Title: Who the bleep cares about Christmas with Seraphino Antao? By: Selma Carvalho
Source: Goan Voice UK Daily Newsletter, 28 Dec. 2009 at http://www.goanvoice.org.uk/ Full text: If someone had told me a few years ago that I'd be spending Christmas with Seraphino Antao, I'd tell them they were stark, raving mad. But there we were, both of us overnight guests at Eddie Fernandes', owner of Goanvoice UK, house. Seraphino Antao, of course, is the star athlete, who helped put Kenya on the international sporting map, after winning gold for the 110 meters and 220 yards at the 1962 Commonwealth Games held in Perth, Australia. I'd met Seraphino before but not really had the opportunity to get to know him. For a man who has been acclaimed at both the national and international level, he is surprisingly unaffected, totally at ease with his almost super-hero status among East African Goans, full of jovial humour and interesting anecdotes that kept us entertained well into the night on Christmas Eve and over the sumptuous Christmas Day dinner laid out by Lira Fernandes. The turkey taking pride of place in the centre of the dinner-hall surrounded by generous helpings of chestnut filling, sausages cosily wrapped in bacon, the green-veined Brussels sprouts, potatoes roasted to perfection with a patina of brown, a huge French window flooding us with wintry sunshine, while a roaring fire burning in the ornate Victorian fire-place made it a magical Dickens' Christmas. Seraphino comes from the village of Chandor, just a few miles from the commercial town of Margao in Goa, part of a family of 3 brothers and 2 sisters. It was a rambunctious household full of vitality and warm camaraderie headed by patriarch Diego Manuel. To his mother, Anna Maria, he owes his ability to speak in Konkani. Despite having spent the first half of his life in Africa and then emigrating to the UK more than 40 years ago, he can recall childhood holidays in the village of Chandor with amazing clarity. Back in Kenya, like most East African Goans, he grew up in the Goan quarter of Mombasa. Life in Colonial East Africa was typically segregated, both socially and residentially. Every community had their own part of town which they occupied and then set about recreating their own mini-worlds. But Seraphino is one of those rare Goans who actually broke out of the confines of such restrictions. Sports is the great bridge which crosses over to reach out to people who are different from us and in sports, Seraphino found friendship. His remembers playing football with Africans, Indians and the British. Seraphino was also an early Goan entrant into the UK, making regular trips since the 1950s to compete in various sporting events and finally emigrating in the sixties. Of those early days he recalls there being hardly any Goans; just a bare handful who met each other occasionally in restaurants, the most popular of which was just near India House High Commission at Aldwych, run by a Goan manager. Since those days, he's seen the Goan community grow in exponential numbers, many of them childhood friends from his neighbourhood in Mombasa. As Christmas Day drew to a close, copious amounts of wine drunk, the raisin-filled Christmas pudding set ablaze with brandy and my daughter firmly convinced that Santa Claus had left her carefully wrapped gifts under the tree, I couldn't help basking in the warm glow of just being alive. To view a couple of our Christmas photographs, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/90182...@n00/sets/72157623074326890/ Do leave your feedback at carvalho_...@yahoo.com
