Our group was small.
We were all Harvard graduates from the class of
1968, plus one
spouse Joyce Antonson. The other members of our group
were Frank Antonson,
Jim Shapiro, Bob Rosenbaum, Bart Rocca and John
Redwood with
his wife Claudia Vander Heuvel.
Frank and Joyce Antonson
went to Catolé do Rocha where they took over the management of a women's
artisan co-op which had been very successful, and had been started actually
by Joyce's sister.
John Redwood and Claudia
Vander Heuvel left us in Rio and went straight to Goiás for training and
placement.
Bart Rocca, Jim Shapiro and Bob Rosenbaum all ended up in Rio Grande do
Norte. Shortly after
our graduation in June, 1968 we travelled together from
JFK to Rio,
spending 3 days in Rio, and then up the coast via DC-6B to
Recife. You
remember those old Varig flights, they stopped in almost
every capital
on the way up the coast.
We began in late June or early July
of 1968 in Recife where we were
trained in a small house
not too far from the Peace Corps Office. The
main language
trainer was Socorro LaFleur, and I've been trying to
remember if Jim
LaFleur had anything to do with the training, too.
Jim's name is
probably in your data base, and you probably know him, as
I believe he
was a volunteer from the 64 or 65 era.
Our training was relatively short as
the group had been meeting for
language training all
Spring in Cambridge, maybe 6 months. In any case,
by early August we
were sent to the field to spend a few months under
the wing of
departing volunteers. My site was São Bento, Paraíba where
I overlapped about
a week with Hank (whose last name I've forgotten) and
his wife.
Terry Vogt | 
