One piece of the South American homework found me researching rubber trees. I found a picture in an ancient, musty encyclopaedia that had belonged to one of my grandfathers of a rubber tree and I copied it into my exercise book. It meant little to me except that I can still see the picture in my head today.
Two years ago I spent a little under a week at a community based tourism project, Andaman Discoveries, which grew out of the devastation of the 2004 tsunami. I was still brim full of the arrogance of the Westerner, despite having lived in Thailand for two years. I had thought I was the richer...

The following morning was my departure day. However, before we set off to catch the boat the wife of my host called one of their men to come into the rubber plantation next to the house. We walked into the dewy field and she instructed him to cut the rubber tree to show me the sap.
I went away richer and, I hope, with more humility.



Previous mentions of my adventures with Andaman Discoveries can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
7 comments:
Lovely post hon!! It's an amazing place isn't it :-)
C x
Carol, thanks. Yes it is. I had such a wonderful time there ...
Now that's what I call a geography lesson! I hated geography at school, it seemed such a dry subject and I was terrible at 'colouring in' neatly. You'll never forget what you've been shown by those people.
I'd love to do a trip like that. Maybe one day...
Chris, so did I and yet now I'm fascinated by the colours that earth/soil can be and why and why rocks are the shapes they are... There must have been something wrong with the teaching.
Queenie, yes you should. It was wonderful.
Brings back memories of my childhood in Malaysia when we kids used to follow the rubber tappers through the plantations, collecting the dried bits of sap to wind into round, bouncy balls.
I can almost recapture the
humidity, sense of claustrophobia and scent of the trees.
Wow, that looks so fabulous. Geography would be a much more interesting subject if you could see those places yourself. And now you are! :)
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