HARRY TRUMAN LIBRARY Papers of NATHANIEL DAVIS Despatch no. 69, February 16, 1949, San José, Costa Rica American Erababay, inclosure ho. UNCLASSIFIED large scale demonstration fields. The school house consists of two thatched huts with bamboo well, and there are desks and benches for the children, a blackboard, and a fow educational charts and maps. The only decorations here, or anywhere on the trip, were rotogravure pictures of Franklin Roosevelt and President Truman, tacked up on the bamboo wall of one of the school buildings.
The teacher house is built of lumber produced at the school mostly hand saw although a small mechanica. sawmill powered by a kerosene engine is being installed.
There was running wator pumped by hand from a spring, pure and pleasant tasting but not enough in quantity for all purposes.
Petting and brick Sveloped moothing After we had rested a bit we had supper, all the food having been produced on the premises. We had quito an audience while we ate and after supper several ot the Indians sang songs to guitar accompaniment and some of the merabers of our party recited. Contrary to everyone expectations there are six cots in the teacher house.
Three placed in one room were occupied by the three ladies of our party three in another room by three of the wen; and the rest of the men slept in sleeping bags on the floor. rated one of the beds. imagine the teacher slept on the floor in the kitchen as we must certainly have had all the beds in the community.
February 9, 1949.
We were up at the first sign of dawn shortly after five and after breakfagt of tortillas, rice and beans, and coffee, walked over the fields; visited the school house; and in fact, saw all the sights of the place. At 8:30 we mounted our mules and started for Térraba. Mr.
Stone and Sr. Parra loft us here to return to San José. mile or two out of Salitro the party got separated, one half took a short cut through the woods and the regt, including mysel, took the long way around across a hot, dusty plain. This was a long, hard day riding acrosa bllatering, treeless plains and through cool dark wooda up and down steep ridges and fording a number of streams.
The two parties met about noon at the banks of a river where we stopped for a pionic lunch. After crossing the river which was the widest on the whole trip, and the swiftest but not the doepast, we rode for several hours mostly climbing an incredibly steep hill to Ferraba which we reached about 4:30 Tarraba was once quite an active community. During the Calderon Cuardia administration ito Jefe Político oppressed and exploited the Indians. Peeling that they had no recourse they simply abandoned the town and moved back into the hills, The sahool was closed for several years UNCLASSIFIN