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The FUNAI buildings are poorly conserved. The schools, new buildings and repairs on old buildings have been financed through an agreement between the government of Amapá and the APIO (Indigenous Peoples’ Organization of Amapá). CIMI has only one simple, little house. The community area, with the Church and the House of Festivals, is in the center of town. This area is maintained by the entire community through collective work parties and “work teams" under the guidance of a leader. These leaders, heads of extended families who occupy an area of the village are also responsible for collecting the contributions of each family to pay for fuel, necessary for lighting in the village and, sometimes, other services.

One can speak of an effort to “urbanize” the town of Kumarumã, because of the tracing of the streets and electric lightposts. A large watertower was built and a network of pipes was installed to supply water to the houses, but as yet these are not functioning. There is a tendency for rapid growth, especially in Bacaba Point where the area built extends far beyond the landing field. On the other hand, the whole area of forest between Vila Nova and Mango Point is already totally destroyed and occupied by new dwellings. The availability of potable water, the lack of sewage and disposal of household and pharmaceutical waste are problems that demand urgent solutions. From the social point of view, there is another concern, the impossibility of a newly-married couple to build their house next to their mother/mother-in-law, due to lack of space, thus destructuring the matrilocal residence rule, one of the few traditional institutions still functioning.

To get to the village from the riverbed, canoes use a canal, le canal bax which goes to the FUNAI post. Today two large wooden bridges pass over the fields which are flooded in the winter and muddy in the summer. In the winter, canoes are able to get to the banks of the island where the houses for preparing and storing farinha, or cabé, and the individual docks where the Indians make their canoes are located. In the summer, several families still use improvised bridges made of miriti trunks.

The majority of the houses are built on stilts, rectangular in shape with wooden walls and floorboards. A little stairs provides access to the entrance. Generally, there is one or several internal divisions, separating the main room from the sleeping quarters. The Galibi-Marworno normally sleep on mats made of rush covered by a large mosquito-net, where the married couple and their small children sleep. Today, however, many use hammocks and even beds. Mosquito-nets that are set up during the day indicate the presence of sick people or of a woman who has given birth. The kitchen is a partially open area, behind the house, where there is an earthen oven, sometimes a gas stove. There are tables, but generally they are used to pile things up, while the “table” for meals is put on the ground, when the family comes together to eat grilled or boiled fish with farinha, salt and tucupi. There is never much furniture in the Galibi-Marworno houses, but today, several families have televisions and a parabolic antena, besides a prosdócimo, as the Indians say, or freezer, that allows them to preserve food and to chill water and drinks.

The farinha houses, called “cabê”, are always located near the water-line, serve various nuclear families, and are located especially where the women spend many hours of the day, dehusking, scraping and toasting manioc cereal. In the cabê one can find traditional artifacts such as fine and thick sifters, troughs, carrying-baskets, the beiju-turners, the straw-fans, besides the large ovens.

Many families still live according to the traditional ways: the men, after marriage, live in the house of the parents of their wives for two to three years, sufficient time for the marriage to consolidate, generally with the birth of one or two children. Time, also, for the young married husband to get the material necessary for the construction of a new house. Nowadays, sometimes the youths prefer to build a brick house which totally transforms the traditional style of the village.

The relation between father-in-law and son-in-law is peaceful and one of mutual help. In myths, however, the tensions between affines are explicit, demonstrating a movement to expel affinity from daily life to the mythical plane. Nevertheless the status of father-in-law is weighty. In a society in which an indigenous language is not spoken, a youth extends to his father-in-law’s brothers the term by which he calls his father-in-law: beau-père.