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  MAINTAINING OUR COMPOSURE DURING THE PANDEMIC BY ARMAND RODRIGUES Covid-19 has certainly disrupted normal living conditions worldwide.   Interaction with family and friends has taken an unprecedented and unpleasant twist.   Socializing face-to-face in harmonious fellowship is now taboo. We have been segregated and left stranded. Gloom and doom are constant bedfellows. and may be the new norm for now. In this milieu some rays of hope continue in the form of disseminators of Goan endeavours.   Frederick Noronha in Goa; Eddie Fernandes in London, England: Salus Correia and Cyprian Fernandes in Australia: keep the embers aglow.   Canada fell off the radar with the sad demise of John D’Souza a couple of years back. And, Darrel Carvalho persevered and put forth a newsletter on behalf of the Westend Seniors’ Club in Toronto.   But hats off to Greta Dias, the intrepid Director of the Goan Overseas Association (Toronto)’s retirees, who fills the void best ...

  Meldrita Laurente   The Queen of Track and Field   The years between 1950 and 1966 were the golden years of Goan track and field in East Africa, especially in the sprinting and middle-distance events. The Kenyan coastal capital of Mombasa produced the best Goan sprinters of all time, led by the late 1962 Commonwealth Games sprint double gold medalist, Seraphino Antao. These fleet-footed Goans included Avila Laura Ramos, Albert Castanha (the man who should have gone to the Games but faltered in the trials), Winnie D’Souza Singh, Joe Faria, Juanita Noronha, Pascal Antao, Alcino Rodrigues, Jack Fernandes and a few others. They were all potential medal winners. But this story is about one of the most determined athletes of her time: the extremely shy and humble Meldrita Laurente Viegas. She was born in Mombasa on January 16, 1939, and was the second of four children. Greta, her older sister lives in Goa. Her younger brother, Stafford Laurente, lives in Brantford, On...

  With Kenya's Bwana Cricket, the late Jasmer Singh Our Wedding in 1959, Nairobi Kenya, with well-wishers forming the bridal arch with cricket bats and soccer balls. Johnny Lobo   The Early Years – My family’s move to Kenya It was my father’s brother-in-law S.R. Rodrigues who was the first pioneer from our family who ventured out of Goa and crossed the Indian Ocean on a dhow with the Arab traders to Mombasa in 1895. Later he was instrumental in convincing my father Evaristo Lobo, that he could get him a well-paid Government job in Kenya. My father agreed and came over on a steamer in 1911 and began working. A few years later, my father got very sick and returned to Goa. When he had recovered, we were were still in Goa. Typically, a proposal of marriage from my mother’s family Benjamin Mendes from Aldona for their daughter Maria Mendes. My father married my mother in 1918 and returned to Kenya. My siblings were born sh...

 Mal and Margaret Ferris   I AM indulging myself just a little and you will forgive me for doing so. I write about my once pukka Irish friend who with his twilight headlights on is more than most of us in the diaspora. They have had an apartment in Bardez, not far from Calangute but nicely hidden from the tourist gaze. He loves his food hot and swears that any food cooked without those red demons from Goa should be barred for public consumption. There were times when we went out to dinner in Sydney and he would always put a timely two fingers into his top pocket and snick out a packet containing finely chopped red chillies.   His number one dish was Goa’s natural central heating and tongue warmer, Sorpotel. He has cooked a few times. The first was when he and Harold George D’Souza and a few mates were organising a New Year’s Eve Party. Harold and Mal were actually the kitchen hands and not the chefs (they will claim otherwise). I have got it on good authority that the...

Our journey with Saint (Mother) Teresa   Mother Teresa delighted with donations of baby cots for the children I AM humbled and feel truly blessed to have been in the presence of Saint (Mother) Teresa. As I gaze at her little statuette on my desk, I hear her voice saying, “my girl (as she affectionately called me) look deeply into my eyes and see God’s compassion, feel the warmth radiating from my heart and know God’s love, feel the strength in my hands for these hands do God’s work”. Our journey with Mother began in the late 1970s when Mother was visiting Kenya. Wilfred Maciel, a family friend, invited Johnny and I to hear Mother speak at the Holy Family Basilica Cathedral in Nairobi. We had six children at the time but decided to take our eldest daughter Mary Ann who was nine years old with us. Our first images of Mother were of a petite dainty nun, cloaked in simplicity. She spoke of her order of the Missionaries of Charity and their work among the poorest of the poor in ...