The Malindi of forty years ago, that of the "pioneers" of the Italian community, was all another thing.
Our compatriots who decided to move here had been kidnapped by a much stronger appeal than the vacationer or the "nature-clima" (but also perhaps the less noble and abused "easy-to-live easy" life).
Moving to Malindi meant adventure, courage.
Poetic and ruthless sense of freedom.
How to put your life and your essence in front of a mirror from the ebony frame that could swallow you up, but also be magical.
In this Malindi you found characters who had turned the world, they came from who knows what history they had left behind a thousand previous existences or a single life that was worth a thousand.
Pie or damned souls, saving or dangerous. But all damn true.
Of these pioneers, and those of Serie A, was also part of Tiziano Traldi, who yesterday left us at 85 years, of which almost half passed on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
She laughed serenely after lunch, as she has quietly lived the last few years and most of her African journey, and she has not woke up anymore.
Tiziano was known to Malindi as "The Colonel" because before he landed in Kenya at the beginning of the 1980s he was the official of the Italian Air Force.
But above all it will be remembered for having created the Stephanie Sea House (now Stephanie Sea Resort) in Casuarina, one of the historic hotels, then tourist resort of Malindi, the first tourist boom.
Called as the prematurely lost daughter, "Stephanie" has for years been one of Malindi's most charming retreats and accommodations, with its veranda overlooking the Marine Park beach and its cottages immersed in equatorial vegetation.
From then on, with partner Ivano Trentavizi, another fantastic character of Malindi, he devoted himself to building, seeing very long on the future development of Mambrui and building the Coral Sea village.
Titian, emilian blood but "core de Roma" (his only Romanesque speech with modenese accent) loved the company and was one of the ingurble "viveur" of ancient antan's evenings.
But you were also happy to find it at the Bar Bar when it was the diurnal point of reference, between scientific games, football clubs and anecdotes of all kinds.
And the Colonel of Tales did not end there.
When she talked with her almost English-speaking humor, she shuffled like a kid who is not in the skin, she has to get involved in her game.
This I liked more than anything else of Titian, in addition to the good he wanted for his son, Flavio, who embraces me, Priscilla and his family, to whom a loving thought goes.