Rubber Opera

Today, we had dinner at the square in front of the opera. Delicious fish and vegetables, and a happy hour for beer 🍺.

The opera was built in the boom times of rubber production, and today, it's still in operation. The grand building has become a trademark of the city's image.

The day before we visited the rubber museum in the jungle. It's a full-scale outdoor recreation of a plantation and processing site. ( It was made for a movie, then handed to the government)

Gabriel, the guide, did a great job of explaining how rubber was extracted from the trees and then processed, and he explained how the workers got 4c per kilo, whilst the owners got $1. So nothing changes, but 6 then, the workers earned just enough to survive, and they were de facto slaves. More so, because escape from the remote plantations was not possible, or at least not escaping and surviving. Most died after only 5 years on the job because of the smoke and fumes they inhaled when heat treating the raw rubber.Read more