PAPA RIO DE JANEIRO KULAKIWA KWA KISHINDO

Baba Mtakatifu Francis amelakiwa na maelfu ya mahujaji wa Brazil wakati akianza ziara yake ya kwanza ya nje tangu achaguliwe kuwa mkuu wa Kanisa Katoliki.

Baba Mtakatifu huyo wa kwanza kutoka Amerika ya Kusini alitembelea jiji la Rio De Janeiro, akiwa kwenye gari la wazi na kisha kukutana na Rais Dilma Rousseff , katika kasri la taifa la gavana.

                                       

Baada ya kuondoka, polisi walifyatua mabomu ya kutoa machozi, kuwatawanya waandamanaji wanaoipinga serikali na gharama kubwa za ziara hiyo.
Yuko Brazil kuhudhuria Sherehe za Siku ya Vijana Wakatoliki Duniani.
Katika hotuba yake mara baada ya kuwasili, Baba Mtakatifu alitoa wito kwa vijana Wakatoliki kuwa manabii wa mataifa yote.
“Nimekuja kukutana na vijana kutoka sehemu zote duniani, waliovutika kwenye mikono ya Yesu Kristo Mwokozi,” amesema akiimanisha sanamu maarufu ya Yesu iliyopo katika jiji la Rio.
“Wanataka kutafuta hifadhi katika mikono yake, karibu kabisa na moyo wake ili wasikie wito wake kwa nguvu na wazi.”
                                        
Takriban saa moja mara baada ya sherehe za kumkaribisha, polisi walifyatua mabomu ya kutoa machozi na yale ya kushtua dhidi ya waandamanaji nje ya kasri.
Yalikuwa ni maandamano ya hivi karibuni ambayo waandamanaji wanasema ni ya kupinga vitendo vilivyokithri vya rushwa ndani ya serikali na nchi nzima.
Lakini baadhi yao wamechukizwa na dola za Kimarekani milioni 53 zilizotumika kuandaa ziara ya Baba Mtakatifu.
Kulikuwa na uharibifu kiasi na watu kadhaa kukamatwa, lakini ilikuwa kama ishara kwamba, upo uwezekano wa ziara hiyo ya kihistoria ya Baba Mtakatifu ikagubikwa na matukio yasiyo ya kawaida ya kisiasa.
Katika hatua nyingine, jeshi la Brazil limesema, bomu la kutengeneza nyumbani limegunduliwa karibu na eneo moja takatifu kati ya Rio na Sao Paulo ambalo kiongozi huyo wa Kanisa Katoliki anatarajiwa kulitembelea siku ya Jumatano.
Bomu hilo lilikowa na nguvu kidogo, lilidhibitiwa baada ye.
Wakati Baba Mtakatifu Francis akiteremka kutoka kwenye ndege ya shirika la Alitalia, kwenye uwanja wa ndege wa Rio, mapema Jumatatu, alilakiwa na Rais Rousseff huku umati wa watu ukishangilia na alikabidhiwa shada la maua, huku kwaya ya vijana ikiimba wimbo unaohusu siku ya vijana.

                                   

                                       

Aliwapungia mkono watu na msafara wake kuelekea katikati ya Rio ambako maelfu ya mahujaji walikuwa wamekusanyika.
Baba Mtakatifu Francis alionekana mwenye furaha na kutulia wakati akielekea jijini Rio akiwa ndani ya gari la kawaida huku dirisha likiwa limefunguliwa na maafisa usalama wakihangaika kuudhibiti umati.

Kulikuwa na matukio ya fujo wakati gari lake lilipokwama kwenye moja ya msongamano wa magari katika jiji la Rio, baada ya dereva wake kukosea njia na kuzikosa zile zilioandaliwa kwa ajili ya msafara wa Papa.

Mara umati ulizingira gari lake ukiwa na matumaini ya kumuona kwa karibu ama kumgusa. Mwanamke mmoja alimpitisha mtoto wake kwenye dirisha la gari ili Baba Mtakatifu ambusu.
Alipofika katikati ya jiji Papa alipanda gari la wazi lililoandaliwa maalum kwa ajili yake, huku akipunga mkono kwa maelfu ya watu waliojipanga pembezoni mwa barabara.
“Siwezi kusafiri kwenda Rome, lakini amekuja kuifanya nchi yangu kuwa njema na kuimarisha imani yetu,” alisema mzee mmoja wa miaka 73, Idaclea Rangel, huku akibubujikwa na machozi.
Mamlaka imeimarisha ulinzi wakati wa ziara ya siku saba ya Papa, kufuatia wiki kadhaa za maandamano nchi nzima kupinga rushwa na utawala mbovu.
Papa Francis alikataa kutumia gari maalum lisilopenyeza risasi, licha ya maombi kutoka kwa maafisa wa Brazil, maafisa wa usalama wapatao 30,000, jeshi na polisi wataimarisha ulinzi wakati wa ziara hiyo.
Zaidi ya vijana Wakatoliki milioni moja wanatarajiwa kukusanyika Rio kwa ajili ya Siku ya Vijana Duniani, ambyo huadhimishwa kila baada ya miaka miwili, ni sherehe za waumini Wakatoliki.
Papa huyo mzaliwa wa Argentina, ambaye alishika wadhifa huo Machi mwaka huu, anatarajiwa kuongoza ibada katika ufukwe wa pwani ya Copacabana siku ya Alhamisi na pia kutembelea moja ya vitongoji masikini.

TISA KUUWAWA MISRI

Maafisa wanasema kuwa , ghasia zilitokea wakati wa maandamano yaliyofanywa na wafuasi wa Morsi.

 Familia ya Bwana Morsi imetuhumu jeshi kwa kumteka nyara kiongozi huyo wa zamani.


Rais huyo wa zamani amezuiliwa na jeshi katika sehemu isiyojulikana bila ya kufunguliwa mashtaka yoyote, tangu mkuu wa majeshi Generali Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, kutangaza kung'olewa mamlakani kwa Morsi tarehe 3 Julai.
Chama cha Bwana Morsi cha Muslim Brotherhood kimekataa kutambua serikali ya kijeshi huku kikifanya maandamano karibu kila siku kote nchini Misri.
Ghasia hizo zimesababisha vifo vya zaidi ya watu 60 tangu kuondolewa mamlakani kwa Morsi.
Siku ya Jumatatu mtu mmoja alifariki na wengine wengi wakijeruhiwa wakati wa maandamano mjini Cairo, kwa mujibu wa maafisa wa afya.
Televisheni ya taifa iliripoti kuwa wafuasi wa Morsi waliokuwa wanaandamana walikamatwa kwa umiliki haramu wa silaha.
Vifo zaidi vimeripotiwa katika makabiliano mengine tofauti katika mkoa wa Qalyubiya Kaskazini mwa Cairo.
Wakati huohuo, familia ya Morsi ilisema hawajawasiliana kamwe na Morsi, na ikathibitisha kuwa wanaitaka mahakama ya kimataifa ya uhalifu wa kivita kuanzisha uchunguzi juu ya kupinduliwa kwake.
Nchi kadhaa ikiwemo Marekani zimetaka Morsi aachiliwe.
Lakini maafisa wa kijeshi wanasisitiza kuwa anazuiliwa katika eneo salama.

UNAWEZA KUPATA UGONJWA WA AKILI KWA KUTUMIA KILEVI

KITENDO cha binadamu kushindwa kutekeleza majukumu yake na kutumia kilevi kama kichocheo cha nguvu za kutekeleza jambo hilo, ni dalili ya ugonjwa wa akili.
Vile vile, imeelezwa kuwa, tabia ya watu wanaotumia ulevi wa aina mbalimbali kukosa imani na kila mtu kwa kila jambo bila sababu za msingi ni ugonjwa wa akili.
 

Mtaalamu wa magonjwa hayo ambaye pia ni Mkurugenzi Msaidizi na Mkuu wa Sehemu ya Magonjwa yasiyo ya kuambukiza, Afya ya Akili na Dawa za Kulevya wa Wizara ya Afya na Ustawi wa Jamii, Dk. Joseph Mbatia alisema hayo Dar es Salaam jana alipozungumza  muda mfupi baada ya uzinduzi wa kampeni ya kuhamasisha jamii kuepukana na ulevi wa pombe wa kupindukia.

Kampeni hiyo itakayoendeshwa na vituo 11 vya redio nchini, vipererushi, magazeti na njia nyingine za mawasiliano ya umma ilizinduliwa rasmi na Katibu Mkuu wa wizara hiyo, Blandina Nyoni na zitadumu kwa miezi sita ili kuhakikisha wananchi wanapata elimu juu ya madhara ya pombe na kubadili tabia ya ulevi.

Kwa mujibu wa Dk. Mbatia, idadi kubwa ya wagonjwa wa akili waliopo nchini inatokana na ulevi wa kupindukia wa pombe na vileo vingine.

Katika hotuba yake ya uzinduzi, Nyoni alisema pombe ni hatari na haipaswi kuendekezwa kwa kuwa inachochea umasikini kwa kiasi kikubwa, ugomvi katika familia, kusambaa kwa maambukizi ya magonjwa ya kuambukiza kama Ukimwi na madhara mengine mengi.

HISTORY OF LIONEL MESSI

                                                 
                                              
Lionel Messi scored his 19th consecutive league goal on Saturday setting another La Liga record as Barcelona drew 2-2 at relegation-threatened Celta Vigo.

The Argentine's 73rd minute strike -- his 29th in 19 league matches -- makes him the first player in the history of Spanish football to score against every other league opponent in succession.

"It is a unheard of record that no one has ever achieved. This shows how great this player is," said Barcelona assistant coach Jordi Roura.

 

Messi's second-half strike gave the Catalans the lead for the first time in the match, after they had gone behind to a Natxo Insa goal in the 38th minute.

The visitors were back on level terms five minutes later thanks to a Cristian Tello strike and when Messi slotted home with 17 minutes remaining Barcelona looked odds-on for all three points.

But the home side had other ideas and with two minutes remaining found an equalizer through Borja Oubina.

Real Madrid failed to capitalize on their rivals slip up, drawing 1-1 at Zaragoza.

Rodri put the home side ahead after six minutes with Cristiano Ronaldo equalizing in the 38th minute, before a stalemate ensued in the second half.

KODI YA SIMU YAZUA KIZAZAA SERIKALINI

kizaa zaa cha wananchi na serikali katika kutoza kodi ya simu ya sh 1,000 kwa kila mwezi yawezekana huenda ikafutwa kutokana na malalamiko ya wananchi wengi kulalamika kuhusu kodi hiyo.

naibu waziri wa mawasiliano, sayansi na teknolojia Mh; Januari Makamba

Hiyo inatokana na kauli ya Naibu Waziri wa Mawasiliano, Sayansi na Teknolojia, Januari Makamba aliyoitoa

THE HISTORY OF NELSON MANDELA FROM 1918 (SOUTH AFRICA)

Nelson Mandela's Childhood and Education

                                     

Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, into a royal family of the Xhosa-speaking Thembu tribe in the South African village of Mvezo, where his father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa (c. 1880-1928), served as chief. His mother, Nosekeni Fanny, was the third of Mphakanyiswa’s four wives, who together bore him nine daughters and four sons. After the death of his father in 1927, 9-year-old Mandela—then known by his birth name, Rolihlahla—was adopted by Jongintaba Dalindyebo, a high-ranking Thembu regent who began grooming his young ward for a role within the tribal leadership.
The first in his family to receive a formal education, Mandela completed his primary studies at a local missionary school. There, a teacher dubbed him Nelson as part of a common practice of giving African students English names. He went on to attend the Clarkebury Boarding Institute and Healdtown, a Methodist secondary school, where he excelled in boxing and track as well as academics. In 1939 Mandela entered the elite University of Fort Hare, the only Western-style higher learning institute for South African blacks at the time. The following year, he and several other students, including his friend and future business partner Oliver Tambo (1917-1993), were sent home for participating in a boycott against university policies.
After learning that his guardian had arranged a marriage for him, Mandela fled to Johannesburg and worked first as a night watchman and then as a law clerk while completing his bachelor’s degree by correspondence. He studied law at the University of Witwatersrand, where he became involved in the movement against racial discrimination and forged key relationships with black and white activists. In 1944, Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC) and worked with fellow party members, including Oliver Tambo, to establish its youth league, the ANCYL. That same year, he met and married his first wife, Evelyn Ntoko Mase (1922-2004), with whom he had four children before their divorce in 1957.

Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress

                       

Nelson Mandela’s commitment to politics and the ANC grew stronger after the 1948 election victory of the Afrikaner-dominated National Party, which introduced a formal system of racial classification and segregation—apartheid—that restricted nonwhites’ basic rights and barred them from government while maintaining white minority rule. The following year, the ANC adopted the ANCYL’s plan to achieve full citizenship for all South Africans through boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience and other nonviolent methods. Mandela helped lead the ANC’s 1952 Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws, traveling across the country to organize protests against discriminatory policies, and promoted the manifesto known as the Freedom Charter, ratified by the Congress of the People in 1955. Also in 1952, Mandela and Tambo opened South Africa’s first black law firm, which offered free or low-cost legal counsel to those affected by apartheid legislation.
                                      
On December 5, 1956, Mandela and 155 other activists were arrested and went on trial for treason. All of the defendants were acquitted in 1961, but in the meantime tensions within the ANC escalated, with a militant faction splitting off in 1959 to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). The next year, police opened fire on peaceful black protesters in the township of Sharpeville, killing 69 people; as panic, anger and riots swept the country in the massacre’s aftermath, the apartheid government banned both the ANC and the PAC. Forced to go underground and wear disguises to evade detection, Mandela decided that the time had come for a more radical approach than passive resistance.

Nelson Mandela and the Armed Resistance Movement

                          

In 1961, Nelson Mandela co-founded and became the first leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), also known as MK, a new armed wing of the ANC. Several years later, during the trial that would put him behind bars for nearly three decades, he described the reasoning for this radical departure from his party’s original tenets: “[I]t would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and nonviolence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle.”
Under Mandela’s leadership, MK launched a sabotage campaign against the government, which had recently declared South Africa a republic and withdrawn from the British Commonwealth. In January 1962, Mandela traveled abroad illegally to attend a conference of African nationalist leaders in Ethiopia, visit the exiled Oliver Tambo in London and undergo guerilla training in Algeria. On August 5, shortly after his return, he was arrested and subsequently sentenced to five years in prison for leaving the country and inciting a 1961 workers’ strike. The following July, police raided an ANC hideout in Rivonia, a suburb on the outskirts of Johannesburg, and arrested a racially diverse group of MK leaders who had gathered to debate the merits of a guerilla insurgency. Evidence was found implicating Mandela and other activists, who were brought to stand trial for sabotage, treason and violent conspiracy alongside their associates.
Mandela and seven other defendants narrowly escaped the gallows and were instead sentenced to life imprisonment during the so-called Rivonia Trial, which lasted eight months and attracted substantial international attention. In a stirring opening statement that sealed his iconic status around the world, Mandela admitted to some of the charges against him while defending the ANC’s actions and denouncing the injustices of apartheid. He ended with the following words: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Nelson Mandela's Years Behind Bars

Nelson Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years in jail at the brutal Robben Island Prison, a former leper colony off the coast of Cape Town, where he was confined to a small cell without a bed or plumbing and compelled to do hard labor in a lime quarry. As a black political prisoner, he received scantier rations and fewer privileges than other inmates. He was only allowed to see his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (1936-), who he had married in 1958 and was the mother of his two young daughters, once every six months. Mandela and his fellow prisoners were routinely subjected to inhumane punishments for the slightest of offenses; among other atrocities, there were reports of guards burying inmates in the ground up to their necks and urinating on them.
These restrictions and conditions notwithstanding, while in confinement Mandela earned a bachelor of law degree from the University of London and served as a mentor to his fellow prisoners, encouraging them to seek better treatment through nonviolent resistance. He also smuggled out political statements and a draft of his autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,” published five years after his release.
Despite his forced retreat from the spotlight, Mandela remained the symbolic leader of the antiapartheid movement. In 1980 Oliver Tambo introduced a “Free Nelson Mandela” campaign that made the jailed leader a household name and fueled the growing international outcry against South Africa’s racist regime. As pressure mounted, the government offered Mandela his freedom in exchange for various political compromises, including the renouncement of violence and recognition of the “independent” Transkei Bantustan, but he categorically rejected these deals.
In 1982 Mandela was moved to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland, and in 1988 he was placed under house arrest on the grounds of a minimum-security correctional facility. The following year, newly elected president F. W. de Klerk (1936-) lifted the ban on the ANC and called for a nonracist South Africa, breaking with the conservatives in his party. On February 11, 1990, he ordered Mandela’s release.

Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa

                            

After attaining his freedom, Nelson Mandela led the ANC in its negotiations with the governing National Party and various other South African political organizations for an end to apartheid and the establishment of a multiracial government. Though fraught with tension and conducted against a backdrop of political instability, the talks earned Mandela and de Klerk the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1993. On April 26, 1994, more than 22 million South Africans turned out to cast ballots in the country's first multiracial parliamentary elections in history. An overwhelming majority chose the ANC to lead the country, and on May 10 Mandela was sworn in as the first black president of South Africa, with de Klerk serving as his first deputy.
As president, Mandela established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights and political violations committed by both supporters and opponents of apartheid between 1960 and 1994. He also introduced numerous social and economic programs designed to improve the living standards of South Africa's black population. In 1996 Mandela presided over the enactment of a new South African constitution, which established a strong central government based on majority rule and prohibited discrimination against minorities, including whites.
Improving race relations, discouraging blacks from retaliating against the white minority and building a new international image of a united South Africa were central to President Mandela’s agenda. To these ends, he formed a multiracial “Government of National Unity” and proclaimed the country a “rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.” In a gesture seen as a major step toward reconciliation, he encouraged blacks and whites alike to rally around the predominantly Afrikaner national rugby team when South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
On his 80th birthday in 1998, Mandela wed the politician and humanitarian Graça Machel (1945-), widow of the former president of Mozambique. (His marriage to Winnie had ended in divorce in 1992.) The following year, he retired from politics at the end of his first term as president and was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki (1942-) of the ANC.

Nelson Mandela's Later Years and Legacy

                             

Since leaving office, Nelson Mandela has remained a devoted champion for peace and social justice in his own country and around the world. He has established a number of organizations, including the influential Nelson Mandela Foundation and The Elders, an independent group of public figures committed to addressing global problems and easing human suffering. In 2002, Mandela became a vocal advocate of AIDS awareness and treatment programs in a culture where the epidemic had been cloaked in stigma and ignorance. The disease later claimed the life of his son Makgatho (1950-2005) and is believed to affect more people in South Africa than in any other country.
Treated for prostate cancer in 2001 and weakened by other health issues, Mandela has grown frail in recent years and scaled back his schedule of public appearances. In 2009, the United Nations declared July 18 “Nelson Mandela International Day” in recognition of the South African leader’s contributions to democracy, freedom, peace and human rights around the world.

WONDERS HISTORY OF BOB MARLEY (ROBERT NESTA MARLEY)

BOB MARLEY (NESTA MARLEY) ENZI YA UHAI WAKE

                                             Robert "Bob" Nesta Marley being born on 6th February 1945 in the a small village known as Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica.
His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was born in 1895 and was a white Jamaican of English descent. His own parents originated from Sussex. Norval Marley was a Marine officer and captain as well as being a plantation overseer when he fell in love with and married Cedella Booker. She was a black Jamaican woman who was then just 18 years old. Although Norval Marley provided financial support for his beloved wife and son, he seldom saw them due to his being often away on naval trips.
The young Bob Marley was only 10 years old when his father died of a heart attack at the age of 60 in 1955.
As a youth, Bob Marley suffered much racial prejudice due to his mixed racial origins. He often faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his short life.
He was once quoted as saying:
"I don't have prejudice against myself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white."

Young Robert (Bob) Marley and his mother were forced to move to the slums of Kingston's Trenchtown after Norval's death. This was a very tough neighbourhood and Bob marley was forced to learn self-defense becauee of his being the target of bullying, mainly due to his racial makeup as well as his small stature of only 5'4". As he grew older, he earned himself a reputation for his physical strength which earned him the nickname "Tuff Gong".                                                                         
Bob Marley made friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (who was later known as Bunny Wailer). They soon started playing music together as a natural progression of their friendship. Bob Marley left school at 14 to work as an apprentice at a local welder's workshop. In his free time Bob Marley and Bunny Livingston made music with another friend, Joe Higgs who was a local singer as well as being a devout Rastafari. Joe Higgs is regarded by many as being Bob Marley's mentor. It was at one of their frequent jam sessions with Higgs and Livingston that Bob Marley met Peter McIntosh (who was better known as Peter Tosh) who had similar musical ambitions.
In 1962 Bob Marley recorded and released his first two singles. "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee" were produced by Leslie Kong, a local music producer. Both songs were released on the Beverley's label under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell. Unfortunately, they attracted almost no media attention and were complete flops.

Bob Marley's funeral, 21 May 1981: a day of Jamaican history

                                  Richard Williams was at Bob Marley's funeral 30 years ago in Jamaica. He recalls an extraordinary carnival of music, prayer and full Rasta pageantry

Bob Marley in 1975, two years before he was diagnosed with the malignant melanoma that would lead to his death in May 1981. Photograph: Jonathan Player/ Rex Features

They buried Bob Marley on 21 May 1981 at Nine Mile, the village where, 36 years earlier, he had been born. His heavy bronze coffin was carried to the top of the highest hill in the village and placed in a temporary mausoleum painted in the colours of red, green and gold. Alongside Marley's embalmed corpse, the casket contained his red Gibson Les Paul guitar, a Bible opened at Psalm 23, and a stalk of ganja placed there by his widow, Rita, at the end of the funeral ceremony earlier in the day.
On the night of his death, on 11 May, I had gone to the Island Records studios in an old church in Notting Hill, west London, where Aswad had been cutting tracks in the very basement studio where Bob had completed Catch A Fire, his breakthrough album, nine years earlier. But it was long after midnight, and the musicians had gone home after watching the tributes to the dead man hurriedly assembled by the British TV networks. The only people left were a caretaker and one of Aswad's roadcrew, both Jamaicans.
"A sad day," I said, unable to think of anything more profound or perceptive.
They raised their eyes, and the roadie paused in the middle of rolling his spliff.
"Jah give," he replied, "and Jah take away."
That was the mood in Kingston when Marley's body arrived on a flight from Miami a few days later. There was no reason to grieve, the Rastas told anyone who expressed sorrow. Death meant nothing. Bob hadn't gone anywhere. He was still among us.
The announcement of the country's national budget was postponed by several days to accommodate Marley's state funeral. Invitations had to be sent out, the mausoleum had to be constructed, and security had to be organised at the National Arena, where the main ceremony would be held. And the prime minister, Edward Seaga, had to prepare his eulogy.

                                         
On the day before the funeral, the coffin was placed in the arena, a large, gymnasium-like building. The lid was open and the public – an estimated 100,000 of them – were allowed to file past to take a final look. Marley's head was once more covered with dreadlocks; but this was a wig which covered his bald skull, his own hair having been lost during his treatment for cancer in New York, Miami, Mexico, and finally the Bavarian clinic of Dr Josef Issels, following the diagnosis of a malignant melanoma four years earlier.
In Jamaica, everyone claimed to be Bob's friend. "Sure I knew him," the cab driver who picked me up at Norman Manley Airport said. "He smoked the herb of life." And he passed his spliff over his shoulder to his friend in the back seat, a uniformed policeman.
The day of the funeral began with an hour-long service for family and close friends at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity on Maxfield Avenue, presided over by His Eminence Abuna Yesehaq, the church's archbishop in the western hemisphere, who had baptised Marley in New York the previous November, just after his last triumphal concerts at Madison Square Garden. Bob's baptismal name was Berhane Selassie – "Light of the Trinity".
At the end of the short service the coffin was transported to the National Arena, where the 6,000-strong congregation were assembling under the eyes of cameras and reporters from around the world. Above the entrance, a huge banner proclaimed: "Funeral Service of the Honourable Robert Nesta Marley, OM". The Order of Merit had been conferred a few weeks before his death.
The casket was carried into the hall on the shoulders of a score of white-jacketed guards of the Jamaica Defence Force. Inside and out in the street, a powerful public address system blasted out Bob's records, while in the surrounding avenues the hawkers of badges, posters, soft drinks and ganja worked the large numbers of people who had arrived without invitations and were prepared, if they could not get in, to listen to the ceremony as it was relayed by the loudspeakers.
"Babylon system is a vampire," Bob's voice wailed as the coffin was deposited on a trestle table in the middle of the broad stage and covered with two flags, the green, gold and black of Jamaica and the red, green and gold of Ethiopia. The decorations were the work of Neville Garrick, the creator of all the Wailers' album cover art from 1976's Rastaman Vibration to 1980's Uprising. The balconies were open to the public, and filled up quickly, but on the floor the rows of chairs were marked with signs: Family, Government, Press, Twelve Tribes of Israel, Musicians.
Photographers swiftly surrounded Cedella Booker, Bob's mother, in whose Miami home he had died, as she took her place. She was followed by his widow and some of his children, including his sons Ziggy, aged 12, the nine-year-olds Steve and Robert Junior, born to different mothers, and Julian, aged five, and his daughters Cedella, 13, and Stephanie, six. Applause saluted the entry of Michael Manley, the former prime minister, whose pro-Cuban policies had provoked the disastrous enmity of the US government and the International Monetary Fund, and who had been deposed by Seaga at an election six months earlier.
The Rastafarians, in particular, still saw Manley as a friend of the oppressed, and there was an obvious contrast with the polite but tepid response accorded to Seaga, who hurried to his seat surrounded by uniformed guards. The governor-general of Jamaica, Sir Florizel Glasspole, ON, GCMG, CD, the Queen of England's official representative, arrived from his residence, the palatial Devon House, to provide an appropriate symbol of the island's colonial history, a living reminder that the ancestors of most of those present had been brought from Africa four centuries earlier to form the world's only entirely slave-based economy.
The formal guard of the Ethiopian church, elderly men and women in white robes, took their places around the coffin and the centre of the stage was soon filled with the church's elders, in robes of varied and vivid design. On the right of the platform a riser had been built for the choir and for the United Africa Band, a group consisting of several percussionists, a bass guitarist and organist, directed by Brother Cedric Brooks. To the left, another riser was covered with amplifiers, keyboards and drums, all stencilled with the legend "Bob Marley and the Wailers".
A voice came over the loudspeakers. "Brothers and sisters, this is a funeral service for the late Bob Marley. Please don't forget that. The selling of all merchandise must stop now." In the row in front of me, the producer Harry J, accompanied by his latest protegee, the singer Sheila Hilton, was in conversation with a Rasta wearing a red, green and gold tam o'shanter. "There has to be a revolution to get a solution," the Rasta proclaimed. Harry J didn't seem to be entirely in agreement. I wondered if, under the armpit of his glossy silk suit, he was stillpacking the silver Smith & Wesson revolver I'd seen him remove from the glove compartment of his Oldsmobile as he took Chris Blackwell and me to a Catch A Fire session in his studio nine years earlier, the day after Marley and Blackwell had signed the deal that would set the whole phenomenon in motion.
A little while after the scheduled hour of 11 o'clock, the service began with an Anglican hymn, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past", accompanied by the drummers of the United Africa Band. As the familiar 18th-century melody – written by William Croft, an Oxford scholar and composer to Queen Anne, whose remains lie in Westminster Abbey – died away, the archbishop, standing beneath a parasol held by an acolyte, began to read passages from the Anaphora of John, Son of Thunder and the Anaphora of St Mary, rendered in Ge'ez, the ancient tongue of Ethiopia, and Amharic.
The governor-general stepped forward, a small, portly figure, to read the first lesson, taken from 1 Corinthians: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." The congregation sang another hymn, coincidentally a favourite of Elvis Presley: "Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee/ How great Thou art, how great Thou art." Manley read from 1 Thessalonians: "Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith/ For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord."
Then, to the delight of the Rastas in the balcony, it was the turn of the dreadlocked Allan "Skill" Cole, Jamaica's finest footballer and one of the dead man's closest friends. Cole was wearing the raiment of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, a popular sub-sect of Rastafari founded in Jamaica in the late 1960s and with whom Marley had long been associated; his inclusion in the proceedings had been tolerated by the Ethiopian elders, to whom the Rasta doctrines represented a form of heresy, only under protest. He had been scheduled to read from Psalm 68, which bears the subtitle "To the chief musician, a psalm or song of David".
Instead he announced that he proposed to deliver passages from Corinthians and Isaiah particularly dear to Rastafarian hearts. Mutterings and shufflings among the church dignitaries on the platform were answered by sounds of delighted approval from the congregation. Their mood turned to boisterous glee as the footballer refused to heed urgent requests to leave the platform, continuing with his reading before returning to his seat amid the sounds of triumph.
The archbishop, clearly annoyed, recovered his composure in time to read the Beatitudes – "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" – and to lead the Lord's Prayer before Seaga delivered a eulogy memorable only for its closing benediction: "May his soul," intoned the man in the dark business suit, "rest in the arms of Jah Rastafari." Even the Twelve Tribes could scarce forbear to cheer this explicit recognition of their usually ignored presence within Jamaican society.
The archbishop's address contained an implicit rebuke of Skill Cole in a direct address to the Rastas in the hall. Why advocate repatriation to Africa, he demanded, when it would profit them more to work together for a better life in Jamaica? "Jah!" they shouted in defiance as he spoke. "Rastafari!"
The most extraordinary moment of the ceremony, the most beautiful and un-European, came after the members of Marley's old band mounted the stage. The I-Threes – Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths – sang "Rastaman Chant" to a ponderous and mournful rhythm before the Wailers, directed by the guitarist Junior Murvin, struck up "Natural Mystic".
It was during this song, while the crowd was getting to its feet and moving towards the stage to join what had suddenly been transformed from an obsequy to a celebration, that Ziggy and Stevie Marley could be seen dancing among the musicians. Identically dressed in maroon suits and white shoes, they performed joyous imitations of their late father's distinctive stage choreography, and the resemblance was such that the congregation gasped at the sight. When the engineer at the mixing desk superimposed a recording of Bob's voice above the band's heavyweight rhythm, the effect was hallucinatory.
Cedella Booker closed the service. Accompanied by two other women, she delivered "Amen" – written by Curtis Mayfield, whose music had inspired Marley's earliest efforts – in a powerful voice as her listeners swayed to the rhythm.
Then the musicians put down their instruments, lifted the coffin on to their shoulders and carried it through the hall and out into the roadway, where it was placed in a hearse, ready for the 50-mile journey to the place where Marley's life had begun.
As the cortege left Kingston, it passed by the house at 56 Hope Road whose walls still bore the scars from the bullets that narrowly failed to kill Marley in a politically motivated attack in 1976. On South Camp Road, outside the Alpha Boys School, where many of Jamaica's finest musicians had been taught to play by an inspiring teacher named Ruben Delgado, pupils sang "No Woman, No Cry" as the procession headed towards Marcus Garvey Drive and out of the city on the road towards Spanish Town .
Crossing the parish of St Catherine to the town of Bog Walk, where the road splits right to Port Maria and left to Ocho Rios, the cars turned north-east through Moneague and past the 2,000ft peak of the mountain called Friendship, taking the left fork past Claremont and into the parish of St Ann, skirting the foothills of the Dry Harbour Mountains and on through Brown's Town. All along the route, people came out of houses, schools, farms and workshops to stand by the roadside. Finally, in mid-afternoon, the dead man and his companions arrived at Nine Mile, a hamlet set at the end of a single-track road among gentle, verdant red-clay hills.
A helicopter buzzed overhead, carrying a film crew, their cameras trained on slopes covered with white-robed figures. Rastas from all over the island had set off early to be in place when the cortege arrived. Policemen fingered machine guns but disorder was minimal, despite the crush as the coffin was removed from the hearse and carried by many willing hands up to the small temporary mausoleum.
Nine Mile turned out to be no more than a scattering of shanties, with one or two bars and a small single-storey stone building consecrated, according to a handwritten sign, to the use of the Holy Baptist Church of the Fire of God of the Americas. This was a place where workers in the sugar plantations set in the flatlands towards the sea had built their homes and quietly cultivated their modest crops. It was here, on 6 February 1945, that Cedella Booker had brought Bob Marley into the world, and it was here, only a few paces away from the mausoleum, in a tiny two-room shack, that Bob and Rita had returned for a year at the end of the 1960s, to nurture their first child.
After a brief ceremony of interment, the convoy departed, followed by the police. Only the Rastas remained. For the last time, Junior Murvin and Neville Garrick climbed the low mound to the mausoleum, picking their way through empty Red Stripe cans, the music they helped to send around the globe throbbing from cassette players.
As the light began to fail, the vendors of ice creams and soft drinks packed their goods away. The thump of the helicopter's rotors receded. The white-robed members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel melted into the dusk. Bob had come home.

Bob Marley 1945-1981

1945 Born in Nine Mile, Jamaica to white Jamaican father Norval Sinclair Marley and black mother, Cedella Booker.
1955 Norval dies when Marley is 10. Marley acknowledges his mixed ethnic roots but identifies himself as a black African.
1960s Becomes a Rastafarian.
1963 Forms ska and rock steady group the Teenagers with Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, and three others. Marley, Wailer and Tosh went on to become the Wailers.
1966 Marries Rita Anderson.
1967 First daughter, Cedella, is born. Marley had 11 children in all.
1972 While on tour in London, the Wailers are dropped by their label, CBS. Marley visits Island Records who promptly sign the band.
1973 The Wailers' first major album, Catch A Fire, is released worldwide. .
1974 Marley's profile is raised by Eric Clapton's cover of "I Shot the Sheriff". Shortly after, the Wailers break up. He continues to perform as "Bob Marley and the Wailers", with the I-Threes, three backing singers, among them his wife, Rita.
1975 "No Woman, No Cry", his first hit outside Jamaica, is released.
1976 Marley and Rita are wounded at their home on 56 Hope Road in a politically motivated shooting. They exile themselves to London for several years. Marley records Exodus and Kaya.
1977 Diagnosed with acral lentiginous melanoma. He keeps recording and performing until 1980.
1981 Dies in hospital in Miami, Florida.
He says: "One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain." "Trenchtown Rock", 1973
They say: "When I was just a kid, a struggling unknown poet ranting on the streets of Birmingham, he was the only singer who ever replied to any of my letters. I actually got advice from brother Bob: he told me to "keep it up", to "stay militant", and he said that one day people would read my poems.
"Bob Marley was my hero, and then he became my penpal. Very heaven."