plants 1

This is an upside down HIBISCUS SCHIZOPETALUS.
I promise I'm not making that up.
I have this plant in my garden. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that my mother has this plant.



This is the down-side up flower.

This was meant to be the first in an informative series about the flowering plants one finds in lil ol' Goa, but I'm not there anymore.
The wee flower shouldn't suffer though. It's pretty and should be propagated.
According to Wikipedia, the plant is native to East Africa. My guess is an ex-Afrikander (what we call people who lived in East Africa) brought it home and an ancestor of mine got a clipping.
Invasive species? Who knows. I can't see it doing any harm to any local plants, insects or birds. Maybe, like the cashew, the Goan ecosystem can support it.

Recycling

It's not that easy to recycle here. Sure, there are bins where you can put the stuff you've segregated, or where you can easily drop a tetra-pak, glass bottle, or magazine that you have just finished with. Hurrah.

by Steve Snodgrass via flickr

The difficulty lies in segregation.
In the end, the problems are the same all over the world, aren't they?
Back home I could separate the bio-degradable from the non-compostable with such ease because I lived in a big house. Here I live in a wee flat, with two other people (three when Mum's in this country). The kitchen is so tiny! Where would I put cardboard? Where would I stack plastic or store glass? We try to reuse, really we do. But there's only so much I can be creative with (and only so much I can hide from the cleaners I live with. Hi Dad! Hi Fam!).
But maybe I should try harder. I just finished a carton full of muesli (almost) on my own. Couldn't I have walked to the bin in the sweltering heat to drop it in? This infographic makes me wish I had.
I think there are Cinnabon boxes from when we picked up Red Velvet Cupcakes... Hmm... (On a tangent, I wish I'd seen the red velvet insects this year.)

events

What  a month! So much happening and never enough time to sleep!
First, the London Olympics. That was the first time I paid that much attention to a multi-sport event. Even when India hosted the Commonwealth Games, I didn't really bother (which was probably just as well, considering what a debacle that turned out to be.)

Image courtesy Craig Deakin via flickr

I am that essential piece to every sporting puzzle, the spectator. I'm a walker, but I don't think the unusual walking style of the athletes in the racewalking event is really my thing.
Part of the goal for the organisers was to have an event that was not quite so destructive. From the London 2012 website "When we bid to host the 2012 Games, we made a radical proposal to the International Organising Committee.  We weren’t only going to put on the biggest sporting event in the world; we were going to hold the world’s first truly sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Games, leaving a legacy far beyond the departure of the Olympic Flame." So, how green were the Games? The Telegraph did a piece about that. Not so bad while the Games were still on. I haven't seen any post-Olympics pieces yet though.
Next, Eid. In this part of the world, and across it, Muslims are celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr. In India, the only people who really pay attention to the month of Ramadan are our Muslim brethren. But then that's the same for all religions. Lent is for Christians, Shravan (ongoing) for Hindus. In the GCC, it's a little different. Green Prophet came out with a green Iftar guide. I might be a little late this year, but consider it on record for the next. Eid Mubarak!