pigs

Long a tradition, and ecologically very logical, the Goan 'pigger' is going the way of the dodo. A conventional looking outhouse, with a little opening in the back to allow pigs to avail themselves of a warm meal seems to be a victim of prissy tourism. Of course, it often was necessary to keep a stick handy to keep the eager ecologists at bay (as a Dutch friend once remarked, if you let them, they'll suck the xxxx right out of you'), but this was a small price to pay for a hygenic solution without the humiliating human intervention of 'sweepers' employed in the rest of village India. The resulting rage for semi-flushing toilets and septic tanks with their mosquito-friendly vent pipes has been an explosion (so to speak) of mosquitoes, some bearers of malaria.

As an added note, the squeamish should still avoid the famous Goan pork sausage and other pork specialties as there are still a fair number of the 'old school' appliances around.

couldn't find a pig toilet? wow, there are still a lot of them here in Arambol, at least in the part of the village the fishermen live and many tourists rent rooms and houses. It is a sort of unorganized maze of houses scattered in a coco-nut grove well back from the beach where pigs and chickens roam free. Used to be the same around Candolim-Baga, but don't really know what's up there now with all the new hotels and guesthouses that have been built in the area in recent years.

the clay cups and banana leaves were also very practical and eco-friendly -- you still get some snacks on the trains wrapped in leaves, but I guess they're not used as dinner plates anymore. Come to think of it my last train meal came in a styrofoam carton.

I still remember when shops used bags made of glued, or maybe just folded, newspapers rather than plastic and it seemed that just about everything was recycled. For those concerned about plastic bottle litter, my landlord has an interesting answer as he passes them on to a distiller of Goan moonshine and they wind up across the border in Mahashastra filled with booze.

cheers,

mike

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