Last news

MOURNING

Farewell Beppe, The Captain of Malindi

One historical italian in Kenya died at 72

22-05-2021 by Freddie del Curatolo

In Malindi there will only ever be one Captain.
The Captain of Lungo Sorso.
After a very brief and disruptive illness, Beppe Passaglia, a long-time Italian resident in Kenya and one of the pioneers of Italian Malindi, passed away, fortunately without too much pain, in Italy at the age of 72.
The pain and the great emptiness, as never in this case, is of those who remain.
Of the "old" Malindi, the one who has learned to love his style, intelligence, acute sincerity, discretion, the ready wit, the fruit of a Tuscan character that he never repudiated, the ability to live and be with everyone, the balance of someone who learned early in life to walk through the storms of the high seas.
Beppe the Captain arrived in Malindi at the end of the 1970s after having travelled the world as a sailor on merchant and cruise ships and having made a career out of it until he obtained the rank by which he was known by everyone on the Kenyan coast.
He was taken ashore in the port of Mombasa, which introduced him for the first time to the beauty and sense of freedom of Kenya.
When some friends from Livorno discovered Malindi and he decided to put his feet back on the ground after so many years, he didn't hesitate for a moment and decided to start a new life.
He tried with an ice-cream parlour in the centre of Malindi, the first Italian one, initially made out of a container. Then he opened the ice-cream parlour "L'incontro" (nobody called it that, it was for everyone "Da Beppe il Capitano") where today there is the Stars and Garters.
It was the hangout for Italians in the late 1980s and up until 1990, when he sold the business to fulfil an old dream of his, that of buying a schooner.
It was anchored in Kilifi creek, and in the good old days of Malindi it did charters as far as Lamu, but in the end it was more about parties and excuses to invite friends.
Then, due to the dark years of hardship when tourism in Kenya declined, at the end of the nineties, when you least expect it, the Captain turned into an entrepreneur.
It was his idea to expand Jacaranda Bay, where he built the resort that became the current Jacaranda and some residential villas by the sea.
He didn't like to work, but he would never be a retiree.
He never spared himself, the Captain, who not surprisingly was "from Lungo Sorso".
When there was something to enjoy in life, to end the evening 'as if there was no tomorrow', he could not miss it. And always in a high, intelligent manner, never banal or vulgar.
Having Beppe for dinner, meeting him in any situation, going for a swim in the ocean or on safari with him, spending even just an afternoon listening to his beloved jazz and chatting, was a gift from an African God, and not only for me.
Having met him, known his lively eyes, his sardonic but always polite smile, his words never banal even when they were blunt to the point of pure cynicism, has enriched the souls of thousands of people who have frequented Malindi in the last 40 years.
Goodbye Captain, my captain, our Beppao.  Go back to sailing as you always did, the waves come and go forever and he who is made of the sea will never die.

TAGS: italiani in kenyalutto kenyacapitano malindi

Kuki Gallmann had "a story to tell".
This novel is his story.

READ ALL

by redazione

Another sad bereavement involves a compatriot who lived in Malindi.
The...

READ ALL THE ARTICLE

I still can't believe it, my Captain.
For sea wolves like you...

READ THE STORY

FREDDIE'S CORNER

by Freddie del Curatolo

A grievous mourning envelops the Italian community in Malindi, he has left us one of the deans of the "Italian colony".
Brescia manufacturer Renato Marini. Worn out from a long illness, he died at his home behind the Galana Center,...

READ ALL THE REVIEW

The 2017 edition of the East Africa Classic Safari Rally opened in a fatal way: during yesterday's stage, the second day of the competition, an accident involved the director and patron of the Rally, 

READ ALL THE REVIEW

Just as when you leave Africa, perhaps painfully just because life takes you elsewhere, Africa...

READ ALL THE ARTICLE

by Freddie del Curatolo

LATEST NEWS

by redazione

Suddenly a seven-story building collapses in a peripheral suburb of Nairobi.
In Embakasi, a whole palace collapsed in a few minutes at night, burying at least fifteen people who were dispersed, but the sad human count could increase by now.READ ALL THE REVIEW

by Freddie del Curatolo

How many after attending Kenya and its coast, or even just hearing about it from those who have...

READ ALL THE ARTICLE AND SEE THE PICTURES

There is always the Africa of sea and savannah in the beginning and end of one of Italy's most celebrated love stories. Francesco...

READ THE ARTICLE

Kenya loses its country's first great conservationist, British-born Kenyan Richard Leakey. Paleontologist...

READ THE ARTICLE

by Freddie del Curatolo

by Freddie del Curatolo