to the village?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, no other villagers were coming to the village. We, no. We were supposed to work with the community and doing that and the other volunteers were in Tirupati working. So that was in our immediate vicinity, but they were not doing the same project we were doing.

Robert Klein: Mm hmm. So as of the coming to the end of your Peace Corps service, what were your plans at that point? What did you feel you were going to do next?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, I don't know. I didn't know, I guess, what I thought I was going to do next. But I thought it was time to go back to the States and see, you know, pursue something. Otherwise, I might have stayed longer working at Peace Corps in India, which might have been a good idea. It was an option for me. But at that time I didn't.

Robert Klein: Well, I mean, yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: Not something I wanted to do.

Robert Klein: And if you can think in terms of '68 when you're coming back. Uh. What do you feel, what do you think was the impact of being in the Peace Corps had had on you as of that moment? That may have, may be different later.

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, I think, I think what the Peace Corps really opened my eyes just to possibilities maybe that I could do, or even just opened my eyes to what more than what I had thought the United States was, you know, and then helping other. I mean, I had, before I had gone to the Peace Corps, one of the things I had thought about was, you know, maybe going just in a country, not really being a missionary, but sort of maybe teaching in another country. And I really felt like I had done some good, you know, in India. But I also felt that I certainly had learned a lot in what I could do and what I could accomplish. I almost felt like I had spent two years in graduate school and learned so much.

Robert Klein: And they paid you.

Linda Meinders Webb: Not much.

Robert Klein: No. Did you come straight home?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, I went home through Europe. And at that time when we were, we went to Delhi and they all gave us, they gave, we got to make a ticket out.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: With, uh, not United Airlines, an airline that's no longer.

Robert Klein: Pan American.

Linda Meinders Webb: Pan American. And I had never traveled to Europe before. I guess people don't usually do that. They take the train. But anyway, I didn't know any better. So I had plane stops and I went to Moscow first and I had to get a separate visa to go to Moscow. You couldn't go with my Peace Corps billet and you had to go in tours and everything. I spent a week there.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And then I went to, I think it was Austria, Vienna.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: For a week. And I went to Berlin for a week. I went to Athens, I went to Paris and London and home.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: But so I spent a week in these different places and that's what I had. I mean, that's the way I came home.

Robert Klein: And talk about your homecoming and how you reacted to being back and how people dealt with you.

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, my, my homecoming, I guess, was, uh, my home wasn't real happy. My father, I think, was still waiting for me to get a job, but he expected me to make payments at home. And I mean, with a farming, living, growing on a farm, in a farming community of about three, 400 people, there really wasn't a job for me there.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: So I didn't spend a whole lot of time home, but, uh, and the one, I did then go to Saint Paul, Minneapolis. I stayed with some friends and then I got a job just, it was over Christmas time, then just working in a department store. But one of my college friends was teaching and I went to her class and did give a talk.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: On the Peace Corps. And one of the things is because the same picture that had been used in The New York Times was picked up in Read magazine, which is a little.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: For children that you have to read. And so they liked it because I came and they could see that was my picture and I got to speak to them.

Robert Klein: Yeah. So you were a minor celebrity.

Linda Meinders Webb: So, that. So I spoke there. But otherwise, I think my parents were just saying, when is she getting a job or doing all that? But I, when I got, I finally got back to the States and then decided, hey, I kind of liked it overseas. Why is this rush to come back, you know, and do anything? And then I went back to Hamline to the placement service there, and saw what was available. And one of the openings there was to go to, uh, to work with the Red Cross overseas in the Red Cross recreation program. You could go to Vietnam or Korea. And so I responded to that. And over Thanksgiving, I went to Saint Louis for an interview. And I had also applied for the Teacher Corps.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: And so I was accepted in Teacher Corps at University of Wisconsin at Madison, at Milwaukee.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: Madison, Milwaukee, one of the two. And, uh, and I was accepted with the Red Cross to go to Vietnam. So that was a big decision. But then I just decided, yes, I would go with the Red Cross to Vietnam instead of going into Teacher Corps.

Robert Klein: Was there any conviction, a special conviction about the idea of going to Vietnam?

Linda Meinders Webb: No, I think the most, the biggest thing about going to Vietnam was, one, it was warm. I liked being in a warm country. It was kind of neat, being from Minnesota. And the other thing is, at that time, in '68 there was just, when I had been a Peace Corps volunteer, just talking then with other volunteers and everything. We just spent a lot of time talking about India and with the Indians and about there and what is America doing in Vietnam? And I just thought I would like to go and see what, see for myself.

Robert Klein: Yeah, great. And you had some confidence in going to another country because you had been in the Peace Corps.

Linda Meinders Webb: Right. Oh, yes. Right. I didn't, I had no qualms about that. And I just, I mean, at that time, you still, in order to do the Red Cross recreation program, you had to be between ages of 22 to 24, college graduate, never been married. And I was just 24. I was ready. I had to go.

Robert Klein: Another thing is some people are able to stay in touch with the, some of the people they worked with or the village they worked with and through the years. Have you been able to maintain any contact?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes. I mean, I corresponded with the man we had worked with in another village for a long time and then he ended up dying.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: He was fairly young, but his daughter then started corresponding with me. So in 1989, at Christmas time, when I went back to India and I was her guest and so she, at her 25th birthday. I mean, I was there when I was 24. At her 25th birthday party, I was there and I, she showed me pictures. I was there at her first birthday party.

Robert Klein: Uh huh, yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: And so she showed me around Madras, these other relatives that were there, we went back to the village with her, so that was really nice. And then a couple of years ago, I received some candles that I still have here and I, they were given to me by, the one, my coworker in India. And she said she bought those for me right before I left, but somehow or she couldn't give them to me and she never had my address before that. Or somehow they got mixed up or something and it was like out of the blue. I mean, just last year. It was just something. Yeah. So I do, and I send Christmas cards just a couple now to my, the one work teacher that was in there and she also went back to village when I went to Bangalore, when I went there in '89, Christmas time, came back in '90.

Robert Klein: Yeah. And do you recall your reaction in going back to the village where you had worked? I mean, this is, what, almost 20 years later?

Linda Meinders Webb: Oh, it was so different. I went to a different village, which we ended up going, walking to. The one that we did with. There were televisions there.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: There were sinks there.

Robert Klein: Yeah. Did you have any sense that what you had done had had some impact on the development of the village?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, you know, not really. One thing.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: Nobody remembered the words Peace Corps.

Robert Klein: Huh. Interesting.

Linda Meinders Webb: My roommate was named Wendy Cutter. And they always said, Wendy Cutter, Wendy Cutter, Wendy Cutter. And when I went back, they still remembered Wendy Cutter. But nobody knew, you know, even my name, maybe much less Peace Corps.

Robert Klein: Right. Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: I do, I did go to this one teacher that I went and kept in touch with. I did go with her class. She was still at the same school.

Robert Klein: Right.

Linda Meinders Webb: But she was in school before we came. Yeah.

Robert Klein: And, um. Uh.

Linda Meinders Webb: Also the population of India had just doubled.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: So it was just so crowded.

Robert Klein: Oh, yeah. When did, when did Peace Corps come out of?

Linda Meinders Webb: Peace Corps left India, I think it was in '72.

Robert Klein: Okay. So it wasn't too long after you were there?

Linda Meinders Webb: No.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: They were, right. We were there in '66, '68. Right. There was, there were almost too many volunteers there. 1,500. And they just flooded the country. Most good, maybe some not so good. But I think India also has become much less a third world country.

Robert Klein: Oh, yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: You know, it was a second world country. I mean, think of all the Indians that are coming here, well-educated engineers, you know, living here. They just, there was no need for it. That's why we left India.

Robert Klein: But at the end of the second two years, was there a termination conference where your group came back together?

Linda Meinders Webb: Yes, we had a termination conference, yes.

Robert Klein: Do you recall it at all?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, I remember we all got together in Hyderabad and maybe it was more social than anything. The biggest thing I remember is that I talked to the Peace Corps physician and had my ears pierced.

Robert Klein: Oh.

Linda Meinders Webb: Right before I left India. And he just thought, he said, oh, they'd get dirty. You don't want to do this. I said, I don't have anything else to do, I'll keep my ears clean. So but I had bought some earrings, you know, I knew there were some nice gold earrings in India I wanted to buy, and they all had to have with pierced ears.

Robert Klein: Yeah. So you finally.

Linda Meinders Webb: So I got that.

Robert Klein: With the Peace Corps doctor. Yeah. Uh, anything else you want to mention about your service?

Linda Meinders Webb: Well, no, I. I did work, like I said, for one, you know, just one extra month in Bangalore. I maybe could have stayed longer, maybe would have wished to. I, when I did come back after Vietnam, I came back and I worked for VISTA recruitment and then for Peace Corps.

Robert Klein: Oh, okay.

Linda Meinders Webb: Peace Corps and VISTA recruiting. So I recruited around in the Southeast and I was certainly very up about my experience and really felt like, you know, it was easy to talk to people and doing that. One of the big things was we had a big Peter Max poster. Do you remember that?

Robert Klein: Yes.

Linda Meinders Webb: But Peter Max actually came to Baltimore Inner Harbor, and I have his autograph. He is still going strong.

Robert Klein: Yeah, that's great. That's great.

Linda Meinders Webb: So I've always, you know, and then when I, when I recruited, that's when I met my husband, which I'm divorced now, but my husband then. So I would say I recruited my husband.

Robert Klein: Yeah.

Linda Meinders Webb: So, you know, Peace Corps has been good to me.

Robert Klein: Yeah. Good.