Check out a new book about Northeast Brazil. It is The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles, Harper, 2008. A novel based on history and folklore we all knew.
I remember Ken and Dianne Buhr well. I stayed with them at Tanque D'arca the first week that I spent in Alagoas. It was my first experience with a Brasilian family, sleeping on a straw mattress with a chamber pot under the bed. Bob Cook was along with me and I remember him dropping his last clean pair of underwear on the floor of some dark, dingy room where we took our cold showers.
Unforgettable! A lot of good friends well-remembered! Does anyone remember our group's director in Brattleboro? George...? He passed out a paper called "Learning How to Learn" - still fascinated by that. And ah, Camp Arden!
The Peace Corps set the direction for the rest of my life, a good direction often in spite of myself. Not a successful PCV
- too immature for that. But the Peace Corps was good for me, and I am
grateful to the trainers in Vermont, like Beth, and to Peace Corps state directors Joe da Rosa (Alagoas) and Herb Soll (Rio). Good, humane people. Also, I admire those volunteers who were able to accomplish good things. Greetings, old friends, and a moment of silence for Sargent Shriver, who has just been laid to rest....
I became aware of this
through a Brazilian author in Maceió who contacted me. He was a young
boy in a town where I did a vaccination campaign. He has researched
volunteers who served in Alagoas and has written a book about it.
Comments:
After PC, earned Bachelors in Int'l Mgmt from Thunderbird, returned to Brasil in Feb'71 and stayed until Feb'87, Working in Sao Paulo, Recife, Salvador, Itirussu-BA, Formosa-GO, and Brasilia.
I visit Brasil about every other year on vacation, and 2004 went to Sao Luis & Lencois Maranhenses, Fortaleza & Canoa Quebrada, Brasilia, Maceio, and Rio Quente - GO.
I was there until 1973 with Peace Corps in Sao Miguel dos Campos and then thru 1975 with Project HOPE in Maceio. There was also a nurse in Sao Miguel during part of the time I was there and I can’t remember her name.
I returned to Brazil in 1969, taught 5th grade in the American School in Recife until 1971. I'm sorry to say I never got a chance to return after that. I greatly enjoyed my time in that beautiful country.
