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As Del was getting up from the table he said, “Don’t you think it’s funny that we teach them agriculture, and none of them own any land?”

That’s when Daddy blew up.

“You got a problem with how things are run around here, then get off your ass and do something about it!” He slammed his fist on…

The brochure had included a list of difficult questions Americans should be prepared to answer when traveling in uncivilized countries. If you are a democracy, why do whites and blacks eat at separate lunch counters? The brochure didn’t propose an answer, as if the answer was obvious, and the issue…

“You let your servants cook native in the house?” Mrs. Billings asked.

“Well, I mean, they can cook what they want to feed themselves,” Mrs. Lederer said, “as long as they serve proper meals to us.”

Mrs. Billings said there was no place for garlic and boiled yucca in her house. She’d trained …

[...] Everly asked where they were from.

“Hmm. Let’s see. Tela, Limón, Buenos Aires,” Val said, counting on her fingers, “Bogotá, Panama City—”

“Our father built the port in Limón,” Pamela said. “Last year we were in Bolivia. But then troublemakers started rioting.”

“Daddy tried to help th…

Maybe we should have seen it coming. It takes a while to put things together. You can’t always do it while it’s happening to you. A week before the fire started, the rebels closed down the main highway east of Las Tunas. That meant they had control of Oriente, so much of which was owned by American…