HARRY TRUMAN LIBRARY Papers of NATHANIEL DAVIS Despatch no. 69, February 16, 1949, American Exbassy, San José, Costa Rica UNCLASSIFIED Enclosure no. years. l ew months ago a new teacher was sent and he now has some forty or fifty children. He expects to get more as the word aproads through the 41atrict that there no more oppression.
The school house is a rather dilapidated building of wood consisting of a school room and a room where the bachelor teacher lives. There are two large thatched huta occupied by children who come from too far to go home at night. The older children cook and care for the younger ones. There is a modest little church to which prieat comes once a year and a small priest houge adjoining. Another thatched hut occupied by an old woman who is known to everyone a Marita and 18 said to be the oldest inhabitant of the district. How old she is do not know and nobody would hasard a guesa.
We visited her. She is nearly blind and wear: smoked glasses, quite a startling sight in that distriot. In her house we aaw the type of abone corn grinder used dentarios ago and now seen occasionally in archeological museums a large smooth shallow stone diah 13 which the corn is placed and a heavy oval stone worked by hand to grind it. The stone is quite heavy to handle but rolled back and forth at a certain rhythm not too hard to operate. We all took turns grinding corn to see how it went.
We went inside the church and looked at some of the imarea and figures used for the village portal. Some of that had been quite attractive but much damage had been done by white ants and repairs had been made so erudely as to give some of the figure a ludicrous appearance. We all had supper together in the school house, the school desks being moved together to form a long tablo while we sat on little kidsad chairs. In addition to the usual fried pork, the inevitable platanoa and beans and rice, we had a soup made from canned tuna fish which was something new to me in the culinary departmont but was special treat in our honor. don know 181du的角色总在城镇有4费产的中1名 智鱼都是 present from Mrs. Stone to the school teacher.
Since the teacher here is a bachelor there was only ons bed in his room which Loulse occupied. The other two ladies used sleeping bags on the floor as did all of the men in the school room.
Februiley 10, 1949.
We were up again at the first aim oł dawn. went up to the whack occupied by some of the children when school is in session to bog a little water for akaving. never thought about a mirror 30 shaved and combed my hair UNCLASSIFIED