G’bye Goa: Goans worldwide
By Valmiki Faleiro
The August 23 column on Goan emigration worldwide elicited, expectedly, many
responses. I’ll share as many as this space provides, before we turn over to the story
of in-migration into Goa.
Fernando do Rego of Panjim, retired Dy. Director of Agriculture, often rejoins with off-
beat comment. To my tongue-in-cheek line, “there would be no place on earth where
a Goan didn’t piss,” he joined in: “Where is God? He is everywhere. But before him, a
Goan was already there!”
Rego told of his friend touring Iceland. “Seated in his hotel lounge sipping a drink, a
lady approached and, after courtesies, sat next to him. After some drinks, she got
cozy and offered him her services. He casually asked her from where she was. Her
reply: Goa. Imagine a Goan prostitute warming up in a land of ice!”
Fernandobab also pointed out I had forgotten Goans in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T),
“where our Banalcar poet, Berardo Pinto Pereira lived and his family still does.” An
unintended omission. Berardo’s widow, Dr. Lexley Pinto Pereira, teaches at a
medical university in St. Augustine-Trinidad and lives there with her family.
Thanks to another friend, Merwyn Lobo in Canada, Mabel de Souza Pooran who
lives in Port of Spain wrote, “Hey, I am Goan to the bone, and I’ve lived in T&T since
1979! There is a scattering of Goans here. Austin Trinidade born in Kenya was until
recently Chief Medical Officer of San Fernando Hospital in Trinidad.”
Anjuna-rooted, Pune-bred Placido D'Souza, a career diplomat, now retired in the
USA, was India’s Ambassador in two dozen countries or more. Wrote he, “An update
on Valmiki's article which I read with interest. As India’s High Commissioner to T&T,
concurrently accredited to eight countries and three territories in the Caribbean, I
presented credentials in Barbados, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts
Nevis, Saint Lucia, Dominica & Antigua and Barbuda (apart from T&T), and Letters of
Credence in the British territories of Anguilla, Montserrat and Turks & Caicos Islands.
The only country to which I did not present credentials was Grenada, for reasons that
we need not go into. In T&T, I ran into a Goan Menezes family; in Saint Lucia, the
head of Health Services was a D'Souza; in Turks & Caicos Islands, the British
governor's wife was a Goan from Dar-es-Salaam. As Ambassador to Zaire, also
accredited to Congo (Brazzaville), Central African Republic, Gabon and Equatorial
Guinea, I met Goans all over.”
Don’t know how, but I also missed Switzerland. Wrote Bernardo de Sousa from
Geneva, “There are Goans in Switzerland, so your list now increases to 92.” (Actually
93, dear Bernardo, after T&T!)
Ethiopia was included, and Gabriel de Figueiredo now settled in Australia (son of the
famed 20th century Goan music Maestro, Antonio de Figueiredo), added at Goanet
(www.goanet.org): “One of my colleagues from the Brazilian Naval Commission in
Europe, now living in Sao Paulo, once told me that her great-grandfather was a Goan
from Ethiopia...”
Vivian DSouza, a banker who retired in the USA but returned to his native Socorro
said, “Must tell you there are several Goans still living in Zanzibar including the
illustrious Wolfango Dourado who at one time was Attorney General of Zanzibar.
I returned last month from Zanzibar and spoke to several Goans who live there.
“In T&T, there is a Goan girl married to a Trinidadian of Indian origin, Mabel de
Souza, now Pooran. Don’t know of any Goans still in Somalia, but while it was still
British Somalia, P.P. Mascarenhas worked for Barclays Bank in Mogadishu. I later
worked under him in Tanzania and often heard his stories about times in Mogadishu.
I met a Goan named Frances DeSales, now in the USA, who once lived in Kabul and
worked for the American Embassy there.”
At Goanet again, Wilson Soares sought details of any Goan in Panama. Roney
Viegas sought to know if the largest expatriate Goan community was in Mississauga.
Alfred de Tavares in Stockholm told him he believed the densest conglomeration of
Goans (“with all relevant derivatives of "Goaness") was in Portugal. Steve Pereira
met some Goans working in Shenzhen (mainland China), and one from Pilerne in
Tanggu-Tianjin. Bernado Colaco in Macau (ok, baba, now China) said he found a
Goan in Guangdong, making Sarapatel/Sorpotel! (ENDS)
The above article appeared in the Herald, Goa, edition of September 6, 2009
