RETURN TO GLÓRIA

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer was one of the defining experiences of my life. I spent 2 years in Brazil, living and working in Glória, a small town in the interior of the state of Sergipe, without benefit of full-time electricity, running water, a sewage system, TV, phone service, paved roads, hospital, nor university. There was no industry and only a few small businesses. I left Brazil and the Peace Corps after 2 years of service in July of 1969.

Over the intervening years, I had always wanted to return to Sergipe. Brunie (the other Volunteer who served in Glória) and I kept in touch and discussed traveling to Brazil often, but there was always some reason we couldn’t. Besides work, family, and finances, we had lost touch with our Brazilian friends and former students.

Jorge Henrique (striped shirt) and his wife Veronica (top left photo between Brunie and me.)
Brunie's husband Eric is with Brunie and Jorge in the lower right.
(Photos: Jorge Henrique and Veronica, used with permission.)

I won’t go into the details (you can find them HERE) but finally in 2009, 40 years after leaving Brazil, I found the email address of one person in Glória. Even though Jorge Henrique, a poet and professor, hadn’t been born when I lived there, he helped me contact others and soon Brunie and I were invited to visit Sergipe. We were told all we needed to do was pay for airfare ---we would be provided with a place to stay.

How could we refuse?

It took nearly 2 years until we could both travel (Brunie from southern California, while I left from western Pennsylvania.)

On August 8th, 2011, she and I (and her husband Eric) met at the airport in Rio de Janeiro to catch a flight to Aracajú, the capital of Sergipe. We expected former students Idalécio and Célia and her sister Alcione to meet us. We were shocked to find more than 20 people at the airport, clapping, shouting, whistling ---and even a professional videographer to record our arrival.

Friends, colleagues and former students meet us at the airport in Aracajú.
Brunie is in black holding a sign. I am beside her in an aqua shirt.
Célia (front row left) and her family hosted us in Aracajú.
Teresa and José Augusto (back row behind Irene in the striped shirt) hosted us in Glória.
About five people who greeted us are missing from the photo.
(Photo: Eric Lifrak, used with permission)

Aracajú is now immense. Because most of the city has been built in the last 40 years, it is relatively new and therefore clean and modern with lovely parks and beaches. It is one of the best-kept secrets in Brazil ---a beautiful unspoiled and safe resort city.

One evening, we were told we were meeting "a few people" for dinner. Another 20 or so showed up. We were honored with several speeches and one former student Gil, now a professional singer, sang for us.

Gil sings "Amigos Para Sempre" about everlasting friendship.
(Photo: Eric Lifrak, used with permission)

At the dinner reception for us at a churrascaria (bar-b-que restaurant) in Aracajú.
Again, a few people are missing from the photo.
(Photo: Eric Lifrak, used with permission)

In addition, many people stopped by Célia's beautiful home to visit us and others invited us to visit them. We also met others at the apartment of Idalécio and his wife.

In Brazil, one can never eat enough to please one’s hosts, so after eating wonderful meals at Célia’s home, we were offered more food everywhere we went. Sisters Neuzice and Euridice took us to the beach for fresh crabs, then wanted us to have another meal at their home. (Already full of delicious crabs, we politely declined.) Idalécio and his wife Graça took us to a great restaurant for feijoada, the Brazilian national dish. Irene and Dona Guiomar both had us to their apartments for scrumptious lunches.

One former student, Valmiro, now a doctor, invited us to a restaurant to celebrate his birthday and informed us that his first child was named Bruna Carolina in our honor.

Célia's brother Wilson, who owns a fabulous studio where he is a videographer creating commercials and promotional videos, had his driver take us to many places including his farm in the country.

On our fifth day in Sergipe, we moved from Aracajú to Glória to stay with Teresa and José Augusto (both former students) in their lovely home. Again, we were fed wonderful Brazilian foods and visited by many old friends.

On Saturday night, more than 50 people showed up for another dinner reception where the former school director of the ginásio where we taught, now in his eighties, made an eloquent speech about us. It was all a bit embarrassing while also extremely thrilling.

Dinner reception in Glória.

We received tons of gifts ---luckily I hadn’t filled my suitcases. One entire piece of my luggage was overstuffed with presents ---several CDs of Brazilian music, including one from Gil, a DVD of Idalécio’s singing group and DVDs about Sergipe, tote bags, key chains and other small souvenirs of the region, a hand-knit sweater, a blouse with hand-made lace, several linens embroidered by local crafts people, T-shirts, a hat, fancy soaps, cologne, hand-decorated dish and bath towels, a cute turtle paperweight, a beautiful book of photos of Sergipe, two books of Jorge Henrique's poems, a wood-cut print, sculptures created by local folk artists ---one made by Veio, who had been a pre-teen neighbor when we had lived there.

Gifts were totally unnecessary. My best gift was just being there and seeing everyone again.

Another photo from the reception in Glória.
Seu Manoel, the former school director is on the right.
Jorge Henrique and his wife Veronica are in the foreground.

Glória has progressed. All the things I stated above that didn’t exist when I lived there are there now. There is even a cell tower in the middle of the city. The town has many businesses and several industries. It always had a market on Saturdays, but now has a huge outdoor market from Friday through Saturday that attracts vendors and buyers from three states. Whereas few vehicles existed there in 1969, the place is teaming with cars, trucks, and zillions of motorcycles, fewer horses, mules, and donkeys than there used to be, but none of the familiar ox carts that traveled the streets and roads when I lived there more than 40 years ago.

Many things came together in the late 1960s. I know I was part of it, but without all the other happenings, the town may not have progressed. The National Department of Works Against Droughts built a dam to hold enough water to last through rainless years in the sertão ---a semi-arid region. A high school was established a few years before we arrived. A branch of the Bank of Brazil opened, providing loans for farmers and small businesses. A silo was built to store farmers’ crops such as beans and corn so the market would not be glutted when they were harvested. An agricultural assistance agency provided an agronomist and a home economist (Irene and later Maria José.) A progressive woman, Dona Guiomar (Célia’s mother) became the elementary school director. The Brazilian Legion of Assistance started chicken cooperatives. A health center was opened and a doctor hired to visit one morning/week accompanied by Helen, a Peace Corps nurse. Nancides, an extremely intelligent, hard-working, eloquent, and humorous bank worker who also taught night classes at the high school, became the president of a Municipal Commission set up to make positive changes in the town. Brunie arrived in 1966 and started literacy classes. I arrived one year later and took over Brunie’s high school teaching duties so that she could concentrate on health and sanitation projects.

Best of all, despite there being no colégio nor universidade in the town, nearly all of our students managed to continue their educations. They are doctors, lawyers, professors, engineers, agronomists, social workers, nurses, teachers. Some work for the state’s health service. One is a meteorologist. One became a minister of agriculture. One was the first woman to work for the Bank of Brazil in Sergipe and when she retired, became a lawyer.

If there was any doubt that we had made an impact, the doubts are gone.

Yet, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I gained so much more than I left in Glória. I have thought about Brazil and especially about Glória nearly every day since 1969. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to live and work there, to learn Portuguese, to know and appreciate the wonderful Brazilians and their culture, and also the opportunity to return 42 years later.

And while I was in Brazil in August, I decided I was going to do two things I had always regretted missing. First we visited the Amazon region. We were able to visit Nancides' daughter Erika in Manaus. Nancides had died when she was only 11, so she was happy to meet us and hear stories about her father, even before her mother knew him. Then, after Brunie and Eric headed home, I went on to Iguaçu Falls and then visited a blogger friend and her husband at their Ipanema apartment in Rio.

And although, the rainforest and waterfalls are spectacular natural wonders, nothing compares to the reception we received from our friends and former students in Sergipe.

(I wish I could have mentioned everyone who we met or visited and every individual gift we received while in Sergipe, but I will be writing more and posting more photos about my trip in the coming days.)

THE SIMPLE LIFE

In response to the writing prompt, “The Simple Things” on Mama’s Losin it blog:

Glória, 1967 (top) and 1969 (bottom)

There are times when I would chuck most of what I own, burn down the house, and start over, because sometimes the simple things are the best.


*****************


In the late 1960’s I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Glória, a small town in the interior of Brazil.  Brunie (another Volunteer) and I lived in a house that had 4 rooms: a sitting room, 2 bedrooms and a kitchen.  We placed a table for eating in the wide hall that stretched from the front to the back of the house.

In the front room, we used our footlockers for seating. They rested on bricks (to keep them from touching the damp mud-brick floor.) We had a small table and chair there for a desk and used unfinished wooden chairs from our dining area when we needed more seating.  We could hang a hammock diagonally from two adjacent walls for an overnight guest.

Each bedroom held a bed with a straw mattress and a mosquito net hanging from the lattice ceiling which supported our ceramic tile roof.  We each had a small hand-made wardrobe and a tiny table next to each bed for a lamp.

The lamps were kerosene-powered.  The town had electricity only four hours each evening, but our house, which we rented for a total of $5.00 ($2.50 each) per month, wasn’t wired for energia.

Once the town’s street lights were extinguished  at 10:00 each night, one could see billions of stars in the southern-hemisphere skies.

The town had no sewage system, nor running water.  Many larger homes held cisternas in back yards to catch and store rain water, but we needed to have water delivered to our home. A teenaged neighbor had a contraption for the back of his donkey which carried four large cans of water from the dam outside of town.  Once he arrived at the house, we strained the water through a clean dishtowel  into a waist-high ceramic jug to filter out leaves, small stones, and insects.  

Water meant for cooking or drinking was boiled for 20 minutes, then put through a water filter.  We boiled our water on a small stove with a propane tank attached to it.  Most of our neighbors used wood-burning stoves.

We had a shower room, about 3-feet square, but we chose not to use it after my house-mate found a snake there one day.  Instead, we heated water on our stove and poured it over our heads in the kitchen.  The mud-brick floor slanted slightly toward the back entrance, so the water seeped under the door into our back yard, past the outhouse entrance and into the mato.

There were no telephones in town and no TVs. Many homes had refrigerators waiting for the full-time electricity that was scheduled to be powered up within a year. We had a temperamental kerosene-powered refrigerator. 

We walked everywhere in town.  If we needed to travel a short distance from town, we borrowed a horse or mule, unless we could catch a ride on one of the half-dozen cars in town. There was a bus three times a week into the capital city ---a drive which might have taken 90 minutes here, but on the dirt roads with frequent stops to pick up or dispatch passengers, stretched to four hours.  

Yet, despite all of those “inconveniences” the town overcame its shortcomings with the warmth of its citizens.  The Brazilians corrected our Portuguese, forgave our mistakes, shared their joys and sorrows, and treated us like daughters.  I don't know that I have felt any more  "at home" anyplace else.

I haven't been back to Glória since I left 4 decades ago. The town’s website shows a much larger city with a cell tower looming in the mato outside of town. The city's praças are filled with stunning tropical plants. Power lines are everywhere.

With TVs in most homes, probably fewer people spend evenings visiting with their neighbors. I’m sure the small circus that used to arrive annually, no longer visits. The nightly social event, gathering in the praça to watch the movemento, has doubtless disappeared. 

Most likely street lights are left on all night. And with all that light, I am guessing one can no longer see the Southern Cross constellation quite as clearly in those big, beautiful, Brazilian skies.   


There are times when I long for the simple life I lived in Glória.  We had a roof over our heads, food to sustain us, boiled and filtered water, meaningful work, and friends.  Really, what more do most of us need?


Despite the conveniences of modern technology, sometimes the simple things are still the best.

Glória, 2009
photo by Alcione (see her on the photo to the right)

-------

Alcione, c. 1967
youngest child of
Dona Guiomar, 
(elementary-school
principal)
with brother & sisters

I will be visiting Glória in just a few weeks ---my first visit since I left in July of 1969.   Check back for photos and new stories.

ALEGRIA! ALEGRIA! (Happiness! Happiness!) Part 1

Alegria! Alegria!

Losing contact:

        When I left Brazil in 1969, I wrote to people there for a while, but (at least at that time) Brazilians weren’t great letter writers and many people took months to respond or didn’t respond at all. Or, perhaps our letters were lost in the mail. Eventually my teaching job, graduate school, art work, volunteer work, a new love who turned into my first husband, and my hectic lifestyle all took over and I lost touch completely with the wonderful people I had worked with in Glória.
        After I had internet service at home, 15 years ago or so, I occasionally searched for the town of Glória, with no luck. I knew it might take a while for information technology to catch up in the sertão.
        About 5 years ago, I finally found a web site called Sou de Glória (I’m from Glória). There were many virtual postcards on the site, including one showing the cell tower that served the town. I knew then, that Glória was no longer the underdeveloped town in the middle of the hinterland. Other photos showed a town so much larger than it was in 1969. The only thing I recognized was the church. I posted a notice on that web site stating that I would like to contact old friends from Glória, but all I received were spam messages from Brazilian businesses.
        In late 2008, I found a notice about a poet and professor from Glória, Jorge Henrique, who was going to present his epic poem on the anniversary of the founding of Glória. It included an email address. I sent him a message asking if he knew some of the people I wished to contact, and if so, requested he give them my email address.
        Although I heard back from him and saw that he was following my blog, I didn’t hear from anyone else.

Last week, everything changed:
        On May 17th, Jorge Henrique ----obrigada, obrigada (thank you, thank you) ---wrote a short article about my blog and posted it on the official web site of N.S. da Glória and also on the web site of the colégio there.

)

Dona Guiomar and her family.

I heard from Celia, top left and

Alcione, in front. (See disclaimer

at bottom about poor photo quality.)

        Within a few days, I heard from Alcione the youngest daughter of Dona Guiomar ---a great and progressive woman who was the elementary school director when I left Glória in 1969. Alcione, was six when I left Brazil. She sent me news of her mother, older sisters and brother. Also Alcione planned to be in Glória on the weekend of May 22nd and intended to see who she could find that I knew back when. A few days later I heard from her eldest sister Celia who was about 13 when I left Brazil. She told me her father had died c. 1974. Her mother is now 81 and is doing well.

Idalécinho (middle) at about age 16

with his parents, sisters, brothers,

and cat.

        Also, I received an email from Idalécio, who I knew as Idalécinho, one of my former students. After I replied to him, he kindly wrote back with more news of residents of Glória.

       I actually cried reading his email. First, sadly, some of the people I knew had died, including his parents, a friend who had worked at the bank and taught at the ginásio, and Dona Nininha who had treated Brunie and me like daughters. A few days later, I heard from Nadja, one of Dona Nininha's daughters.

        I also cried from joy to hear wonderful news of my former students.

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

Read the rest of this story in

Alegria! Alegria! Part 2

Please excuse my very bad photography.

The photo of Dona Guiomar and Idalecinho

and their families are so bad that I was almost

embarrassed to show them. Below you can see the

photos as I scanned them from 40-year-old slides.

In comparison, the ones I enhanced above aren't so awful.

(Original slides.

Left Dona Guiomar & family.

Right: Idalecinho and family.)

ALEGRIA! ALEGRIA! Part 2

Overland, a former student,

is now a meteorologist in Sergipe.

Alegria! Alegria!

continued

Making contact:

        In my post Alegria! Alegria! Part 1, I explained that I had been trying to contact my former students from my work as a teacher in the Peace Corp in Brazil. After many years of trying, I finally was contacted by several people I knew when I lived there.

        Sadly I learned a few people had died. 

        But I was so thrilled to learn of the lives of my former students that I actually cried with joy when I read about their successes.

        When I left Glória, 40 years ago, I was proud to be a part of the first ginásio  (high school) in the town. It had been established only a few years earlier. When I arrived, no one had graduated yet, but would soon. As proud as I was to be teaching these wonderful students ---I am a firm believer that education can open doors for everyone ---I admit I worried that there would be no opportunities for high school graduates in Glória.
        The town had no industry. Except for local farms and small businesses that served the town (bars, bakeries, a fabric shop, cabinet makers, etc.) there were several government agencies. DNOCS was a federal agency fighting droughts. ANCARSE provided a home economist and an agronomist to help farmers and homemakers and to teach students practical skills at one-room schools in the interior. Also there was a Brazilian Legion of Assistance that was in Glória to create chicken cooperatives. Most of the people working in these agencies were not from Glória. They had come from the capital city Aracajú and most would move back there or to another larger city if the opportunity arose.
        There was also a branch of the Bank of Brazil which had an all-male work force. Most of the bankers were also from other cities, with only two local employees with low-level jobs. And most of the men had submitted requests to move to larger cities when there were openings for them.
        Opportunities for women were almost non-existant, except for teaching. But there wasn’t a need for more than a few teachers, and most teaching jobs were part-time.
        Those who wanted to continue their educations would have to live in Aracajú or another larger city to attend a colégio, which was somewhat like the last two years of high school in the U.S. That meant staying with relatives or paying room and board in addition to tuition. Some students’ families already struggled to pay for tuition, uniforms, books and other supplies for the ginásio. The good thing was that if students completed courses at a colégio, university tuition would be free.
        I feared it would take decades for any progress in the town to permit the graduates to branch into new fields or to build better lives for themselves, their families, and their community.

        I am so happy that I was wrong.

Overjoyed:
        My former student Idalécio told me he is a chemical engineer and a professor. Other former students are a meteorologist, a bank manager, a federal police officer, a lawyer, a doctor, a secretary of agriculture, and a social worker. Several are teachers.

Idalécio at about age 16 in a detail of a larger photo (see below ) is now an chemical engineer and a professor.

        Wow! I feel like a proud parent who wants to brag about her children. But, of course, 40 years have passed and none of my former students are children. In fact, some are older than I am. I had just turned 22 when I arrived and not quite 24 when I left Glória. Some adults who had never before had the opportunity to attend high school, were my students. The oldest was 44. The youngest was 12 and would be 52 now.
        I am so proud that I played even the tiniest part in their educations. Apparently, at least for some, the doors of opportunity were opened. I’m sure it took much hard work and sacrifice for many of them to continue learning and to achieve success in their chosen fields, but they did.
        Knowing this, is the best gift I have received in many years.

Que ALEGRIA!

(What HAPPINESS!)

When I wanted to take a final photo of Glória

before leaving in 1969, Idalecinho posed on a

bench in the praça in front of the church.

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

THE ROAD TO HEAVEN - Sky Watch Friday #2

THE ROAD TO HEAVEN

This image is in response to

Sky Watch Friday

Click on the link and post your own photo

or see what others have posted. 

        In Brazil, I was stationed in Glória, "heaven" in Portuguese. The scene above was my very first view of the small city in the distance on the horizon, when the Peace Corps director for the state of Sergipe delivered me, my suitcase, and my footlocker to the town in the Peace Corps jeep. 

        The countryside was a lush green indicating recent rain. On the dirt road to Glória, we had negotiated many large puddles that hadn't dried yet from the hot tropical sun ten degrees south of the equator. It was near the end of August 1967 and there would still be days of rain ahead, but the rainy season (six months of almost daily rain) was winding down. Once it stopped, we might not have clouds or rain again for six months and there had been years of drought when it hadn't rained at all.

        When I traveled to the capital city, I was always glad when, on the return trip, the bus rounded this curve in the road, and I saw Glória ahead.

(Photo and text ©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

See  SEDONA, AZ  - Sky Watch Friday #1 on my other blog: PRO ARTZ

THE TOUGHEST JOB YOU'LL EVER LOVE

Originally, this was written in October of 1986,

thus many references are to that time.

Much of this is still relevant today.

[In October 1986, I wrote:]
        Nineteen years ago, on an August evening in 1967 when I was 22 years old and fresh out of college, full of hopes and ideals and ready to save the world, I arrived in the tiny town of Nossa Senhora da Glória where I spent the next two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer, teaching English and working on community development projects in Brazil's underdeveloped Northeast.
        I didn't save the world, of course. Although some of my optimistic hopes and ideals were soon dashed, many were also fulfilled.  After almost twenty years, I look upon that time as one of the best times of my life and one of the experiences of which I am most proud.
        In those two short years, I probably learned more than ever before or since in a 24 month period. I learned about the customs and habits of another culture. I learned to communicate in the Portuguese language. I learned to live reasonably well without running water, electricity, and other conveniences. But what I really learned is a little less tangible.

        I learned I could do many things I thought I would never be able to do ---like learn another language well enough to get along in most situations. I learned to live without things I thought I couldn't live without, such as TV and telephones. This gave a boost to my self-confidence.
        I learned to look at the United States from a global point of view during the Vietnam years. I didn't like the warmonger, imperialistic image I saw. I thought it was a shame that, as a nation, we were not respected nearly as much as we were feared.
        I learned that we are truly one world, and that we are going to have to start thinking and acting as if we believed it. One of the Peace Corps' mottos is  to "bring the world back home." One contribution Returned PC Volunteers have made to our society is to return with a wealth of experience and knowledge of another culture to share with family, friends, students, and coworkers.
        Most of all, I learned how lucky I am to be an American. I am not complacent. There are many things that need to be improved here, but living in a town of 2000 where perhaps 20% of the people were functionally literate, where the infant mortality rate was about 30%, made me appreciate, more than ever, the wonderful opportunities I have as an American, at the same time celebrating the similarities and differences of other cultures.

        In September 1986, I attended the Peace Corps 25th Anniversary Conference in Washington, DC.  I learned a sobering fact there. The Peace Corps has less funding per year than our military bands. The Peace Corps has always had to beg for its meager funds.
        In 1961, Kennedy had so much faith in the idea for a Peace Corps, that he used his discretionary funds to train and place Volunteers in 8 countries before Congress approved PC funding. For months it operated from a hotel room, with mostly volunteer workers, people who hunted down the office and dropped in to give time to the project.
        At the conference, I learned that everything and anything could bring me to tears.
        I cried when Cory Aquino [the new president of The Philippines] received a standing ovation upon her entrance. I cried when Bob Shriver told us how proud his father [Sargent Shriver, first PC director] was that his younger son had joined the Peace Corps, the first Shriver to do so. 

        When the first PC Volunteer told how he received a letter saying he had been accepted to serve in "China or some other African country," I cried with laughter. He was assigned to Korea.

        Awards were given to Volunteers who had returned home only to do amazing things, like start a program to prevent blindness in a Caribbean nation. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I listened to the award winners' stories.

        I was thrilled at the sight of 7000 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers marching from the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington Cemetery, each group carrying the colorful flag of the country served. We passed JFK's gravesite on the way.
        I cried at Bill Moyers' speech at the memorial service held in Arlington's amphitheater,  honoring Volunteers who had died during service and when Sargent Shriver and Loret Miller Ruppe [the PC director in 1986] handed yellow roses to family members of the deceased. [Fewer PC Volunteers died during service than those in the same demographic group at home. Most were victims of accidents.]
         Although not many from my own PC group attended, many others who had served in Brazil were there. Brunie, the girl with whom I shared my PC site [our service times overlapped for a year] flew from California, along with her fiancé and adopted daughter. It was wonderful to see her and to catch up with an old friend.
        It was a happy, joyous, nostalgic, emotionally-draining weekend. I didn't want it to end.

        In many countries of the world today, people acquire their impressions of America and Americans from TV or movies. It's frightening to think that Rambo movies and Dallas or Dukes of Hazard reruns form opinions of us. [Remember, it was 1986 when I first wrote this.]
        In many remote villages, the only real American anyone ever meets or has been close to or worked with, has been a PC Volunteer, someone who looks strange to the locals, who may dress differently, may not speak the language particularly well, but someone who cares about them and their lives, someone who will work hard and love it ---as they say, it's "the toughest job you'll ever love."
        PC Volunteers live in remote regions of the world, not needing protection. Few have had to be recalled because of internal problems in host nations. Local people love the Volunteers for what they do. When I left Peace Corps service in 1969, a few Brazilians, frank to a fault, told me they still disliked the United States, but they loved me. This was progress ---some had told me two years earlier that they despised America.

        
        It wasn't easy. There were times I would have gone home in a snap, like the time we found a poisonous snake in the house --- but there wasn't a bus passing through Glória for four days, so I stayed.
        We had to cook everything from scratch (that meant starting with a live chicken), boil and filter water, sleep on a straw mattress under a leaky roof, teach with fewer materials for an entire class than a single American student would have. At times, I suffered depression, culture shock, alternating bouts of diarrhea and constipation. I lost nearly 30 pounds and suffered with intestinal worms that required a handful of horse-sized pills to cure.
        Yet there were wonderful moments. I taught English as a foreign language and helped with community-development projects. I made visual aids for the elementary school and for the doctor who showed up once a week, because sometimes he had only one text book for an entire class at his medical school. I was able to travel throughout Brazil and visit other South American countries. There were lazy days at the beach, exuberant Carnaval celebrations, soothing rhythms of samba and bossa nova, and wonderful new Brazilian friends. There were also many humorous moments, such as on my first day in Rio when I ordered two fried grapes for breakfast.
        I loved Brazilians and Brazil. It was truly a land of contrasts. At times, I found Brazil backward, yet rapidly progressing, sexist yet wonderfully romantic, fascinatingly exciting while amazingly slow paced. Each day was full of joy, humor, and tragedy. The land surrounding the town where I lived was drab and colorless. The cities, the language, the music, and the people were vibrantly colorful, sometimes exotic.

        In its heyday, the Peace Corps had more than 15,000 Volunteers serving around the world. Today [1986] only about 5500 are in the field. In the 1980's, with an ever-increasing military budget, star wars, and terrorism, we need a Peace Corps more than ever.
        Current Volunteers and Returned PC Volunteers have become citizens, not only of the United States, but also of the world.

(©1986 with 2009 revisions, C.J. Peiffer)

THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY - Cowboys in Glória

This post is in response to A Thousand Word Thursday

at Cheaper Than Therapy blog

Cowboys:

        Every Friday, late in the afternoon, local cowboys sauntered into town on their horses, driving a small herd of cattle in front of them. The photo above was taken from the front door of the house Brunie and I shared. In Brazil, the cowboys were vaqueiros, but in Glória, they were usually called gauchos.

        The gauchos wore leather chaps and leather jackets. They often had holsters with guns strapped to their thighs and dangerous-looking knifes in leather sheaths on their belts. Their leather gaucho hats had brims that were turned up at the front and back rather than at the sides.  Many also wore small decorated leather purses at their waists ---perhaps a precursor of fanny packs.

        They were rough men hardened by harsh conditions.

        The herd of cattle passing our house would be kept in a small corral outside of town, then slaughtered in the wee hours of the morning and be sold at the weekly market on Saturday morning.

Gaucho, c. 1967
(photo: Brunie Chavez, used with permission)

Gunslingers:

        A family from the neighboring state of Alagoas moved to a farm outside of town. There were a father and either four or five sons and one daughter. I never saw the mother so I'm not sure if she had died, left, or if she stayed on the farm when other family members came into town.
        On the outskirts of Glória, someone would see the men heading toward town on their horses. Dressed in usual gaucho garb, they were dirty, unshaven (would have been designer stubble today) and, of course, were missing a few teeth much like many of the local cowboys. Their faces and arms had been roasted to a leather color to match their chaps. Someone would yell that the Alagoanos were coming. Mothers ran outside to grab their children from the streets, dragged them inside, and quickly closed and locked their doors and shutters. It was like a scene in a Western movie when gunslingers showed up in town.
        As far as I know the Alagoanos never caused any trouble. They never hurt or threatened anyone, nor stole anything, but they were feared. Perhaps it was just the fear of the unknown.

Shootings:

        Once when we were in the market square, we heard a gunshot. The wife of a local man had been aiming for her husband's mistress. The wife was normally left outside of town  to live on the farm while her husband had a mistress in town.  Luckily no one was hurt.  After the gun was wrestled from the shooter's hand, she was reprimanded by the mayor and handed over to her husband who promised to keep her out of town.

        Cowboys. Cattle drives. Horses. Gunslingers. Shootouts. No wonder there were times when I felt like an extra in a Western movie. I didn't play a big part in the plot, but there I was in the background, observing the dusty action.

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

MARKET DAY - Part 3 Morning & Afternoon

This is  Part 3 of a 4-part series describing

a typical Saturday ---Market Day --- in Glória. 

Note: Some of the names in this story have

been changed because I can’t remember the

real names of all of the people in the town.

Morning & Afternoon:

        After shopping at the weekly market, we carried our heavy purchases to our small house. Brunie placed a bit of dried corn and a bowl of water on the floor, then untied the chicken’s legs and let her strut around the kitchen. Neither of us had the heart to kill a chicken, so when we decided to cook chicken for dinner, we would take her to a neighbor to trade for a chicken the neighbor had killed.
        Brunie had opted to purchase a small stove powered by a propane tank, thus we used our built-in wood-burning stove as counter space. We soaked vegetables in iodine water and placed them in our kerosene refrigerator. We cut gristle and fat from the meat, throwing it out the back door where large vultures with blue-black opalescent heads swooped down to gather the scraps. We placed fruit in large gourds that had been cut in half to make bowls. Beans, rice, and other dry goods went in airtight containers, more to protect them from mice than to keep them fresh.

Ceramic drip water filter similar

to one we used in Glória.

        I used a handful of sugar as an abrasive cleaner for the filter in our drinking-water crock and set a huge pot of water to boil for the required twenty minutes before adding it to the terra cotta water filter.
        By eight-thirty or nine, we had completed our chores and were ready to prepare breakfast. Brunie flipped through our James Beard paperback cookbook ---conveniently issued by the Peace Corps ---to find a pancake recipe. She mixed flour, eggs, baking powder, sugar, powdered milk, water, and vanilla. I cut up a banana and sectioned an orange.
        Someone had told Brunie that there was no maple syrup in Brazil, so she had packed two bottles of concentrated maple flavoring in her foot locker. We mixed it with corn syrup to approximate the maple syrup we enjoyed at home.
        After breakfast, I spent the morning working on lessons for my English classes. The ginásio was staffed with some bankers and elementary school teachers who worked during the day, so high school classes were held evenings and on Saturdays as well as weekday afternoons. I, too, was a professora at the ginásio. 

        Since we had eaten breakfast later than usual, we skipped lunch. While most Glorianos took their after-lunch siestas, I headed to the school's office in the priests' home next to the church. Using Padre Henrique’s typewriter and the school’s hand-cranked mimeograph machine I made copies of a worksheet for my two o’clock class of beginning English students.

Students show off their

new school uniforms.

        Only fifteen of the twenty-one students showed up, not bad for Saturday. Even fewer arrived for my three and four-o’clock classes, but a few students lingered after class, trying out the American slang I had taught them.

        “Do you think I’m cute?” asked Fernando.
        Veralucia laughed and said, “No, Fernando. You are not cute. But you are cool.” The boys snickered because the word ‘cool’ sounded like a naughty Portuguese word. The students laughed and teased each other, butchering English about as much as I normally butchered their language.
        Veralucia asked, “Will you go to the movie tonight, Dona Carolina?”
        “No. I already saw tonight’s film,” I lied.
        “I can never understand the English on American films. Why is that?”
        Of course she couldn’t. The sound system on the projector was so bad that even I couldn’t understand the garbled English. I had attended one film, the first weekend I spent in Glória. I vowed it would be my last. The theater had hard wooden seats with almost no leg room. There was no ventilation in the theater. After twenty minutes it felt and smelled like a steamy locker room.
        To help promote the Brazilian film industry, a law prevented foreign films from being dubbed into Portuguese. Therefore every American film had Portuguese subtitles. The owner paid a few high school students to sit at strategic places so they could be ‘readers’. They read the subtitles out loud so any illiterate citizens could enjoy the movie.
        Brunie had spent the afternoon at the office of an agronomist and home economist commissioned by the state government to impliment agricultural and nutrition improvements in the small town. Many farmers requested hybrid corn or other seeds from Luís Carlos. Brunie and Irene talked to women about boiling and filtering water and adding more vegetables to their diets.

Trucks carried vendors and shoppers to and from the

 weekly market.  Our neighbor Gugú, who carried

water to our house, sits on his donkey to the right.

        Trucks, horses, donkeys, and mules with the last of the market-day vendors and shoppers passed me as I walked home from the school. Many vendors would travel to markets in other towns Monday through Friday the next week and return to Glória on Saturday.
        When I arrived home, I decided to take a shower and wash my hair. First I heated water in a huge cooking pot, then mixed enough cold water with it to make it luke warm. In the kitchen, with a slightly slanted mud-brick floor and no windows, I undressed and scooped water into a smaller pot and poured it over my head, allowing it to run under the door to the outside. 

        The house was equipped with a small shower stall, but one had to carry pails of water and go outside to enter it, so it was more convenient to shower inside the house. Besides, soon after she arrived in Glória, Brunie had found a snake in the shower room, so we used it only for storing brooms and other tools. We brushed our teeth standing just inside the back door, spitting into the yard.
        Since we had been to the market that morning, we had a variety of fresh foods for dinner. We could make beef stew with potatoes, onions and carrots. We could use our hand-cranked meat grinder to make hamburgers or meat sauce for pasta. But, since it was Saturday and Brunie wanted to go to the movie that night, we opted for something less time-consuming. We fried fresh pork and heated leftover beans and rice from our kerosene refrigerator. There was always fruit for dessert. We often ended our meal with maté tea. Brunie didn’t like coffee, and frankly the coffee in Glória wasn’t very good. Someone explained that all the good coffee was exported.
        After cleaning the dishes and storing leftovers, we left for Saturday night on the town. The second town square was not used for the market. It had been planted with grass, trees, and other tropical plants. And there were benches scattered around the perimeter. That is were everyone gathered to watch the movemento.

The praça where everyone 

strolled on Saturday night, 

to see and be seen.

See other posts in this series:

Market Day - Part 1 Dawn

Market Day - Part 2 Shopping

Market Day - Part 3 Morning and Afternoon (this one)

Market Day - Part 4 Saturday Night

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

MARKET DAY - Part 4 Saturday Night

This is Part 4 of a 4-part series describing

a typical Saturday ---Market Day ---in Glória.

Note: Some of the names in this story have

been changed because I can’t remember the

real names of all of the people in the town.

Saturday Night - "Hole" Numbers:

        After dinner, Brunie and I strolled around the praça near the church and the post office. This was the time and place to watch the movemento and to be seen watching the movemento. 

        When we tired of strolling, we chose a bench emblazened with script telling us that the bench had been provided by the benevolence of our esteemed mayor. Sometimes we would be surrounded by inquisitive students and neighbors who loved to hear about the United States.

        The Ciné Glória presented a film each Friday and Saturday night. Typically it was an American film with Portuguese subtitles. The projector's sound was so bad we couldn't understand the English. The theatre had hard wooden seats that had not been built for long-legged Americans. It was hot and stuffy inside. If possible, I usually begged off by saying I had seen the film previously ---which was likely because the theater showed mostly old black and white films that had been shown on American TV hundreds of times. Brunie often went to the theater and returned to the praça around 8:30 or 9:00.

        While I waited for her, I purchased popcorn from the children who sold it outside of the theater. I continued socializing with my students and neighbors, or I might stop into a nearby home to visit.
        Then we headed toward the A.A.B.B. ---Associação Atlética Banco do Brasil. Most of the bankers, young and without seniority, were exiled to small towns in the interior. Those who honed their skills, learned English, and stayed with the bank long enough, could receive promotions to better positions and in larger, more-desirable cities. Meanwhile, they set up a club to entertain themselves. Although they had occasional parties, most nights they played buraco, a card game similar to Canasta, and ran up bar bills that rivaled the Brazilian national debt.

        Brunie and I sat with Cardoso and Carlinhos and several other young men and a few female friends. The young men and women from the town were home with family, but those who worked in Glória, but were not from there, joined us at the A.A.B.B.  

        We could purchase Cokes or beer or other liquor, but generally the guys insisted on paying for our drinks. Brunie loved Coca Cola. I preferred Brahma Choppe.

        Carlinhos, a handsome bank teller, was dating one of my students. She was at home. Cardoso, considered one of the most eligible bachelors in town, delivered loan money and collected payments from farmers who lived so far into the interior that they rarely made it to town. Where there was a definite language barrier, what I liked about him was that he had a sense of humor that I understood.
        When the next hand was dealt, I entered a game. I had played buraco so much, I could have played in my sleep. In fact, I spent many nights dreaming about the game. Besides the giant box of paperback books provided by the U.S. government, it was my only entertainment. 

        Buraco means "hole." I guess it was so named because it was possible to lose so many points that one ended up 'in the hole.' The object of the game was to earn as many points as possible ---or at least stay out of the hole. The men kept meticulous records of ongoing scores in notebooks filled with numbers.

        At nine forty-five, the electric lights flicked off for a few seconds. That was the signal that the town’s electric generator would go off in fifteen minutes, time enough to head home while the street lights were still on.
        For me, living without electricity was one of the most difficult aspects of life in Glória. But I had been told that it could be worse. The mayor’s friend, Zé, ran the electrical generator. When the opposition political party had been elected before the present administration had regained political power, Zé refused to run the machine.
        When I arrived in Glória, we had electricity for four hours each night. But that was going to change within a year. Energipe, the electrical company for the state of Sergipe, would be installing full-time electrical power.
 

(L to R) Bankers Cardoso & Carlinhos, Agronomist Etivaldo (?)

          Carlinhos and Cardoso carried kerosene lanterns from the back room for each table. Brunie and a few other women left at midnight so they could rise for early mass the next day. I, on the other hand, preferred to spend my Sunday mornings on my straw-filled mattress.  The rest of us continued playing cards until 2:00 in the morning.
        Cardoso drove me home in his new VW Beatle.  Then he and Carlinhos headed to the pensão where they boarded. Outside my door, I looked up. Without electric lights competing with the sky, the heavens seemed to hold more stars than I ever remembered seeing at home. The Southern Cross, in the shape a a huge kite, dominated the sky over Glôria.
        Inside the door I used matches to light a small lantern. With lantern in hand, I crept past Brunie's door to my room. After crawling under my misquito net, I read by kerosene light until my eyelids became heavy. After reaching under the netting to extinguish the flame, I fell asleep, satisfied to have survived another busy week in Glória.

(©2009, C.J.Peiffer)

See other posts in this series:
Market Day - Part 1 Dawn
Market Day - Part 2 Shopping
Market Day - Part 3 Morning & Afternoon

Market Day - Part 4 Saturday Night (this one)

See my story "CARD TRICK" about my best

practical joke ever ---on my other blog

 PRO ARTZ.