We Live Here

There are just 60 families in Jau, all of them living near the river. There are no doctors, churches, or stores there. Medicinal herbs are the only remedy in which they trust. In Seringalzinho, a village of just 6 houses, school is held in an improvised grass hut. The people survive using what they can collect from the jungle and the river. For example, a kind of coconut called "tucuma" is eaten for breakfast instead of bread. With no demand for rubber any more, and with businesses prohibited in the national park, the families get poorer and poorer. Their only income is from selling cipo, a kind of natural fiber, for 50 centavos (25 U.S. cents) a pound, and powder from a root called mandioca, which gets 50 centavos a liter.