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MOUNT MADONNA
SCHOOL
Interview with
Nancy Hendry
General Counsel
to the Peace Corps
May 24th, 2000
Jenny Johnston: How did you come to your position
in the Peace Corps and why did you choose a life of
public service?
Nancy Hendry: I think in many ways it goes
back to my parents. My mother was a school teacher,
and my father was a university professor -- an economist
who later joined the World Bank. His principal interest
was developing countries, so they both had a strong
sense of mission. I was definitely raised to believe
that it wasn't how much money you made in life, but
what kind of contribution you made that was important.
As long as you did things that you felt were worthwhile,
that was really the key.
I
remember, as a volunteer in Senegal, applying to law
school and trying to decide what to do with my future.
I was feeling very anxious about whether I was going
to be admitted anywhere, and what was going to happen.
My father was traveling on business to Africa and stopped
to visit me. He said, "You know, you really shouldn't
worry so much about this. When I was your age my job
didn't even exist." I look at my own children now, at
the growth of technology, and it is clear to me that
they will have many, many opportunities in life that
simply didn't exist when I was graduating from college.
As my father counseled me, "The important thing is to
do things that you care about and to do them well. It
will all, ultimately, fall into place and there will
be a career path that will be satisfying for you." The
Peace Corps, in many ways, was a logical choice for
me, in part because I had been raised with some international
exposure. One of the most exotic parts of my past was
being born in China in the middle of the revolution.
The Nationalists had fled what was then called Peking,
now Beijing, and the communists entered the city while
my mother was in the hospital delivering me. I grew
up hearing a lot about my parents' experience in China,
how much they appreciated the culture, food, and people,
and enjoyed the opportunity to get outside of the United
States and come to know and appreciate another people.
Then, when I was in third and fourth grade, my family
lived in Viet Nam, which gave me more first-hand exposure
to Asia. When I was in ninth and tenth grade, my parents
lived in what was then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
There was no accredited high school, so I spent the
school year in Geneva and three summers Dakh'a. By
the time I graduated from college, I was feeling rather
restless. I hadn't been overseas in a while, and I really
wanted to reconnect with that piece of my childhood.
Joining the Peace Corps offered one way to do that.
That is probably responsible for my coming back to the
Peace Corps as General Counsel. It's always been something
I've had an interest in. After I took this position,
I had an opportunity to travel to Nepal for a country
directors' conference. The trip took me back through
Delhi and the subcontinent, which I had not visited
since 1964. Getting off the plane brought a flood of
familiarity. It was not that nothing had changed in
that period of time, but that the sights, smells, noises,
and all of the sensory aspects evoked an instant and
emotional response to being back in that part of the
world and reconnecting with the way in which other people
live. I often think that the geography of the United
States is an isolating factor. People have many more
opportunities to travel today than they used to, but
we still live very differently from the way a large
proportion of the world's people live. I think it's
very beneficial for Americans to have the opportunity
to get out and experience those other cultures and to
come back and bring some of that understanding home
with them.
Kyle Felder: How has the role of the Peace
Corps changed since its inception?
Nancy Hendry: In many ways, I think remarkably
little has changed. I was a volunteer from 1970 to
1972, and I became General Counsel over twenty years
later, in 1996. I thought, it might not be the same
as I remembered, but the basic mission is very much
the same. We still send predominantly young Americans
overseas, although there is an increasing number of
older Americans, many of whom wanted to be volunteers
back in the early sixties when John F. Kennedy was
still alive, but had children or other responsibilities
that kept them from joining the Peace Corps. As I
have traveled around the world, I have asked some
of them, "What made you decide to go into the Peace
Corps?" and they have said, "It was Kennedy. I wanted
to join in 1962 and I couldn't, so here I am now."
The Peace Corps's basic mission
is still to send people who come as volunteers, to countries
around the world, and provide a measure of expertise
that will be helpful in achieving some of the development
goals that those countries have set for themselves.
It is also to foster a better mutual understanding on
the part of the host country residents about Americans
and, at the same time, on the part of Americans about
people from other countries. That has never really changed. There
are shifts from time to time in programming. We now
have a Crisis Corps, which gives people who have been
volunteers an opportunity to go back for more limited
periods of time to provide targeted services. For example,
in the wake of the hurricanes in Central America, we
sent a number of Crisis Corps volunteers to work on
things like water sanitation projects and help with
the rebuilding after the hurricane. The Crisis Corps
didn't exist when I was a volunteer, but it's taking
advantage of all of the expertise that has been developed
by volunteers, and it's furthering the core mission.
We still do a lot in the area of education, but there's
a much larger environmental program than when I was
a volunteer. Small business development is another key
area today, while agricultural and health projects have
always been a focus of volunteer activities. The
size of the Peace Corps has fluctuated a little over
time; it is now on a path, we hope, to grow again. The
composition of the volunteer group has also shifted
a bit over time. The average age is slightly older than
it was, but it's still predominantly people in their
twenties. There are slightly larger numbers of older
volunteers. The gender balance is more heavily in favor
of women than it used to be; about 62% are currently
female volunteers.
Laura Johnston: I have a question. Yesterday
we spoke with Congressman John Lewis. He said, "Find
something to do that is so noble, so right, that you
will rise up and forget about your own predicament
and help others. Do what you can to enhance the dignity
of mankind." Would you say that this adequately defines
the essence of your mission here at the Peace Corps?
Nancy Hendry: Those are certainly very stirring
words. That is definitely part of what motivates people,
although they choose to be volunteers for many different
reasons. There is a spirit, however, that has not
changed very much over time. When I travel around,
it's inspiring to meet all of the incredible people,
both young and old, who are so committed, talented,
idealistic, giving of themselves, and willing to try
new things. It was characteristic of the volunteers
I knew, and is still characteristic of volunteers
today.
Alison Alderdice: Biologist and philosopher
Leon Kass said, "some encounter with necessity is
the grounds for taking one's life seriously." The
Peace Corps is particularly active in helping those
who have encountered necessity. Has it been your experience
that those people have a deeper understanding and
appreciation for life because of their situation?
Nancy Hendry: It does help to refocus your
priorities and your perspectives about life. You have
incidents in your life that stand out for some reason
and you remember them for a long time afterwards.
Some of those are incidents I experienced in the Peace
Corps. When I left Africa in 1972, I flew to Paris
and arrived exhausted after an all-night flight. I
got on a bus to to go into Paris, and a woman came
running up, lugging her heavy suitcases, and asked
the driver, "can you wait just five minutes while
I get my suitcases." He looked at his watch and said,
"Madame, the bus was supposed to leave at eight o'clock
and it's eight-oh-three," and with that, he pulled
off! I was totally flabbergasted. I had just spent
two years of my life in situations where you sit and
wait hours for the taxi to fill up. Then, if someone
needs to deliver a chicken to a friend, you take a
little detour. The whole concept of time is different.
I thought, "Iif I had not been in Africa for two years,
I probably would have been sitting here looking at
my watch and saying, 'it's eight-oh-three, this bus
was supposed to leave at 8 o'clock, what's the story?'"
In a very basic way, the Peace Corps makes you realize
that you can survive with very little, and that the
things that are important in life are not the television,
furniture, cars, or clothes, but the people and the
relationships, and to some extent, your own internal
resources and capacity to be alone.
Katie Fayram: Can you tell us a little about
your involvement with the President's Interagency
Council on Women and how it's affected your work in
the Peace Corps?
Nancy Hendry: The President's Interagency
Council has been a terrific experience for me; I feel
privileged to represent the Peace Corps on the Council.
First, it is a very dynamic group of women. I understand
you've met with some of them. I feel very inspired
by these people in high positions in the Government
who are focused on women's issues and working actively
to advance the status of women and girls here and
around the world. It's been an opportunity, for me
personally, to become involved in issues that were
a significant part of my college and to law school
experience. Issues that I care quite passionately
about, and on which we've made much progress, but
still have a lot of progress left to make.
It's
reqarding to be in a position where you can help to
build on all of the progress that has been made and
tackle some of the issues that remain. Secretary of
State Albright has done a fabulous job of making women's
issues an important part of how we view the world. She
says you can't have fifty percent of the world's population
who are not nourished to the same extent, educated to
the same extent, have the same economic opportunities,
or the same political opportunities, and hope to have
development or peace! We have to find ways of tackling
that. One of the exciting things about being at the
Peace Corps is that we have so many female Volunteers,
who do so much work with women and girls around the
world. Whether it's part of your primary project or
not, as a woman it always becomes part of your secondary
project because you are, by virtue of how you were raised
and your background, modeling different ways of approaching
the world and thinking about its possibilities. That's
a very powerful thing to be doing.
Mira Vissell: Do you find that the issues
that are relevant to the Interagency Council on Women
emerge through the Peace Corps and work around the
world?
Nancy Hendry: Yes, very much so. The Interagency
Council has focused on the platform for action that
emerged from the Beijing conference five years ago.
The planks in that platform, ttouch all of the key
aspects of women's status. Peace Corps volunteers
work in five key areas: education, health, small business
development, agriculture, and the environment. All
of those areas have major implications for women.
Derrick Diaz: Is there one specific example
that you could give?
Nancy Hendry: One of the areas that I've spent
some time looking at is girls' education. Many volunteers
get involved in secondary projects in girls' education.
There are leadership camps that volunteers who teach
during the school year organize for the summer. They
provide activities for girls that deal with a range
of life skills issues and help them to develop the
confidence and the ability to think about expanding
their opportunities. We also have numerous education
projects. In West Africa, volunteers organized a bike-a-thon
and went from village to village in the Ivory Coast.
At each village they organized skits, presentations,
contests, and speeches by local notables, all with
the goal of bringing people together, creating an
event, and then reinforcing the message that you really
need to send your girls to school. There are many
similar projects that further the same goals that
the Interagency Council has.
Karl Holzknecht: On this trip, we've met some
very dedicated people who began their adult lives
with service in the Peace Corps. For example, yesterday
we spoke with Congress Sam Farr and Secretary Donna
Shalala, who both credit the Peace Corps for giving
them a good learning experience early in their lives.
Would it be fair to say that the United States benefits
from the Peace Corps as much as the countries we are
trying to serve?
Nancy Hendry: Absolutely. When you talk to
returned volunteers, they often start by saying that
they feel as though they gained much more from the
experience than they were able to give to the people
in the countries where they served. It is a transforming
experience for many people. For some people, it sets
them on a particular career path. Based on what they
did in the Peace Corps, their eyes are opened to an
issue or interest in an area that they hadn't previously
considered - teaching, for example. People discover
the rewards of being involved with young people and
helping to motivate them. They come back and are interested
in doing that as a career. Health is another area
that people have gone into; and, obviously, so is
development. People who have worked in agriculture
projects and seen the issues first-hand in another
country come back and pursue a career in development.
People go into the Foreign Service -- they become
interested in living overseas and learn some language
skills. Other people go into business. Again, they
become familiar with a country, they have some understanding
of what the needs are, and they are well positioned
to work for others with an interest in developing
business contacts with that country.
Whatever they decide to do in life, one
of the things that people have discovered is that the
Peace Corps helps you to develop life skills that are
transferable to many other activities. Independence,
initiative, judgment, confidence, and ability to deal
with people are some examples. For instance, you take
someone in his or her twenties, plunk that person down
in a community with relatively little structure and
say, "you need to try to make this happen." The satisfaction
of making it happen -- figuring out how to work with
the people and institutions, get the resources, and
mobilize the support to make it happen -- is precisely
the kind of thing that will serve you in tremendous
stead all the rest of your life. The other thing
that we've found is that people with volunteer experience,
who have come to feel the rewards of service, are much
more inclined to volunteer continue in their community
or their f profession throughout the rest of their life.
Jahmin Lerum: Peace Corps volunteers work
on wide variety of projects. What projects do you
think have been most successful?
Nancy Hendry: That's a tough one. When I was
a volunteer there was discussion among the volunteer
corps about the "edifice complex." You had to be wary
of thinking that your success was measured only by
leaving concrete, bricks, and mortar behind. The idea
was that leaving an edifice, or structure, in your
wake did not necessarily reflect success as a volunteer.
Volunteers often don't even see all of the successes
for which they can take credit. Success is measured
in many different ways, and we hear many stories about
those successes long after the volunteers have concluded
their service.
When the director,
deputy director, or other officials meet with high-level
officials in governments around the world, they are
often told, "Oh, I remember Peace Corps volunteer so-and-so
who taught me when I was this age." One President in
an African country even said, "You know, I would not
be here today if it were not for Ms. so-and-so," who
had been his Peace Corps volunteer teacher. Sometimes
the particular activity that you started survives many
years later. The bridge that our current director helped
construct in El Salvador is still standing. He has been
back to see it, and it's a wonderful thing. Whether
or not it's something concrete, or whether the cooperative
you worked with is still functioning in the same way
or has grown to become a major enterprise, I think that
volunteers often touch the lives of the people with
whom they work in ways that contribute to a lot of successes
down the road. Each programming area, whether it's education,
health, agriculture, environment, or small business,
offers many opportunities to do that.
Dante Branciforte: It seems as though the
aid we give to cultures world-wide must inevitably
come to conflict with established cultural traditions.
How do we discriminate between those values that should
be universally accepted and those that are strictly
American? Do we know enough about other cultures to
make that kind of decision?
Nancy Hendry: One of the things that the Peace
Corps experience brought home to me is how universal
some values are. In many ways, that was one of the
most powerful messages. I remember a conversation
with the Mayor of my town after some money had been
stolen from my house. I was upset about the theft,
and the conversation was about who might have done
it. I was being very cautious about saying anything
negative about anyone because, as a volunteer, you
feel as though you should like everyone in your host
country. But that's not a completely realistic expectation,
and in talking with him it became apparent that he
had very little regard for the people I thought had
probably been involved with the theft. He had little
regard for them for the same reasons that I did. It
was such a revelation to realize that, transcending
all of the differences in culture, were basic, human
values of consideration for others and respect for
others. There are degrees of wisdom and interpersonal
qualities that lead you to admire people in another
culture for basically the same reasons that you admire
people in your own culture. You can also be irritated
with people in another culture for basically the same
reasons that you get irritated by people in your own
culture. That was a good lesson to be able to take
back.
Part
of what you take from the experience is also a realization
that there may be real benefits in cultural values that
we don't share. The story I just told had to do with
personal relationships and shared values. But there
are broader societal values -- about the importance
of family, the importance of friendship, or even the
value of time or the value of work -- that can be different.
The key is not to approach a culture with the view that
one value is better and the other is worse, but only
that they are different and that you have to understand
them in order to be able to deal effectively with people.
It might be the case that someone, whom you expect to
respond to a request in a certain way, may respond very
differently because that person is perceiving that request
in the context of cultural values that are quite different
from the ones you bring to the situation. What
you come out of the Peace Corps experience with is an
understanding that these differences exist, and that
there are strengths and weaknesses to different ways
of approaching things. In the culture in which I lived
as a volunteer, it was expected that people would provide
for other people in a way that could be very touching.
It was wonderful to see the sense of community, connectedness,
and responsibility. On the other hand, it also meant
that people felt free to impose upon others. If one
relative has a job, there are tremendous expectations
placed on that person by other family members who are
not, frankly, employed as profitably. Yet they expect
that everything will be shared and that the person will
react in certain ways. That has some very positive aspects
to it; but it also tends to diminish the incentives
to work hard. So you get a deeper appreciation of some
of the trade-offs, as for example between fierce individualism
and more communal values.
Aaron Jacobs-Smith: I was wondering; the Peace
Corps deals with so many different countries and peoples.
How does the Peace Corps as an organization gain the
trust of other nations it's trying to help, and at
the same time, what role has the Peace Corps played
in helping the United States gain the trust of other
nations?
Nancy Hendry: I think that, at bottom, the
Peace Corps gains the trust of the people with whom
the volunteers work by being and doing exactly what
it says it's there to do. When you spend two years
of your life living and working alongside the other
members of the community, learning their language,
sharing meals, eating the same food, there is a lot
of trust that is built. Particularly when you carry
through on your commitments as a volunteer and help
to complete projects, or help to make things happen
for that community. It becomes apparent that you are
genuinely interested in learning about who the people
in the community are, their aspirations, and their
culture. It's the same way that you earn trust with
someone in the United States. You're genuine, and
you keep your commitments. As I mentioned earlier,
many former students of Peace Corps volunteers are
now in positions of prominence in countries around
the world. Their sense of Americans was shaped at
an early age by their contact with Peace Corps volunteers.
Personally, I have to believe that that makes an important
difference in relations between two countries.
Josh Lewis: Peter Berger, a professor of religion
and sociology at Boston University said that, "We
can not afford to think of problems of our society
as if we were alone in the world." Do you think that
we as Americans live too much in isolation?
Nancy Hendry: One of the things that the Peace
Corps obviously helps to do is to break down that
isolation, to whatever extent it exists. We are certainly
much less isolated than we used to be. Technology
has made this an increasingly interconnected world.
Travel has become much faster and, in some instances,
more affordable. Because this country occupies a continent,
it's very different from many parts of the world.
There are other very large countries, but if you traveled
to Europe and drove for several hours, you could find
yourself in another country, with another language
and another history. You just don't have that in the
United States, unless you live near the Mexican border.
Canada is a separate country but not as dramatically
different.
Mr. Mailliard: That's a very similar response
to the one that Under Secretary Pickering gave us
when we asked him the same question. That we are drawing
closer together but there are obvious advantages to
living in a continent where you have five languages
within a few hours of each other. I guess it's an
effort that we have to make as a country because of
geographic separation. Obviously, the Peace Corps
is probably one of the greatest ways in the world
to actually break down that separation. We spent a
lot of time looking at the issue of how we are connected
to the rest of the world and sometimes how difficult
it is to remember it.
Nancy Hendry: Our connection to the rest of
the world is as basic as language. English is increasingly
a world language. I'm impressed by how far you can
travel today and find people who can communicate in
English. As a volunteer, I remember learning French
with the other volunteers who were going to West African
countries. Because I had lived in countries where
French was spoken, I started with an assumption that
a foreign language is a way to communicate with other
people, as opposed to an exercise in translation or
an affectation. Unless you have that experience, there's
something that's very remote about studying a foreign
language in the United States. That was evident in
the awkwardness and discomfort with which some of
the other volunteers initially tried to speak French.
One of the things that has been most effective about
the Peace Corps over the years has been the fact that
volunteers learn the local languages. When I was traveling
in Central Asia, someone remarked that, "The Russians
were here for all those years, and they never learned
the local language the way that Peace Corps volunteers
do." Learning to speak the language leads to a different
level of communication, and that is something of value
that you take from the Peace Corps experience.
Student: Vartan Gregorian said that,
"Total commitment to every good cause equals total
apathy because you can not act upon all of them."
How does your department make decisions on budget
allocations with so many competing goods?
Nancy Hendry: It's not much different from
any other process where, if you have limited resources,
you have to decide how best to allocate them. We have
more people who are interested in serving than we
are able to send overseas; more countries that are
interested in receiving volunteers than we can serve
with our programs; and more requests for volunteers
from our existing programs than we are able to fill.
That means that, given the funding levels for the
year, we have to make some choices. Those choices
reflect a broad range of considerations.
On the most basic
level, the Peace Corps has an interest in maintaining
a global presence. We wouldn't want to have programs
in only one part of the world and not in another part
of the world, so we apportion our funds to maintain
balance in the program. There is also the issue of what
size program works best in a particular country. That
consideration might lead us to add volunteers in one
place and perhaps cut back the number of volunteers
in another place. In the end, there is no alternative
but to make those decisions, however agonizing they
may be. Some trade-offs are inevitable because you can't
do everything. The budget realities force you to make
decisions. You can't spend money you don't have!
Jesse Bazarnick: Have the qualifications you
are looking for in the Peace Corps volunteers changed
at all over the years?
Nancy Hendry: Have they changed? The basic
qualifications have not changed. What is different
about the Peace Corps is that it does not presume
to know or decide what programs a particular country
needs. It's not the Peace Corps's role to decide how
to do the most good in the world. It is to respond
to requests from host countries about what they see
as their development priorities, and what they see
as their needs.
Now,
some of those needs may be hard for us to meet. If someone
says, "Our country needs lots of doctors," that is a
need that the Peace Corps generally has not been able
to meet, and doing so would raise a number of challenges.
It may be a very real need in that country, but it's
not one we can respond to very effectively. I recall
meeting with a representative of an environmental foundation,
in a country where we were starting a program, who told
me, "What we really need is an invertebrate entomologist.
Preferably one that speaks Arabic." (Laughter) Filling
that assignment would be a real challenge. A determination
has to be made as to what would be an effective Peace
Corps assignment and who might be available to fill
that assignment. Technical requirements shift from position.
Some countries want people to work in universities to
train teachers and, therefore, request a high level
of teaching experience. Another country might be looking
for people to work with youth at risk in after-school
programs. In that case, some teaching experience might
be helpful, but a volunteer wouldn't need the same professional
qualifications as might be required for another job.
Each assignment comes with its own set of qualifications. At
bottom, what matters is what we call suitability issues:
flexibility, interpersonal skills, openness to new things,
a spirit of volunteerism. Those qualities haven't changed
over the years even though particular job assignments
and the qualifications for those job assignments may
have. For example, when I was a volunteer, there were
not many environmental programs. Now we do quite a bit
of environmental work around the world, and people who
have those experiences and qualifications are in demand
for those programs. But there are still quite a few
people who, if they are in their twenties, have not
had extensive work experiences. They may have had other
opportunities, through summer jobs or extracurricular
activities, to acquire some of the skills that we're
looking for.
Alicia Weston-Miles: Given all your experience,
what is the most important advice you can offer our
generation?
Ms. Hendry: I can't let that opportunity pass
without saying that I want to encourage all of you
to consider being Peace Corps volunteers. Especially
as the world becomes in many senses smaller, the need
for this country to have people with an understanding
of the rest of the globe is going to be even more
important. And whatever you do, the value to you personally
of having that kind of understanding will be even
greater. That's apart from all of the personal growth
that being a volunteer helps to foster.
I went to college
at a time that was very idealistic and very politicized.
I would hope that you bring a similar idealism and passion
to whatever it is that you choose to do in life. It's
incredibly rewarding to work on behalf of things you
believe in, and, considering that you're talking with
many people who have chosen public service, I'm sure
many of them have told you that. You wake up in the
morning and you don't regret going to work. You feel
energized and excited about what you are doing. It gives
back to you in ways that are hard to quantify but are
very important.
Students: Thank you
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