Desperate Times...

Our smoke house was burgled three weeks ago! I belive it is more of a sabotage activity.

Few days before the incident, two drunken villagers who worked in our garden had told the Builder that I had not paid them well. The truth is that I had paid more than what they deserve, but the cunning villagers wanted more and more with no or less work. There were nearly 60 rubber sheets in the smoke house, only 19 sheets were stolen. They have broken the door and taken the sheets away.

If it was a thief, he would have taken the whole lot away. That is why I think that it is a mear act of sabotage, just to teach me a lesson. I was very disappointed. By that time, I didn't earn a single cent from the Estate. It was raining heavily during the months of March and April. Most villagers didn't have any work duirng that time. They had their food because of the money they got by working for me.

We need to look after what we have. We stock piled our rubber in Builder's house after this incident. I hate to depend on others, but I am helpless. But when we tap the whole garden, the area over the hearth of their kitchen will not be adequate. How I wish that my husband is with me, just to take care of the garden and its yeild! The workers who are constructing the house, wonder around unproductively. They don't want to complet the house soon, because it will dry out their income source.  I have none to supervise the work during the weekdays.

We don't have a place to live, I am so desparate to complete our house. The house we rented has a leaky roof, bat, rat and ant infested smelly bedroom, where we sleep on the bare floor. The roof over the kitchen and bathroom is very much decayed, don't know what time it falls on our heads. Last week we didn't have water too. I hate to spend nights there. In this circumstance, I think we need to give up the idea of building a spacious house, because of the labour problem and expenses we have to bear constantly. Against all these odds, I like our Estate very much. It sooths my dying sole...

Providing Basic Facilities for Workers

The rubber trees of our Estate was tapped for last five years. The quarry was also in operation until last year. I wonder how people worked there without basic sanitary facilities.

The mud hut is in a delapidated condition where it needs repairs immediately. The roof is leaky in many places, the timbers in the main frame are rot, the clay walls are full of holes and the floor is uneven and covered with dust. I am in a hurry to cover holes in the walls, make the floor flat and repair the roof before workers come for work.

The biggest issue is the absence of facilites. The toilet is now under construction. As the weather is quite bad with heavy rians during the afternoons, I don't know how long it would take to complete the constuction work.

There is another half built concrete structure that we need to repair. I have got a plan prepared for a two roomed house.  The construction work starts at an auspicious time on 27th April. Hope everything goes well in the Estate as planned.

Running the Estate at a High Risk

We could not still resolve the problems with tappers. The working family who promised to work in the Estate did not tern up on the Sunday morning. I am so frastrated and helpless, but keep on looking for people.

The decendants of the Indian Tamils who were brought to Sri Lanka to work in the plantation estates are the professional tappers in the big plantation estates. They are being provided housing and a daily wage of Rs. 410.00 (US $ 4.00) for tapping for a day. Because of heavy rains duirng the months of April and May, the income for workers in rubber plantations drastically dropps. But, in addition to tapping, the estates make sure that they are getting a resonable monthly income through manual work such as weeding .

The estate houses are overcrowded with extended family members. The younger generations of the estate workers often look for nontraditional work outside the estates mostly in service sector. Some of them are unhappy members of extended families who look for work at a higher wages. The family that we were looking for belongs to this catagory. Despite of our promises of providing better housing and high wages, they let us down. I think the main reason is my waring agaist the alcoholism. Most of men in the estate families are adicted to alcohol. No matter where they live, the want to drink locally distilled licqure every evening. With this bitter lesson of experience, now I understand that finding non-alcoholic workers is not possible in Sri Lanka.

It rains heavily everyday. Even tappers are brought, they won't be able to tap the rubber trees during this period. The money I have at hand is draining out to improve workers' quaters and to provide the sanitary facilities before the arrival of workers.  I am very desperate with the prevailing weather and my inability to find tappers.

Problems with Tappers

Rubber tapping is the process by which rubber is gathered. An incision is made in the bark of a rubber tree. The fluid then drains into a latex cup, usually made out of a coconut shell. Early in the morning the rubber tapper remove the thin layer of bark along a downward half spiral on the tree trunk. If done carefully and with skill, this tapping panel will yield latex for up to 5 years. Then the opposite side will be tapped allowing this side to heal over. The spiral allows the latex to run down to a collecting cup. Around 10.00am in the morning, the tappers start collecting latex to a can to take it to a hall to make rubber sheets.

For a good tapping, you must:

• Make a good cut
• Harvest the latex well
• Harvest the latex at the right time.

Tapping is a work undertaken by experineced tappers. It consists of several sub-tasks performed on daily basis: tapping the bark, making the path for collection, collecting latex, making and smoking the rubber sheets is a long process, that needs to be handled by experinced and skilled workforce. It does not end up there. Maintance of the plantation includes marking of trees for tapping at correct height and side, applying chemical for bark rejuanation, and fertilizer applications are the periodic tasks. Having experienced and skilled tappers are a key to maintain a good rubber estate.

The two women tappers we had did n't meet our tapping standards. The barks were wounded and trees were tapped at many places at irregular intervals. The wounded barks are an eyesore. We did not want our much loved plantation to go to ruins in few years time. We took a firm decision to get rid of the old bagage. We are now in a process of finding new professional, experinced and skillful labourers for our Estate.

Weeding the Land

The Estate is fully covered with weeds and grass to a knee high, which consists mainly with pioneer plant species. Pioneer plant species appear early in the cycle of vegetation succession. These pioneer plants have characteristics that particularly suit their role in the early stages of succession, such as a rapid growth rate and the ability to produce large amounts of small, easily dispersed seeds.

February is the month where the rubber trees start dropping their leaves. Rubber plantations are not tapped during this period. When there is plenty of sunlight, the seeds of the pioneer species in top soil layer are germinating under favorable environmental conditions. Once the tree canopy is re-established the weed growth suppresses naturally. When it is about to start tapping at the end of March after rains, the usual practice is weeding under the rubber trees and making the path for tappers walk freely.

People use chemicals for weeding. That is more economical, but it will leave us an infertile land. All the living being in the soil will be killed and the land will be poisonous, where it transfers the traces of chemicals along the food chain back to the humans. Therefore application of  weedicide is out of question. Manual weeding is more expensive and a time taking task. We have bought a second-hand bush trimmer for weeding and it works well. What we need now is more time to spend in the Estate and increase the labour input for weeding.

These are pioneer plant species that are found in the Estate.

Alstonia macrophylla (Alstonia)

Osbeckia octandra* (Heen Bovitiya)

Eupatorium odoratum (Podisingomaran)

Macaranga peltata (Kenda)