"Some people who were part of my group have referred to their group as the "last group" to train and serve. Technically, this is not quite correct. My group of 88 volunteers arrived in Miami on August 1, 1977, for what was to be 3 days of staging before heading out to train in Pernambuco, Bahia, and Minas. This was the group that was held up in Miami for anywhere from 2 weeks (the first "subgroup" to get their visas and head for Brazil) to the last (third, I think) subgroup (which included myself) which didn't get a visa and leave for Brazil until September 14th (yes, I spent 6 lovely weeks in three different hotels in Miami, itself an interesting cultural experience for a then-25 year old). A small group (around 8-10) people never did get visas, and were eventually reassigned to other countries. All this was due to the funky American-Brazil political relations of the time which had been set off by some of Jimmy Carter's speeches about civil rights violations in Brazil.

As far as I remember, the "true" last group didn't arrive in Brazil until sometime in 1978. This was the group that was there (if they served their full 2 years) until December 1980 when PC/Brazil closed its doors. Since I signed on for a third year (moving down from Pernambuco to Salvador for my 3rd year assignment), I was there when this final group checked out."

submitted by: Tom Gula  July 2003