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later that the runway in the airport was short and the end of the runway
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later plane that was less loaded.
In San Salvador, El Salvador, I saw a contrast between wealthy
and the poor citizens that left an imprint on my mind. The wealthy citi-
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industry. The wealthy people had beautiful homes made of dark brown
stone with beautiful wrought iron gates. The remaining people were dirt
poor. I have seldom seen sharper contrast within one country.
In Guatemala the capital city is in the mountains. Everything is
beautiful and green. I enjoyed seeing the open-air markets. One feature
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a Guatemalan who had spent a fair amount of time in the States. It was
fortunate that he was the driver because he stopped at one point where
a few soldiers seemed to be idly sitting around on the edge of the road.
It turned out that this was an army checkpoint and a man in the brush
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on the car.
Every man we passed on the road was carrying a machete. They
told me that these were carried both to slash any brush and as a de-
fense against snakes that were frequent in the area. The men always car-
ried the machetes. As a result, if they got drunk on Saturday night, men
slashed one another horribly. $W WKH OLWWOH UH¿QHU\ GRZQ E\ WKH VHD WKH
half dozen Americans there each had a house built on stilts. I felt they
were a remarkably cheerful group as I talked to each of them and spent
the night there.
In Nicaragua, I was supposed to stay at a local hotel. The local
manager for Chevron insisted that I stay in a little guesthouse at his
home. That night we had dinner at a local restaurant where one of the
guests was General Somoza, the president of Nicaragua. I did not meet
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spoke with him. When we returned to the managers home, we found
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