THE PEACE CORPS: A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

	By Juan E. Rosario (Brazil I 4-H Project, January 1962-December 1963) Written and posted on May 15, 2011 and re-posted on June 15, 2017 Some images from the original post are missing, cause unknown. THE FIRST PHASE: WASHINGTON, DC To every volunteer the Peace Corps experience had different meaning. There are a lot of factors that influenced our personal experience. Mine began sometime in September 1961 when the Agriculture Extension Service in my hometown came to me to talk about a 4-H Club sponsored Peace Corps Project, immediately I applied, then I was asked to take a test and wait for a call. By December 1962 I was informed of my selection to attend the project training at the National 4-H Center in Washington, DC. As a 4-H Club member I never had an opportunity to visit the 4-H Club Center, much less Washington, DC. From this point on everything was my first experience, fist time I left home for a long period of time, first airplane flight, first time in mainland USA, first time in an all English language environment, first and only time to visit the U.S. Capitol, to attend a reception and the opportunity to get into the Senate Chamber and sit in a senator desk. During the first phase of our training I had the privilege of meeting a group of excellent persons, volunteers, staff, speakers from which a learned an infinite amount of knowledge and a friendship that lasted up to this date. As a group we have met in reunions many times in many places such as: Washington, DC, Montana, Alabama, North Carolina, Puerto Rico (twice) and others I didn’t attend. I learned to view voluntarism in a different way, a different perspective. This time not as a partial time volunteer, now as a fulltime, day and night, seven days a week and twenty four hours a day. I enjoyed almost every moment of my service and proud to have had the opportunity to teach many children what I knew about agriculture, health, leadership and so on. Even with my initial difficulties with the English language, I can say I performed quite well. I received a lot of good advice from fellow volunteers, staff and visitors, I even today remember an advise given to me by an elderly lady visiting the 4-H Center on a Sunday. I gained more agriculture knowledge, personal and international relations awareness, getting into a psychological battery of tests and be successful at the end, and many more. Another gain I cherish dearly is the learning of a new language, Portuguese. The first few days to me we were a bunch of strangers with many experiences, but as the time went on we became a cohesive group with the common purpose of becoming proud representatives of the 4-H movement, the Peace Corps and the United States. I’m still very proud of this experience and the many friends a made or gained both fellows Americans and Brazilians.
	THE SECOND PHASE: PUERTO RICO This part of the training took place in a Peace Corps camp in the mountains of Puerto Rico, this camp later was named Camp Crozier to honor one of two Volunteers dead in a plane crash in Colombia in April 22, 1962. At this field training camp we spent most of the time in physical conditioning, a military training type that included mountain hike, swimming, survival skills, first aid. Besides that, we had Portuguese language training and a internship week in an Agriculture Extension Service office. The living quarters consisted basically of military tents. We learned to work in groups and look after each other during the swimming and hiking training. We also learned to survive during four days with little food and water and find them in the forest. We had no guides, we had to rely in a map and a compass to get from the camp to an area located dozens of miles away. I believe that training allowed me to have a better understanding of nature and the possible risks when facing natural disasters and surviving them. Self-confidence, immediate action taking and critical thinking were lessons learned.
	THE THIRD PHASE: BRAZIL This phase was very important an was conducted at the Universidade Rural Federal de Rio de Janeiro in Campo Grande [Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro]. It was dedicated mostly to improve our knowledge of the Portuguese language we began to study in Washington, DC and Puerto Rico. We had intensive sessions of hundreds of hours. Besides de classroom interaction we had diverse opportunities to interact with the Brazilian professors, university students, field trips, cultural activities, sports and other that allowed us to have a meaningful relationship with those Portuguese native speakers. I’m very proud of the mastery of the language I gained. As today I can proudly say I can read, write and speak it. I gained a third language, a new culture and hundreds of friends of all kind. In Rio de Janeiro I hat the first interaction with a Brazilian family, for one or two weeks I lived one that allowed me to to see first hand a family and receiving a warm welcome. I felt very grateful to them not only for their love and friendship, also for their willingness to take me to different important places, like the Corcovado Mountain to see the large statue of Christ the Redeemer, to a Russian Industrial Exposition, a Country Club and its farm, the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches and the Maracaná Stadium. The whole Rio de Janeiro experience lasted until mid June of 1962, when we went to the state capitals of our assignment. In my case, Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais.
	ON THE JOB SITE In Belo Horizonte, for the first time we had a direct contact with the Agriculture Extension Service personnel. At that time its name was Associação de Crédito e Assistência Rural de Minas Gerais (ACAR-MINAS). We learned about the agency: administration, regional and local extension offices, projects, procedures and so on. For the first time Portuguese was the only language used during this phase of the training. By the first week of July we were in our way to our job sites/local extension offices. In my case and Esther Diaz we were assigned to to local office of Teófilo Otoni, northeast part of the state, now known as the World Capital of the Precious Stones. Upon arrival in Teófilo Otoni we already had a place to stay and everything ready to begin our mission: getting involved in the 4-S Club movement across the municipality and the areas covered by the local office of the agriculture extension service. Esther went to live a well-known local family and I went to live in the same building the single extension personnel lived. Our language skills were improved talking all the time in Portuguese, obviously they didn't speak neither English or Spanish (Esther and my native language). We had the opportunity to meet many of the local people, rural families and 4-S Club members. We got to know the region we were to work. At our arrival the local extension office only had three 4-S Clubs. The local office didn’t have enough personal to reach every community, we were there to address that need. During the eighteen (18) months we were there five new clubs were organized and active at the time of our departure. Those eight (8) clubs had altogether more than one hundred members between boys and girls. That increment in clubs and members was the work of every one of the office personnel: agronomist, veterinarian, home economist and the Peace Corps volunteers. We provided the club members with advise and demonstrations in agriculture techniques, home economics, leadership, health and nutrition instruction. Every member had a project either in agriculture, animal husbandry, and home economics. They were also involved in community development projects that benefited the whole community. The projects developed by those boys and girls were good examples for their family, friends and community. Their achievements provided them the opportunity to show their parents the effectiveness of new techniques, especially in agriculture, animal husbandry and home economics. Besides our daily responsibilities, during our free time we had the opportunity to attend social events, like parties, picnics, weddings, and others. That allowed us to have a better understanding and vision of the people we were living and working with. My learning experience is beyond my writing ability, but I can assure everybody that it was very rich and enlightening. Juan E. Rosario-Rivera May2011 Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico