Top left: The women generally help themselves to break the nuts. Sometimes they have to walk long distances to the fields to collect the babassu, passing through private areas, to then bring the heavy bag full of coconut to the backyard of their house to start to break it.

Bottom left: The women cannot afford to rent a motorbike to move from one community to another, so they walk long distances carrying heavy bags at their heads to move around.

 

Center top: Ms. Sebastiana Francisca de Souza, aka "Ms. Purple" because the collor of her skin is one of the 14 sisters of Ms. Carmelita. She worked as a babassu coconut breaker all her life, but now she is almost blind and stay at home taking care of her great-granddaughter.

Center bottom: Only man work extracting the oil and loading the lorries at the cooperative. Women normally take care of the administrative duties. Since the cooperative was founded, they were able to process the oil in large scale making use of rudimentary techniques.

Top right: Ms. Francisca Sampaio Ramos, aka “Nega” and her 8 children were abandoned by her husband. She has been helping her colleagues from Lago dos Rodrigos community, having to leave 2 of her children alone at home, because is too expensive (approximately £2.00) for her to go back home every day. They receive the same amount per day while they are working at the recycle paper, but the payment is done just after they sell the paper, and this can take long.

Bottom right: The communities where the women babassu coconut breakers live are close to each others. Sometimes they walk long distances to meet up for a lunch together.