The Real Jungle Book

The Orang Rimba sons are not cartoon film characters, they are alive. They are the sons of the Orang Rimba tribe who live in tiny parts of rain forest left in Jambi Province, Sumatra - Indonesia. They are living fun in the forest deep. With their minimized style cloth, they are free to climb a tree or to swim in a small river while catch some fish or collecting shells for dinner all at once. Their toys are a lizard or a tiny bat, and when they are boring with the toys, they will cook them as a snack; grilled turtle will be the main course. The older sons help their parents to distribute the rattans from the forest deep to the nearest village for trade, or help to carry a wild boar when their men have luck on hunting.

They don’t get a formal education. Many of them now can read and understand a simple mathematics because of the existing of the education activists that live together with them in the deep forest to teach. With the knowledge, they can help their parents when they had trading with the villagers. Most of the older men are speak only their own language and they cannot read and calculate.

The new generation of Orang Rimba is now close to the modernization. They are changing their authentic identity when they have to go to the village; blue jean is their choice to replace their minimized style cloth. The toddler is addict to be a passenger of a Japanese motor bike, that owned by few Orang Rimba successful traders.

Unfortunately for them, large areas of their habitat are changing rapidly for the oil palm plantation and illegal logging. Now, most of the Orang Rimba are living around the Bukit Duabelas National Park, a protected area that, for now, is keeping them survive with its non timber forest resources that relative safely from the marching of the deforestation.