The Reluctant Volunteer: My Unforgettable Journey With the Peace Corps in Brazil

By Peggy Constantine

Peggy lies to her boyfriend and says she would love to join him in the Peace Corps. They marry, and soon their situation seems like a recipe for disaster. Overwhelmed by depression, culture shock, and homesickness, Peggy is torn between her love for her husband and her longing to leave training and return home. Chances are the marriage will not survive her unhappiness and his determination to remain in Brazil at all costs. What happens next surprises both of them, as they brave physical and emotional challenges in the process of becoming successful volunteers. Along the way, they make friends and experience situations that will resonate with them for the rest of their lives. Full of vivid character sketches and powerful images, The Reluctant Volunteer is ultimately a story of personal growth and the power of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781682227152

Book preview

Acknowledgments

PREFACE

It wasn’t my idea to go into the Peace Corps, but I was crazy about my boyfriend and it was his dream. So I married him, and three weeks later, we started training to work in Brazil.

Months later, after enduring massive attacks of depression, homesickness, and culture shock during training and our first months in country, I fell in love with Brazil and Brazilians. I love them to this day.

I want to walk the streets of Cristalina again. I want to see the discards from the crystal mines glittering on the sidewalk, all the way into town. I want to amble over to Francisco’s gas station and restaurant on the corner near my house, drink Brahma Choppe beer, and play pallitos, a game using toothpicks. I want to be a Peace Corps volunteer again, teaching American children’s games at the elementary schools and calling them physical education. I want to sit with my dear friend, Vanesa, and watch soap operas while Tim goes off to teach English at the high school. Vanesa will tell me what the people are saying, and then one night, I won’t need her to translate anymore. I want to watch her hold her two little boys, smell their stomachs, and hear her tell me that the smell of your own child is the most wonderful fragrance in the world.

After I do those things, I’ll go to Eliana’s house and listen while she tells me her life story. Then again, maybe she’ll tell me once more that if her friend Paola isn’t careful, people in town are going to think she’s having an affair with the local priest. Really, Paola’s much too devoted to the Catholic Church and the priest is a grumpy old man. It might be cold that day. If so, we will drink tea and eat popcorn. Her daughter, Selena, will sit quietly and smile while we gossip.

Or, Tim and I might take the bus to Goiania, the capitol of the state of Goias. We called it The Heavenly City because the skyline, with its tall buildings and massive trees, looked so spectacular from our seats on the approaching bus. I can still see those trees swaying in the balmy air as we strolled the streets. It made me think of the Champs-Élysées. Eventually, we could stop at an outdoor bar and order caipirinhas, the Brazilian margaritas now popular here. We were so young, and Brazil was so exciting.

Bless my parents, who saved every letter I wrote them from the time we left until we returned. My initial homesickness made me a faithful correspondent, and besides, I wanted to make it up to them for doing something they found terrifying. My father did the math and told me what my salary would have been for two years of teaching, had we stayed at home.

He’s taking her to live in some third-world slum! he confided to my aunt, who couldn’t wait to tell me what he’d said.

As we boarded the plane, my father grabbed Tim’s arm and hissed, Take care of her! Tears were streaming down my mother’s cheeks. If only they had known that I was off on the adventure of a lifetime, to a place where I was never harmed or in danger. On the contrary, I had never had as many friends as I had in Brazil, eaten such great food, or learned so much about the world and myself.

When I went through training and then lived in Brazil, I saw it all as something I was doing before the really important things in my life happened. But now I know that except for becoming a mother, nothing in my life would be more meaningful, unforgettable, and life changing.

So here’s my story—all the shocks, joys, and challenges I can remember. It’s an honest account of a time in my life that bonded me completely to my husband and changed my world view forever.

Part One

Training

CHAPTER ONE

Training in Salt Lake City and Alta, Utah

I got into trouble on our second day of training in Salt Lake City, when the Peace Corps dentist discovered I had four decayed wisdom teeth that would have to come out.

Now, if you’ll just lie still, he murmured.

His assistant was his niece, filling in for the dental hygienist. When my teeth proved reluctant to leave me, he put one foot up against the chair to brace himself while he leaned back, yanking back and forth on the pliers using all of his body weight. I felt nothing, but I did hear the crack of my teeth or roots toward the end. Looking up, I saw that the poor niece had tears streaming down her face. As soon as I could, I tried to reassure her.

I’m fine, really. It didn’t hurt at all.

Still, she made a hasty exit and, I’m sure, never considered a career in dentistry. I was given a large bottle of painkillers and sent on my way. This was followed by visits to a doctor and an optometrist, as well as shots against smallpox, yellow fever, and polio.

Our group of forty-five young people, both couples and singles, stayed at the old Newhouse Hotel. We were the bachelor of arts generalists sent out in the early days of the Peace Corps, recent graduates with little or no real-life experience. Some were admitted draft dodgers, but the majority were idealists and I felt like a poseur in a group of selfless humanitarians. Were any of the other wives like me, only there because of their husbands? In reality, some of them were, but I didn’t know that right away.

Because this was 1969, we were either counterculture radicals or boring traditionalists. Tim and I belonged to the latter group, since we actually liked our parents and the United States. At our university, the only protest was over increased costs, and the one sign in evidence said Raise Hemlines, Not Tuition.

I was astounded at our first group meeting to see a former sorority sister named Pat.

I know that woman! I whispered to Tim as we walked past her and he husband, Jim.

Once the meeting was over, we met in the middle of the room.

Aren’t you Pat? I gushed.

And you’re Peggy, she said, smiling.

Though only two years older, the two of them always made Tim and me feel immature. They had left careers in teaching and engineering to have an adventure before Jim started graduate school. Both seemed way more worldly and experienced than we were. The handsome and reserved Jim in particular made many of the young men in the group seem like adolescents. The four of us became fast friends.

Immediately after all medical matters were resolved, our director summoned us to an evening meeting.

Tomorrow morning, he intoned, all of you will leave this hotel. Be outside at 8 a.m. to get on the bus. Couples and single women will go stay with poor Hispanic families here in Salt Lake. They’ve been paid for your room and board. You single men will go throughout the state to live in migrant labor camps. You’re going to find out how well you can relate to people like the ones you’ll meet in Brazil.

No questions were allowed. Had he barked, At ease! That is all! it wouldn’t have seemed out of place.

Shell-shocked, we made our way back to our rooms to digest all of this. None of us had anticipated leaving comfort behind so quickly.

This was when anger and depression seized me. Up to that point, the wedding, the novelty of being married to Tim, and the excitement of travel had kept my mind occupied. But now we were really trainees, and I was looking at three months of training and two years of doing something I had no desire to do.

I felt overwhelmed.

I can’t believe this! I ranted, pacing around the room. What’s the matter with them? Isn’t it enough that I’m going to go live in a third world country eventually? Why do I have to go through this charade?

Tim was silent.

Early the next morning, we arrived at the home of a couple named Ray and Veronica Salazar and their six children. They were all waiting outside the house and welcomed us like royalty. Not the scenario the program director envisioned, I’m sure, but we didn’t mind.

The Salazars treated us like honored houseguests, even though we kept saying, We want to help! No amount of pleading made Veronica allow me to do anything beyond drying the dishes after dinner. They insisted we sleep in their bedroom while they bunked with the kids. This made us feel both humbled and uncomfortable, but it seemed rude to argue.

On our last night with the Salazars, they took us all out to dinner with the money they’d been given. It was a treat for them but a revelation for us. Never had we met warmer or more generous people.

Back at the hotel, we compared notes. No one received better treatment than we, since some couples slept in chairs and all were expected to work. Having lived like migrant laborers, the single men were feeling used and abused. Everyone was ready for our next stop, the Alta Peruvian Lodge in Alta, Utah.

The lodge is a well-known skiing destination in the winter but it’s also beautiful in the summer, surrounded by tall trees, wildflowers, and a steep mountain in the back. Our rooms were basic but they were clean and comfortable. The second floor housed a heated swimming pool and a bar/ lounge area where we could drink beer and practice Portuguese. During the day, we attended classes in various rooms on the first floor.

Our trainers were either Brazilians or Anglos who had grown up in Brazil. They were all urbane and intriguing, some of them Mormon converts who admitted to professing the religion only in order to attend Brigham Young University. A favorite was Gustav, a tall, stocky bald man from the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba. We called him Mr. Clean. He called Tim and me Alface e Tomate (Lettuce and Tomato) because I once pronounced Tim’s Portuguese name, Timoteo, like tomato in Portuguese.

The most attractive trainer by far was Leandro, who was married to a stunning young woman from Mexico City. Regina was every man’s dream of an alluring young Latina—voluptuous, bronze-skinned, dark-eyed, languid in her movements, the kind of woman who looks down but then up and sideways. She was expecting their first child. As I followed her down the hotel corridor, her waist-length hair flowing over her aqua swimsuit, I envied not only her beauty but also her cosmopolitan air and sense of purpose. She already held a master’s degree.

Leandro was intense, a handsome, black-haired man from a highly educated upper-middle-class family. He was deadly serious about language instruction and brooked no silliness in his students. We all sensed that he was headed for success.

We immediately began the real training everyone was waiting for. Portuguese classes ran from 8 a.m. to noon, followed by afternoon lectures and some evening sessions. During the afternoons, we learned about the history of Brazil and the challenge of community development.

That was when my whole sense of disorientation and unease increased. What exactly was community development? It was the name of our program, but that was all I knew. Despite the many lectures about it— descriptions of the kinds of things we might do, scenarios of volunteers arriving at their site and getting to know the people and then wisely choosing their own assignment based on the needs of the community—I just couldn’t internalize it. The whole thing seemed so nebulous, and I had another reason to feel depressed.

During the initial years of the Peace Corps, many volunteers were sent to do community development in a variety of settings. But over time, it turned out to be a uniquely American concept that made no sense to people in other cultures. When community development volunteers arrived at their sites with no particular training or goals, they often received little respect. In particular, a man with no occupation was seen as lazy or suspect. While some community development volunteers succeeded, others felt no sense of direction and became overwhelmed. These volunteers ended up being taken care of by the people they were sent to help. Now volunteers with specific skills are sent to areas where they can use their expertise.

I liked language training. We were divided into eight groups according to knowledge and aptitude, with an average of six people to one instructor. They gave us big loose-leaf notebooks full of exercises to use in class and then read and practice later with tapes.

Good grief, I can’t even daydream in class, I complained. There’s barely enough time to breathe. It’s way too intense.

One evening, they showed us a classic Brazilian film called Vidas Secas (Barren Lives), where everything happens in a poverty-stricken northeast Brazilian town. The scenery is relentless desert, all the people are miserable, and an emaciated dog