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Because Brazil was so large (Brasilia being then a good all day plane ride away with stops in the South or Salvador), the Peace Corps operated in Recife a regional Northeast (NE) office and a Pernambuco State office, as well as a Peace Corps physician. In the mid to late 1960s, two offices were in separate locations, the PC Pernambuco State office in an apartment in a building on Rua Jose de Alencar in downtown Recife, not far from the Hotel Central. But in 1969, both the PC regional and state offices moved into an office in a Praça do Derby house in Recife (continuing in that rough location until 1980). The PC physician served volunteers throughout the NE, but was located in Recife; Dr. Chamberlain (1969-71), and Dr. Caravalho (1972-74) were PC doctors.
PCVs were in Pernambuco during the 18 years that Peace Corps was in Brazil in similar programs as in other States, mostly 4-H clubs ("clubes agricolas, 4-s"), health, and education. Robert Biggers (Caruaru,‘62-64), and Jan Kneip (Tres Marias, PE, ‘62-64) were two of the first volunteers in Pernambuco.
A number of the PCV activities were connected in part in the 60s with USAID. USAID gave large amounts of food and economic assistance in 1962-63 in NE Brazil to counter the perceived threat of leftist Governor Miguel Arraes and Peasant League’s Francisco Julião.
Georgetown University Law School professor Joseph Page got real interested in the politics of the NE. He was arrested and held briefly in the late 60s when he was visiting NE Brazil; he had previously visited the NE as a law school student with his pal Ralph Nader in the early 60s. He wrote "The Revolution That Never Was, Northeast Brazil, 1955-64, Grossman Publishers, 1972. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life In Brazil, Univ. of Calif. Press, Centennial Publishing, June 1992, website www.ucpress.edu/books. "The Revolution that Never Was (1972) describes the U.S. activities as well as those of some PCVs.
After the military coup in 1964, USAID continued to give large amounts of economic aid to the 1964 military government-highways, schools, and other public infrastructure were built with AID funds; various food programs using U.S. surplus wheat started, and public health programs begun. In the 1960s, the USAID office in Recife was the largest in the world, but by 1972, USAID effectively closed all operations in the NE and Brazil.
In the early to mid 1960s, primary PC programs in Pernambuco were rural health or rural community development programs. Many volunteers were placed in interior towns and cities to do rural health/CD activities that were mostly ill defined, and expected to become self sufficient "super vols." David Everton (Bom Conselho, ‘64-66), and Joan Boyle (‘64-66, Recife) were volunteers in this period.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes (Timbauba, 1964-66) worked in a rural health CD program trying to encourage people to use privadas and filtros daqua, and clean water to prevent or stop schistosomasis disease and other water-borne diseases. She later returned to Pernambuco in the 1980s after receiving her Ph.D. in anthropology, and wrote a fascinating narrative of ordinary life in the interior of the Northeast, and the family with whom she lived as a PCV, entitled, Death without Weeping: the Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil (1980). Another volunteer in Pernambuco in the rural health/CD program around the same time was Donna Vogt (Nazare da Mata, 1966-68).
In 1967, PCV Joe Wythe began working with the federation of mixed co-operatives in Pernambuco which a group of socially progressive priests had started in part with U.S. funds. Joe then trained the first group of co-op PCVs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin of about 20 volunteers, many of whom were lawyers or business experienced volunteers. About a dozen or so of these ag co-op PCVs lasted the two years or more: Wally Winter (Bom Jardim, 1967-69), Allen Dockterman (Alagoinha, and Fortaleza, CE, ‘67-‘69), Jan and Ann Jaworski (Paudalho, ‘67-71), Marvin Packer (‘67-69, Lajedo), Josh Coburn (‘67-69), Bruce Jay (‘67-69), Wayne Bjorlie (Nazare da Mata, ‘67-70), Larry Jost (‘67), Bill Burns, Bill May, and Mike Royster in Afogados da Ingazeira, ‘67-69).
In 1968, PC attempted to place about two dozen PCV teachers in Recife schools in the Fundacao Guadarrapes; but unfortunately, the prefeitura of Recife changed political parties just as the volunteers finished their training and rejected them. Most had to leave Brazil although a handful being jeitoso found other jobs, such as Judy Plaska (PC -Recife secretary, ‘68-70), Pat Kling and Sue Jameson (Recife, ‘68-70), with women’s groups in the favelas of Recife.
Several PCVs worked in Recife with the Archbishop of Recife Dom Helder (Operação Esperanca), Jim LeFleur (‘65-67, Recife, and later Bahia State Director), and Todd Bremm (Recife, ‘68-72). Todd ended up spending the rest of his life in Brazil after Peace Corps in Recife and Fortaleza where he unfortunately drowned in 1989.
In 1969, a second group of ag coop volunteers entered with about 13 vols, replacing the first group. John Burns was then State Director for Pernambuco and Alagoas; Ron Faas was the NE PC ag technical director; and Chuck Bosley the NE Director during 1969-71. The second Pernambuco ag co-op group included Richard Gaeta (São Lourenço, ‘69-71), Tom Duck (Carpina, ‘69-71), Bob Dean (Vicencia, ‘69-71), Doug Engen (Nazare, ‘69-71), Gene Sanner (Limoeiro,‘69-73), Jay Sessions (Joao Alfredo ‘69-71), John Reeder (Bom Jardim, ‘69-72), Kent Graves (Camocim de Sao Felix, ‘69-73), Leo Christmas (Orobo,‘69-73), Rick Shearer (Lajedo ‘69-73), Rich Lawless (Sao Caetano, and Natal,‘69-72), and Steve Smith (Afogados da Ingazeira, ‘69-71). Tom Miller transferred from the Paraíba Electric Co-op program to Timbauba (‘69-71).
In 1970, USAID financed an ill-designed, but well intentioned sugar cane reform program (GERAN) using PCVs to teach basic health, nutrition, and gardening/small animal husbandry skills to sugar cane workers in the sugar cane zone. Often a PCV couple and a single volunteer were placed on a sugar fazenda. Sue Frye, transferred from Amazonas to Pernambuco to initiate the program with roughly a dozen PCVs. Dick Greene (‘70-72, and PC trainer ‘75-78), Anne Zahorik (Engenho Bastioes, 70-73), Marti Rice (69-72), the Perrys, the Oberhausers, and Alan Webb were in this group.
Although there was a high attrition of GERAN volunteers, PC brought in a second GERAN group of Volunteers in 1971. But at that point, with the implacable opposition of the owners of the sugar cane usinas and the military to agrarian reform, the program pretty much collapsed. Dan and Ann Chadwick (Carpina, 71-73) were one of the few Geran II vols to spend their full two years in Pernambuco; most others terminated early or transferred to other states, including Dick Greene to (Natal, Rio Grande do Norte).
The famous "goat lady PCV," Marion Mendelson (Pernambuco, ‘71-79, and Riberão RN, and Mossoro, RN) was initially a GERAN volunteer, and was the longest serving PCV in Brazil (8 years), and one of the longest serving volunteers anywhere in the world. Marion, then a retired goat rancher from California, entered PC already in her late 60s or early 70s, and continued to work with goat husbandry and research in various PCV positions in Pernambuco and the Rio Grande do Norte for 8 years. She continued even after terminating PC service, working with researchers on goats, the ‘poor Nordestino’s cow," and was honored by the State Governor. Marion returned to the U.S. in the late 1980s, and served on the Board of Directors of Friends of Brazil for a number of years until the early 1990s.
In 1971, a third and final of group of a dozen ag co-op PCVs entered Pernambuco, and replaced the co-op II vols or in some cases went into new cities of the interior, like Bom Conselho. Among these ag co-op volunteers were Dave Donovan (Bom Conselho, ‘71-73), Don Boos (Alagoinha, ‘71-73, ), the Harts (‘71-73), George Heed (‘71-73), Jerry Hintz (‘71-73), Larry Jost (‘71-73), Mike Morris (Nazaree da Mata, ‘71-73), and John Dane (Garanhuns, ‘71-73).
In 1971, Marco Mota became Pernambuco State Director, and Mel Grossgold replaced Chuck Bosley as NE director in 1970; and then Bob Gentile was the NE director in 1972.
In 1972, PCVs in Pernambuco began to work with FEBEM, as teachers in a vocational arts program, and with municipal prefeituras in Recife and interior cities. Jim Maleug (Recife, ‘72-74), was one of these. Chris Greene (1970-73, Recife) was a PC programmer (third-year volunteer leader) who transferred from Belem. There were a number of specialized placements of highly technical volunteers in various positions, like agricultural research or universities during 1972-75.
By 1978-79, the last Pernambuco state director was Bill Reese (who had earlier been a volunteer in Bahia). Bill was also one of the last PC staff left in Brazil in 1980 when it formally closed.
John Reeder PE 69-72 |
