Elephants with John (August 13, 2023)

On Sunday, Shaji took John and me to the Elephant Rehabilitation Centre.  We arrived just in time to see the elephants being bathed.  They are laying down in the water and their caregiver scrubs them with a brush.  They scrub the trunk, his ears, his sides and legs.  It takes a while and then they have the elephant stand up and lay down on the other side.

This is the oldest elephant at the center.  His name is Shoman and he is 83 years old.  He is retired now.

John commented that this was a Grandaddy Doc or Emommy aged elephant.

The men bathing the elephants are in Dhoti's and then they change into a different dhoti and top to walk them back to their home.

The elephants are crossing the road behind John.  He was fascinated with their size.  They are very tall and large.

These are Asian elephants and they have some different characteristics than the African elephants.  Their head shape is different, coloring is a little different and their ear shape is different.  Johns says the Asian elephants have ears the shape of India.

These elephants were bathed together and followed each other wherever they went.  The front one is 22 years old - a John aged elephant and the one behind him is 7 years old.

This is Shoman feeding himself big leaves.  He uses his foot to break the branch into a smaller piece and uses his trunk to bring the food to this mouth and to stuff it completely inside

This is one of the baby elephants.  He is about 3.5 years old.

Marshall and I watched him play with a tire the last time we visited.  This time he was still eating.

Shaji stopped at the same rubber tree farm that we had seen when Marshall and I came.  This time the rubber maker was there with his 2 sons.  He was actually processing some of the rubber and he allowed us to come watch.

The drippings from the trees are collected daily.  They are mixed with some chemicals and laid into 8x13 aluminum trays to form a mold.  The one laying on the counter came out of the tray.  Then they feed them through the press to flatten them and make them into sheets.

The sheets are then hung to dry and they eventually turn a darker shade.  The rubber maker then sells sheets of rubber by the kg to vendors.

The younger boy was working hard and the teenage boy was just observing while we were there.  We decided that maybe he has finished his part of the job.  Maybe he collected the drippings from the trees which would be a tedious job.

It is fascinating to learn details like this and to be able to see where rubber actually comes from.