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  The Samaki Club   This is not a photo of the Samaki Club, it does feature Philo Mazor (he with the cats’ eyes) Rodrigues, extreme left, Nascimento, Derek Lobo, Peter and Geoff Ahluwalia. Once upon a time in Nairobi, Kenya, there were a formidable, dedicated bunch of blokes who called themselves “The Samaki  (aka Fish) Club”. Among them were Phil “Mazor” Rodrigues, the late John Goes, Diamond Mike Fernandes, the late Jules Fernandes, the late Derick D’Mello, the late Sidney Machado, the late Hipol Fernandes, the late Peter Fernandes, Norman Da Costa, the late Steven Fernandes, the late Stas Antao, Tyrone and Reynold D’Souza, Freddie Costa Fernandes and lots of others who this mzee can’t recall. We fished all around Kenya but our “big day out” was always to Stoney Athi, south of Machakos. We usually met at the Railway Goan Institute on Saturdays. The main task of the junior members was to ensure that the senior members got home in good time only to be woken up...

  The links that bind Goans together I have no idea who wrote this!!! Being Goan “O these Goans “ exclaimed my Goan friend who lives in Borda, in South Goa. “Are you not Goan?” I asked. To which she replied, “No, I’m talking about these Goans from Goa”. I then realised there were so many types of Goans. The Goans from Bombay who consider themselves a class apart. They love every thing Goan but cannot ever think of living in Goa. They just spend a few days a year in Goa to stock up on their Feni, sausages, vinegar, Masalas. And always tell stories of how much property their family had. And the great summer holidays they spent as kids. Then there is the Goan from Africa. Many have now returned to Goa after the process of Kenyanisation in the 1970’s. They are an affluent lot who were the educated class of artists, lawyers doctors and entrepreneurs. As an outsider living here I have noticed that in almost all Goan families you will find either a dentist or a lawyer. Or both. Then ...

  BOOK REVIEW   Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands   Review by Cyprian Fernandes     Pio Gama Pinto, Kenya’s Unsung Martyr 1927-1965 Edited by Shiraz Durrani [Vita Books, Kenya, 2018, 392 pp.   Pbk, £30, ISBN 978-9966-1890-0-4; distributed worldwide by African Books Collective, www.africanbookscollective.com ]   Less than two years after independence from the British, on 24 February 1965, the Kenyan nationalist Pio Gama Pinto was gunned down in the driveway of his Nairobi home.   His young daughter watched helplessly in the back seat of the family car.   Pinto, a Member of Parliament at the time, was Kenya’s first political martyr.   One man was wrongly accused of his death, served several years in prison and was later released and compensated.   Since then no one has been charged with the murder.   Now the long-awaited book on Pio Gama Pinto is finally here, launched in Nairobi on 16 October 2018....