Latex on a line: and brollies beyond the window

What’s this? Some dirty dusters? Or some rather dingy dishcloths? No. Despite appearances to the contrary, this isn’t washing hanging out to dry. It’s sheets of latex, recently tapped from nearby rubber trees and poured into moulds and yes, now hanging out to dry.

  • Latex sheets drying outside a cottage
  • Collecting cup on a rubber plant

I was in in India, in Kerala, at Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary. Nearby was a village, where every household was growing some kind of cash crop: tea, coffee, bitter gourds, bananas … and maybe rubber trees. One household certainly was. They’d harvested the latex as shown in the second photos. They’d have collected about a cupful from each tree, every few days, before pouring it into trays in a thin layer to set, And now it was hanging out to dry properly before being sent away for further processing

In Kerala, while I as there, the monsoon had not long finished, and I rather like the evidence spotted through an open window back in Gurukula itself that had we been there then, it might have been just a little – wet.

Spotted through the window: umbrellas resting after the monsoon

Monday Washing Line

Monday Window

Author: margaret21

I'm retired and living in North Yorkshire, where I walk as often as I can, write, volunteer, and travel as often as I can.

47 thoughts on “Latex on a line: and brollies beyond the window”

  9. Margaret, a fascinating post and it’s amazing how the rubber is first collected and then formed into sheets to dry. Something we use without a thought in our world maybe starting off just like this. Oh, I love the umbrella hanging method – maybe we should adopt something similar to dry them off after a downpour!

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  13. I never knew they dried latex like that and it makes for a neat and orderly line, and then a structured and constrained photograph. None of that free and easy and untidy laundry here, thank you. 😉

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  17. Reminds me of landing in KL in a monsoon – interesting. It was a while before we were allowed off the plane and they brought brollies for all of us!

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