Curious

We are in Costa Rica. The place seemed to be designed just for tourists: a very small piece of land in which you can drive to most places in less than 5 hours, where once you leave the beach, you find green mountains, keep going through the mountains and you'll find exotic rain forests with endangered species all around. No wasted space here.

We passed by many houses/huts in the mountains - the kind that seem to be common in tropical places. They lack thick walls, windows and chimneys - obsolete here. We passed one that had a large tent shielding large piles of lumbar and later a serious but calm looking man holding a machete over his shoulder, which got me wondering what these people did for a living. Did they all know their neighbors? If so, who did they know to be respectable? Who did they know to fear? Who did they avoid talking to? Sleeping with?