Word: bananas
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...road to the junction with the paved Burma highway at Mongyu. We went up to watch. An infantry company lay waiting on a hill a mile from the Pinghai pocket, while below two tank units rolled back & forth through the Jap positions, machine-gunning and chewing up the banana thickets. Then Chinese infantry groped in to hunt for snipers. It was good to see these Chinese troops. They had fed well for a full year, their uniforms were clean, their helmets sat jauntily on their heads...
...Rica depends on coffee, calls the local coffee bean the "grain of gold." There is reason for this eulogy: the Costa Rican bean assays at 86% liquid coffee-making essence, as compared to the Brazilian bean's 29%. Costa Rica's politics revolve around coffee; the coastal banana has only secondary political influence...
Costing $750,000 to set up and $150,000 a year to run, the Zamorano school is a princely gift from the great United Fruit Co. to the restive people of its banana empire. Tuition is free. So is everything else, including clothes and elaborate dental work. Most of the 122 students come from poor Central American families of Indian blood, who could not possibly afford a U.S. education for their sons. Said one father of a successful applicant: "It was like winning the lottery...
Keenly aware of the distrust with which it is regarded throughout Central America, the United Fruit Co. leans over backward to keep the Zamorano school above suspicion. It has announced that it will not employ the graduates in its plantations. The school does not teach banana culture, admits no students because of political connections, markets no surplus produce for fear of being accused of exploiting the students' labor. Said one relieved staff member, long a United Fruit employe: "We feel as pure as missionaries here...
...wasn't for the waves, caramba! Santa Marta would die, caramba!* The song's rhythm, moving from the easy to the explosive, is an ideal basis for the Porro Colombiano-a dance suggesting that the Santa Martans have learned some very sinuous slips on their banana peels...