Big smiles spread across the faces of the 160 pupils at a public elementary school in this rural South American hamlet: Each sat gawking at a brightly blinking laptop computer given them days earlier. "This is like an early visit from Santa Claus," beamed 11-year-old Eduardo de los Santos, clutching his computer with its shiny white case and bright green trim. The machines are the first in South America from the much-publicized "One Laptop Per Child" project, which hopes to put low-cost portable PCs in the hands of children in developing countries. Still in a pilot phase, the group has also provided machines to a school in Nigeria and to one in Thailand.

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