Dear goanet readers
It was good to see that one of our senior people like Mervyn Maciel come
forward and commented on the contents of the
above video recording and I hope that those editing the final copy of the
project to be placed in the British Museum will
take a note of it and table a true and accurate record of events. The Mau Mau
era is well documented by the BBC.
Mervyn Maciel has written about his early days in Kenya in his book "Bwana
Karani", a government clerk in colonial British
East Africa, a copy of this can be found in the Goa library in Panjim. Another
gem of a book well researched and written
by Braz Menezes "Just Matata" talks about when the Portuguese ruled Kenya
before the British to the days of the First
World War where for the first time bunk beds were installed in the ships
Kampala and Karanga that took our people on
their holidays between Goa and Mombasa.
GSU, as Gabe mentioned, did exist and played an important part in keeping law
and order and tribal violence apart. They
were similar to the SPG (Special Patrol Group) in Britain or the Riot Police
found in most cities. They take no prisoners.
The late Manolem Fernandes from Colvale catered for Princess Elizabeth during
her visit to Kenya, at the time when her
father died and she became Queen. It is also true that Goan people at the first
sign of trouble would be "under the bed".
Can't speak for the Europeans as they lived separately.
My feelings are the same as Gabe on this publicly funded project "Sadly the
people with first hand information have not
yet come forward" .
For the record, the best memories of Goans in East Africa have already been
captured wonderfully by the photographs
Frederick Noronha has kindly uploaded to share with us and has posted links on
goanet from time to time. These show
our people enjoying life to the full which is exactly what most of us did and
still do, where possible, to this very day.
Melvyn Fernandes
Thornton Heath, Surrey, United Kingdom
16 March 2012
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