HARRY TRUMAN LIBRARY Papers of NATHANIEL DAVIS Despatch no. 159, April 22, 1949, merican Embassy, San José, Costa Rica.
UNCLASSIFIED Enclosure no. kitchen in sort of an yne with dirt floor, bamboo walls, and a thatched roof. As there was no chimney it was slightly sa okey. The water was dipped with buckets from the adjacent river which even in the semi darkness did not look very attractive. Mr. and Mrs. Stone and set up our cots and unrolled our sleeping bags in one of the two family living rooms. The rest of the party set up theirs in the storeroom. The owner and his family and various unidentified hangers on all set up housekeeping in the remaining living room. The aupper of beans, rice, tortillas, eggs, and corfee was quickly eaton and we turbled gladly into bed.
We had been told that to reach the nearast Indian village or polenquo it was necessary to make a two hour trip on foot. Due to the thick wud and seep climb don Porfirio, Ronnie Stone, and decided not to go as we knew with the kind of shoe we were wearing we could never negotiate the muddy path. It was agreed that our hostess would awaken Doris and the rest at a. and give them coffee before they started the hike.
The people in that area have so little sense of time and probably have no clocks that the hostesa, in her zeal, awakened us at 3:30. We chased her back to bed and she returned at 4:30. The third time she succeeded. Her efforts were hardly necessary as roostera began crowing about one o clock and kept it up all night and when they stopped the pigs, wallowing in a mud hole under the house, set up a magnificent grunting and aplashing. Unfortunately, one pig favored the spot directly under my bed and, as the floor was full of cracks, when it was quiet the oder kapt me awake anyway. None of us alept very much.
ܘܛܐ April Don Porfirio, Ronnie, and spent most of the morning in dugout canoe on the river fishing for a kind of bags which rung around pounds and fish like a fat porch but sonewhat smaller. We got quite a lot and returned to the house about noon to find that Doris and her party had returned and most of the Indians had cone with her, all tho latter (men, women and children) in an advanced state of intoxication which apparently 18 their natural condition and all of them collectively the most persistent beggers have ever seen. Principally they wanted money in order to buy liquor but when we wouldn give then money they tried for cigarettes. After they got all the cigarettes we could apare, one of them admitted he would settle for my wristwatch. When we saw their condition of intoxication and their persistent begging, we decided to set a guard over our par.
sonal belongings. That was not necessary as we were sur prised to observe they did not steal but there was no hasitation about asking for anything.
When the UNCLASSIFIED