Bolivia's 'People of the Water' try to survive loss of lake

The Uru - People of the water, is a group that survives of lakes in the highlands of southwestern Bolivia. Now what Bolivia’s second-largest lake is gone, the Uru of Lake Poopo are left clinging to its salt-crusted former shoreline and are scrabbling for ways to make a living and to save their culture.

For many generations, the homeland of the Uru people here wasn’t land at all: It was the brackish waters of Lake Poopo. The Uru — “people of the water” — would build a sort of family island of reeds when they married and would survive on what they could harvest from the broad, shallow lake in the highlands of southwestern Bolivia. “They collected eggs, fished, hunted flamingos and birds. When they fell in love, the couple built their own raft,” said Abdón Choque, leader of Punaca, a town of some 180 people.