At the age of 75, Gabriele Municchi, known by everyone as Gabriellone, passed away in Italy.
A Tuscan from Prato, he had frequented and worked in Malindi, Mombasa, and other places in Kenya and Africa particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, but always returned there as if to a second home. Although he had been unwell for some time, a sudden illness cut him down just when he was planning his umpteenth return to Kenya this month. 
For those who lived through the Malindi of the 1980s and 1990s, Gabriellone's passing represents another piece of a mosaic so varied and true that it cannot be forgotten, because its tesserae made up a cross-section not only of an Italian Africa, but of an Italy itself that no longer exists, based on human relationships that were consumed in person, over a glass or a good dinner, that lived to the sound of laughter and provocation that did not presuppose prejudice, subtexts and touchy people. 
Gabriellone was like that, authentic to the core, which he consumed with irreducible verve. 
You could find him indifferently running a restaurant on the beach in Mombasa or a transport company in Congo, gambling his entire salary on a roll of dice or offering endless rounds of rum to friends. 
Caustic, derisory, pyrotechnical, big-hearted Tuscan who has resisted his often reckless zest for life.
They really don't make them like you any more.
Ciao Gabriellone, wherever you find yourself, say hello to Captain Beppe, who will surely greet you with an ‘oh shrew, it took you a while to get here...’.