"My life in Kenya has been a shilling well spent," he told me a few years ago, sipping a cup of carcadè and recounting his Kenyan adventure in full detail.
Andrea Botta, anagrafe Maggiorino but 'Andrew' to everyone for almost 70 years, passed away a few days ago at the venerable age of 95, and is to be considered one of the great Italians who lived in this country, for the things he did, the philosophy of life and integration, and the entrepreneurial qualities.
Not bad for a young man from the Cuneo area who had arrived on the slopes of Mount Kenya as a Consolata missionary.
A priest-reporter, specialised in administration, meticulous and with a vision worthy of his fellow countrymen of his time, in that valley poor in migrants and hard workers. His, in 1955, was the organisation of the first high school in the region created by missionaries from Turin.

For Andrew, Africa was stronger than a faith that he never denied, because in order to remain among what he called 'his people' in Meru, in 1973 he refused a transfer to New York ('even if they hadn't offered me the Congo...' he told me with an unrepentant boyish smile) and decided to 'retire' to marry a local girl and set up his own business in a rural reality with great opportunities.
But not only that, he continued to work in concert with the country's Catholic realities and with Italian and international cooperation organisations, specialising in irrigation systems and following the precepts of another great intuitive genius and now 'Italian-Kikuyu', Brother Argese.
After having contributed to bringing water to thousands of farmers in Meru, the great intuition of bringing them together in cooperatives and founding 'Meru Herbs', the first to produce organic fruit, jams, sauces and above all the first to import red hibiscus, better known as carcadè, to Kenya, which he would later export all over the world. Thanks also to the skills of his wife Margaret, Botta made 'Meru Herbs' a world-famous Kenyan brand, which even obtained the highest quality certifications in Japan (something of which he was very proud).
Personally, I will miss his phone calls to announce new projects, the unrolled topographic and land survey maps, the detailed accounts of all the journeys from Meru to Malindi along the roads less travelled, fording rivers and crossing parks without following conventional tracks, which he still did at the age of 90.
I will miss that cup of carcadè and that 'shilling well spent'.