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pay to sending his children to a school. This was typically a room in
a private home and the teacher would be a woman who had a half-doz-
en years of education. Many families abandoned young children; they
were simply unable to feed and care for them. Often these abandoned
children would be found sleeping in doorways of buildings downtown
at night. Because of the cool climate, they would wrap themselves in
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to the newspapers covering a sleeping child. Poverty in a situation like
this can be grim indeed.
By the time I got to Panama, I was concerned and arranged
through our local manager to see a doctor there. He said that the wound
would heal all right but warned against extensive use of the sulfa drug
for fear of developing an allergy to it. In Panama, I took the train across
the isthmus in order to see the whole of the Panama Canal. It was an
interesting but simple operation. The big problem had been prevent-
ing yellow fever and malaria from decimating the construction crews.
Having gone from one end of the canal to another, I caught the next
train back to my base. The American company operating the Panama
Canal restricted Panamanians to routine non-supervisory jobs. Even
the donkey engines which ran alongside the edge of the canal and
pulled the ships were all operated by Americans. This was ridiculous. Is
it any wonder that Panamanians resented their lack of job opportunity
and promotion in a canal in their own country? The following day was
Sunday and I got a lesson in Panamanian politics. A voting place had
been set up in several small tents on the grounds of the hotel. However,
at about three in the afternoon, the Panamanian Army decided they had
had enough of such democratic nonsense as free elections; they simply
picked up all the ballot boxes and took them away.
I went to San Jose, Costa Rica where the local manager of a
Chevron chemical subsidiary was a Palestinian who had worked for me
in Ras Tanura! He was a crackerjack and ran a good operation. In Tegu-
cigalpa, Honduras, I visited with the local manager. Afterward he took
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system, This plane is overloaded due to the short runway we have here.
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