Times are hard for the “People of the Water.”
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Some Uru people live next to the dried-up lake. The white parts are salt. The salt was left when the water dried up. (AP/Juan Karita) -
There is another lake that Uru people still live on. It is Lake Titicaca. (123RF) -
An Uru man drives his motorcycle. He is near the lake bed. (AP Photo/Juan Karita) -
Rufino Choque sits near the lake. He is the leader of the Urus there. (AP/Juan Karita) -
The Choque family lives near the lake. The young men have to go other places to find jobs. (AP/Juan Karita)
There was a big lake in Bolivia [bo-liv-ee-ah]. The Uru [oo-roo] people lived on that lake. They caught fish.
The lake dried up. Now what can the people do?
Read More: Dried-up Lake Poopó [poh-OH-poh] was the second largest lake in Bolivia. The Uru (People of the Water) once tied together roots and reeds of totora plants. They made “islands” for their families to live on. They anchored them to the lake bottom with long poles. They fished, collected birds’ eggs, and hunted for food. Now the Uru must live on land. There is no land to farm. Young people move away. It is hard for older people. Baby Moses was put into a basket made of bulrushes. Read Exodus 2:3. Those rushes could have been like totora reeds.
