2007.02.21: February 21, 2007: Headlines: COS - Brazil: return to our Country of Service - Brazil: Winfield Courier: Dave and Callie Seaton return to Muqui where they served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Brazil in 1962 and 1963
Peace Corps Online:
Directory:
Brazil:
Peace Corps Brazil:
Peace Corps Brazil: Newest Stories:
2007.02.21: February 21, 2007: Headlines: COS - Brazil: return to our Country of Service - Brazil: Winfield Courier: Dave and Callie Seaton return to Muqui where they served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Brazil in 1962 and 1963
Dave and Callie Seaton return to Muqui where they served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Brazil in 1962 and 1963
"When my family and I traveled there in 1999, I had been disappointed that the town seemed to be in decline. The main street was quiet. Students were leaving the once-distinguished high school to study in the nearby city of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim. Old friends said they felt isolated in Muqui. Last week, I was pleased to find Muqui much more vital. Two new neighborhoods had sprung up, each with about 100 modest new homes. The main street was filled with cars, motorcycles, trucks and shoppers. A low-power television station was operating at city hall. The streets of a former favela (hillside slum), where we helped build a school, had been paved with hand-laid tiles."
Dave and Callie Seaton return to Muqui where they served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Brazil in 1962 and 1963
Living with the past in rural Brazil - and Kansas
By DAVE SEATON
Publisher
I returned last weekend from a quick trip to Brazil.
My wife, Callie, and I have old friends in the town where we served as Peace Corps volunteers in 1962 and 1963.
At that time, Ary Caido Fraga, a cattle rancher and coffee farmer, was mayor of Muqui, pop. about 5,000. Muqui is the seat of a county the size of Cowley County, located in the coastal state of Espirito Santo some 200 miles north of Rio de Janeiro.
Ary and his wife, Anna, are members of Muqui's most distinguished family. They were our hosts and mentors as we worked to expand a school lunch program into the countryside.
On my recent visit, I was pleased to see how Muqui had changed.
When my family and I traveled there in 1999, I had been disappointed that the town seemed to be in decline. The main street was quiet. Students were leaving the once-distinguished high school to study in the nearby city of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim. Old friends said they felt isolated in Muqui.
Last week, I was pleased to find Muqui much more vital.
Two new neighborhoods had sprung up, each with about 100 modest new homes. The main street was filled with cars, motorcycles, trucks and shoppers. A low-power television station was operating at city hall. The streets of a former favela (hillside slum), where we helped build a school, had been paved with hand-laid tiles.
The whole aspect of the town was upbeat.
It was, indeed, Carnival, the time when Muqui celebrates for several days with artificial cows, colorfully decorated atop light poles downtown. Muquienses come home from the cities to which they have migrated and celebrate with their friends and families.
Coming home
If all this sounds familiar to life in Winfield and rural Kansas, it is.
Looking back on my recent visit to Brazil, I am stunned by the similarities between Muqui and Winfield.
Muqui was settled in the 1870s, as was Winfield. Before the Great Depression of the 1930s, Muqui boomed on coffee, as Winfield did on oil. Now Muqui is going through what many rural towns in this country experienced in the middle of the 20th century, as people leave the land to settle in towns where they have better services.
Today there is an effort in Muqui to recall the community's glorious past. Like Winfield, Muqui is a town of music. A recent article in a Brazilian tourist magazine says Muqui claims to have more pianos per capita than any other municipality in Brazil. (Remember the 100 "mass pianos" at Winfield High School in the 1950s?)
Professora Maria Jose Macedo Furtado was apparently the Dr. E. Marie Burdette - the long-time, revered piano teacher - of Muqui.
Like Winfield, Muqui is known for its festivals.
The March of Kings, a traditional religious festival imported from Portugal, recently drew 10,000 people to Muqui, according to the fall 2006 edition of Natural magazine. The Festival of St. John, the town's patron saint, brings hundreds to Muqui each June 24.
Folklore and the fine arts are said to flourish in Muqui. Elegant town houses are being restored, many of them built in the early 20th century for coffee-growers who moved to town so their children could go to school.
Now many rural students are bussed to school in town. Most one-room rural schoolhouses are closed.
It was at those one-room schools that Callie and I worked with the landowners to provide lunches to attract the children of landless peasant workers to class. Fortunately, with the help of our allies, we were able to double to 34 the number of rural schools where Food for Peace commodities were served.
Looking back, I have to give credit for our success to Ary.
It was he who introduced us to the powerful landowners, many of whom were his relatives. It was he who thought of recruiting the landowners' daughters to become teachers - so the instructor would be at school every day, instead of finding an excuse to stay in town. It was he who introduced us to Padre Pedro, a beloved Catholic priest, a Spaniard, who fathered nearly everything progressive in Muqui during our time there.
Now in their early 80s, Ary and Anna live on the same street in the neighborhood of Good Hope where they have always lived. They often travel the 120 miles to Vitoria, the state capital, for medical care at a free, public hospital. Their son, Ed, and daughter, Gracia, and their families live in Vitoria, a fast-growing, seaside city sometimes called "the Poor Man's Rio."
If there is a lesson in all this, it is that small, rural communities can, indeed, revitalize themselves by looking back to their own colorful pasts. This seems to me especially true when a community such as Muqui - or Winfield - has enjoyed earlier wealth and distinction.
When you look around, of course, you can see that most rural communities have a colorful past, often a glorious one. The job of reclaiming the energy of that past may be tough, but just taking it on can brighten attitudes and bring hope to what might otherwise be considered just another lackluster country town.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: February, 2007; Peace Corps Brazil; Directory of Brazil RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Brazil RPCVs; Return to our Country of Service - Brazil
When this story was posted in April 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
 | Suspect confesses in murder of PCV
Search parties in the Philippines discovered the body of Peace Corps Volunteer Julia Campbell near Barangay Batad, Banaue town on April 17. Director Tschetter expressed his sorrow at learning the news. “Julia was a proud member of the Peace Corps family, and she contributed greatly to the lives of Filipino citizens in Donsol, Sorsogon, where she served,” he said. Latest: Suspect Juan Duntugan admits to killing Campbell. Leave your thoughts and condolences . |
 | Warren Wiggins: Architect of the Peace Corps
Warren Wiggins, who died at 84 on April 13, became one of the architects of the Peace Corps in 1961 when his paper, "A Towering Task," landed in the lap of Sargent Shriver, just as Shriver was trying to figure out how to turn the Peace Corps into a working federal department. Shriver was electrified by the treatise, which urged the agency to act boldly. Read Mr. Wiggins' obituary and biography, take an opportunity to read the original document that shaped the Peace Corps' mission, and read John Coyne's special issue commemorating "A Towering Task." |
 | Chris Dodd's Vision for the Peace Corps
Senator Chris Dodd (RPCV Dominican Republic) spoke at the ceremony for this year's Shriver Award and elaborated on issues he raised at Ron Tschetter's hearings. Dodd plans to introduce legislation that may include: setting aside a portion of Peace Corps' budget as seed money for demonstration projects and third goal activities (after adjusting the annual budget upward to accommodate the added expense), more volunteer input into Peace Corps operations, removing medical, healthcare and tax impediments that discourage older volunteers, providing more transparency in the medical screening and appeals process, a more comprehensive health safety net for recently-returned volunteers, and authorizing volunteers to accept, under certain circumstances, private donations to support their development projects. He plans to circulate draft legislation for review to members of the Peace Corps community and welcomes RPCV comments. |
 | He served with honor
One year ago, Staff Sgt. Robert J. Paul (RPCV Kenya) carried on an ongoing dialog on this website on the military and the peace corps and his role as a member of a Civil Affairs Team in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have just received a report that Sargeant Paul has been killed by a car bomb in Kabul. Words cannot express our feeling of loss for this tremendous injury to the entire RPCV community. Most of us didn't know him personally but we knew him from his words. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. He was one of ours and he served with honor. |
 | Peace Corps' Screening and Medical Clearance
The purpose of Peace Corps' screening and medical clearance process is to ensure safe accommodation for applicants and minimize undue risk exposure for volunteers to allow PCVS to complete their service without compromising their entry health status. To further these goals, PCOL has obtained a copy of the Peace Corps Screening Guidelines Manual through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and has posted it in the "Peace Corps Library." Applicants and Medical Professionals (especially those who have already served as volunteers) are urged to review the guidelines and leave their comments and suggestions. Then read the story of one RPCV's journey through medical screening and his suggestions for changes to the process. |
 | The Peace Corps is "fashionable" again
The LA Times says that "the Peace Corps is booming again and "It's hard to know exactly what's behind the resurgence." PCOL Comment: Since the founding of the Peace Corps 45 years ago, Americans have answered Kennedy's call: "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." Over 182,000 have served. Another 200,000 have applied and been unable to serve because of lack of Congressional funding. The Peace Corps has never gone out of fashion. It's Congress that hasn't been keeping pace. |
 | PCOL readership increases 100%
Monthly readership on "Peace Corps Online" has increased in the past twelve months to 350,000 visitors - over eleven thousand every day - a 100% increase since this time last year. Thanks again, RPCVs and Friends of the Peace Corps, for making PCOL your source of information for the Peace Corps community. And thanks for supporting the Peace Corps Library and History of the Peace Corps. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come. |
 | History of the Peace Corps
PCOL is proud to announce that Phase One of the "History of the Peace Corps" is now available online. This installment includes over 5,000 pages of primary source documents from the archives of the Peace Corps including every issue of "Peace Corps News," "Peace Corps Times," "Peace Corps Volunteer," "Action Update," and every annual report of the Peace Corps to Congress since 1961. "Ask Not" is an ongoing project. Read how you can help. |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: Winfield Courier
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Brazil; return to our Country of Service - Brazil
PCOL36496
41
