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Amazonian Girl

She lives in a village in the middle of the Amazonian jungle, in Peru. Her hometown has 94 people and it’s strangely called “Centro America”.

The people of Centro America live with a sense of community rare in the world now-a-days: Centro-americans have their own plantations, but everybody helps their neighbors when the crops need to be worked on. There is a community boat that rides down the Amazon river for about 100Km to the nearest city, Iquitos, for those who want to sell some excess produce and river fish to the urban population. Every 4 Saturdays, the people of the town meet to discuss the matters of their place: for example recently, they have decided that no food or water shall be served for prisoners who stay in the local jail when they misbehave. Beating up your wife while drunk is synonym of 48 hours in jail and, our guide mentioned, since they don’t provide food or drinks, the number of people who end up behind bars (I suppose wooden ones in this case) has demeaned substantially.

There is no electricity, but church and some privileged houses have solar panels rented at 8 Soles a month (about USD 3). The most modern thing in Centro America is the side walk that this little girl is sitting on and that was built so that young kids could walk to school when the rainy season turns the ground into puddles of mud.

Everyone knows how to read and write in Centro America, everyone has a saying.


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