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  Today is one of the saddest days of my life ... it is as if someone has cut off a part of me and my soul. One of my best friends, one of the most loved and respected people in the world, everybody's friend, always with the most loving smile you could find on any face on earth ... a great brother, father and husband ... Willie Lobo, has passed away in Nairobi. A few days ago he had his first session on Dialisis. He told me the next day that it was quite a simple process and he had come through it all well. He usually sent me an sms every morning, yesterday he sent me a holy picture. His broken-hearted sister Diana told me the shattering news. Too soon, but with his Maker, Pole, Rest in Peace. All our condolences to his devoted wife Dulu, children and the extended family and friends. I will never forget him. He helped anyone and everyone and went out of his way to do it. He loved meeting up with old friends from overseas who were visiting Kenya. Everyone knew him and loved. He was...

  The Last King of Scotland in full regalia            a.k.a. The Butcher of Uganda I was halfway through writing this article when I went out to water the garden. It must have been the malevolent spirit of Idi Amin that tripped me in the garden but I don't scare that easily. So, albeit a couple of weeks late, here are some thoughts that came to mind on the 50th anniversary of Idi Amin's mercifully brief but still very bloody caper on the world's stage. August 2022 marked the 50th anniversary of one of the darker episodes of the last century: the rise and fall of Idi Amin. Some of you may have read Fr. Raymond de Souza's informative article on the expulsion of Asians from Uganda in August 1972 by then President Idi Amin (National Post, Sunday August 8, 2022 -  https://nationalpost.com/ opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-50- years-after-idi-amin-expelled- uganda-asians-they-prosper- happily ). Fr. de Souza gives a clear account of how approximately 50...

  The Law and Dr Rose M. D’Sa   By Cyprian Fernandes Sydney Australia   PART III based on her autobiography: GOING JUU A TALE OF THREE CULTURES Experiences of a British Kenya Goan   www.lexxion.eu/rosedsa-going- juu (Order your free copy at the above link  subject to payment of shipping charges, )     KENYA-BORN Rose M. D’Sa gained a doctorate in law, qualified as a barrister, worked at the Human Rights Unit of the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, and became a Professor of European Law, eventually becoming the longest-serving British woman on the EU’s Economic and Social Committee in Brussels. During the two decades, she did some of her best work on a variety of legal issues and wrote numerous books which remain the reference material of eminence. For many decades she remained true to her Kenyan roots and held on to her citizenship until her marriage to an Englishman and the acquisition  of British citizenship.     How she came to cho...

  "One of a small minority of non-white pupils  in a mainly white school". Part II Rose M. D’Sa’s   Going Juu A tale of three cultures www.lexxion.eu/rosedsa-going- juu (Order your free copy at the above link  subject to payment of shipping charges, )     By CYPRIAN FERNANDES TO MOST non-whites, the Loreto Convent School in Valley Road, Nairobi, was non-existent. It was a “whites-only” school. As a very young reporter, I often wondered how the Catholic Church could condone such racism. I was told: “Don’t open that can of worms if you want to keep your job.” I learnt later that the Catholic Church’s hierarchy toed the colonial government line in all things and did what they were told. I never got to write that story, I moved on to dirtier and more damaging politics. However, there was no doubt that the Catholic convent school was arguably the best girls’ school in Nairobi. There was another LC Msongari in the Nairobi suburb of Lavington, a...

  GOING JUU (Swahili for taking off, going up, etc)  A tale of three cultures:  Kenya Goa Britain   By Rose M. D’Sa Published by Lexxion Publisher-Berlin 394 pages   www.lexxion.eu/rosedsa-going- juu (Order your free copy at the above link  subject to payment of shipping charges, ) T HIS is a fabulous read albeit a long one: 394 pages but above all, it is an honest and factual recollection, with no-holds-barred. After all her writing hand is guided by the brilliant lawyer she is. Her pen does not falter at an uncomfortable truth, what others might consider “too much information". She takes us on a long and winding safari about her life, her parents, grandparents, relatives and friends in Kenya, Goa, Britain and her adventures as a tennis (an “obsession”) player who could have been Kenya’s first professional tennis player, the love of her life and then a clinical examination of her path to lawyerdom. To say that Rose D’Sa is an outstanding Brit...

  (Pic Harper's Bazaar) Without Queen Elizabeth Life will never be the same NAIROBI, Kenya: The first time I heard of Princess Elizabeth and a few days later Queen Elizabeth I was nine years old. Either name meant very little to me. Even when we were swamped with gifts marking her coronation, it was just a pleasant surprise even though our teachers tried to explain, but failed miserably, what there was so much fuss about Queen Elizabeth. However, as the years went by and I got to learn more and more about the Royal couple and even glimpse them on their many visits to Kenya and, much later, watch them live on the TV screens, first in black and white, then in living colour. I had heard Her Britannic Majesty speak sometimes on my crackling crystal set and on the rare occasion I could afford the 50 cents or a shilling to go to the cinema or when the late Pius Menezes showed us the Queen and Prince Philip in newsreels. However, it was not until I became a journalist and ventured...

  It was totally inaccurate and remiss of me to omit one big chunk of Benny's musical experience prior to our marriage in 1972.    Please excuse this error as it was never intentional but as you ca understand my mind is all over the place at present -  Mei culpa!   I posted the pictures in the gallery, however I omitted that story that went with it!   For which there is no excuse other than without the man who was the wind beneath my wings, I flounder!!       Benny’s tribute has now been amended and reads hopefully correctly!  If not please let me know as this together with all the commencts, tributes and stories is going to be printed for me to keep in Memoriam.  I can't apologise enough and I dearly hope that the omitted era of his career and his/our amazing friendship over the years for which we were truly grateful will continue.   I also hope this sets the record straight not only with the band members (pleas...