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GOA: Maureen Terreiro was eight years old when she and her family had to leave the country that was home. Young, though she was at that time, Maureen hasn’t forgotten what life in Uganda was 40 years ago. "They were hard, very hard times. Soldiers would be everywhere. We had an uncle who had a business there and was placed under house arrest. We saw many people disappear. My uncle did manage to get out," Terreiro told STOI from Sydney, Australia. Many will agree with her and will dig up details from their memories to describe those hard times, and the three months, they were given to pack a bag and leave the shores of Uganda forever.

It was August 1972 and Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda, had asked Asians to quit the country within 90 days. Over the next few weeks, among the streams of Asians who left the African nation, were about 4,000 Goans who sought refuge in whichever country would allow them to call it home. A large number of Goans migrated to the United Kingdom and Canada, a few returned to Goa.

Among those who came to Goa were the Godinho siblings comprising Manuel, Annie and Lucy. Their parents and four other sisters had returned to Goa earlier the same year, but these three siblings, in their early 20s and holding jobs, had decided to stay on in Uganda. "We thought we would make some money by staying on in Uganda, but we lost everything. My sisters left immediately after the order expelling Indians came. I stayed back till October but lost my job and came back," Manuel said.

It wasn’t just the loss of a job that prompted Manuel to take a boat to Bombay. He recalls two incidents that pushed him towards this. "I saw a Goan, who was due to leave Uganda the next day, being shot dead. He was an old man and was walking with an umbrella when he saw a jeep with army men coming from the opposite direction. He hid behind some large garbage bins. The army men saw the spokes of the umbrella and came around the bin, shot him dead and threw his body into the bin," Manuel told STOI. A little after that, Manuel, walking along the streets of Kampala accidently bumped into an army man. "He gave me one rap. These two incidents shook me and led me to return to Goa," Manuel told STOI.

To his sisters the expulsion came as a shock. "We were celebrating India’s Independence Day when we heard the news. We cried when we came to know we had to leave the country," Manuel’s sister Lucy Borthwick said. The sisters left immediately. "Staying another day was like risking your life. It was very risky for ladies in Uganda at that time. Going to the airport was frightening. People were being pulled out of cars and searched," Annie said. The Godinho sisters found jobs in Bombay and having retired are now living in Majorda.

The Goan community in Uganda was large and was spread across the country. They were in business, private employment and in government service. When expelled from the country they left behind houses, personal possessions and assets. They took what they could stuff in their suitcases and some painful memories that would remain with them forever.

"We arrived in Toronto, Canada, with four suitcases-one for each of us and with $100 in the pocket," Juliet Rebello, another Goan who, along with her family, was turned out of Uganda, said.

Recalling their flight from Uganda, Juliet said, "We did leave as a family of four. At the airport we were searched and so was our luggage. The soldiers were looking for jewellery (gold)-they stripped searched the men and women." The Rebello family came to Goa from Uganda and then went to Canada. "As a result of making our own travel arrangements not taking the refugee flights provided by Canada, when we arrived in Canada we were not given the assistance given to those who arrived on the refugee flights. We were just thankful to be out of the grip of Idi Amin," Juliet said.

In India the refugees from Uganda didn’t receive much help. "Other countries helped the repatriates. India didn’t give us anything," Annie said. In India, those who returned from Uganda were given a one-time refugee allowance of 40. "Half of that was spent when travelling from Bombay to Goa," Manuel, who travelled standing from Bombay to Mapusa in a bus arranged by the government to bring the Goans home, said.

Like the Godinhos, the Terreiro family too came to Goa, but family-head Anthony went first to Germany and then to Austria seeking a new life before opting for Australia as the new family home. The rest of the family stayed in Siolim for three years, many of the children doing their early schooling in Goa, before migrating to Australia.

If the Rebellos opted for Canada it was because of Juliet’s boss. She said, "I was working with the airlines. My American boss played an instrumental part in helping our family and many other Asian families. When he found out that the Canadian government was sending a delegation to process the immigration of refugees, he advised us to get all our papers in order. This done he got us tickets to fly out of the country. As I had my parents in Goa, that is where we headed to first as I thought I would never see them again when I settled in Canada. We did not take the refugee flights provided by Canada. While working at the airlines Asian business men were coming in with large brown paper bags filled with currency to buy as many airline tickets as they could-round the world tickets. I had never seen so much money nor had I handled that much money before. This was a quick and safe method of getting their money out of the country."

Forty years later, Manuel wonders what Uganda would be like today and would even consider visiting it. For Maureen, it is her teenage son who is going to Uganda on a school trip, where he will aid in building schools, hospitals and houses in the country that in 1972 his mother and grandparents were expelled from.