This is now the second obituary for a great orgone warrior I have to write in a very short time.
Tino was a very good friend. I don't even know if he was aware how much we loved him. We met when he joined me together with Carlos Silva and Prophet Ngwatho on that somewhat ill-fated expedition to gift the Cahora Bassa Dam in Mozambique.
He taught me my first Tai chi moves in the police prison in Songo. Funny to remembera sI'm getting ready to participate in the World Championships in Taipei next week.
With his military background he always exuded confidence and competence in all he undertook.
I remember when we were pushed into this dimly lit hall (a former mecahnic workshop serving as the police holding prison in Songo, the town at the Cahora Bassa dam in Mozambique) with 60 inmates around a blazing fire. (If you've never been in an African prison you cannot get the scene right in your imagination)
Saying that I was a bit apprehensive would be an understatement, with all those stories about gang rape or killings in prisons that one has heard. Tino simply dissolved the fear by saying:
"Ahhgh man, don't worry, these are boys. If they try something funny, the first will die"
In th end most of the guys were really harmless poor suckers and not the nasty career crimnals that would kill you at night to steal your watch..
The Songo 4 from left to right: Carlos, Georg, Prophet, Tino
In those 53 days of our Mozambican prison ordeal we got to know each other quite well. Ad in the ensuing years that friendship only grew in depth even though we only saw each other once or twice a year.
His vitality and enthiusiasm were always contagious. Tino had may faces and many abilities:
He was a studied geologist, a martial artist, a career soldier, a responsible and competent pilot, a healer and researcher into all things health related, a father and family man and a natural leader, a dowser and a scientist. Did I forget to say that he was a captivating story teller and a meticulous observer of people?
Of course he was also a great orgone warrior. Tino deeply gifted the Botswana government and military with orgone gifts with as yet unfathomable positive effects. His good friend Kgosi Kafela in a very fine perception described it as a "subtle insecurity in commiting evil".
Before our expedition in 2009 he had quit his active military career as a Major in Botswana airforce were he flew the giant Hercules C23 cargo planes. He had this cool T-shirt with "real planes have propellers" on it.
After our expedition he took on the Job of pilot for for important governemnt personalities in Botswana, being responsible for a 12million USD Pilatus plane from Switzerland.
His duties frequently entailed chauffeuring president Ian Kgama to various destinations, which led to many interesting conversations and insights. Probably he was the only orgone warrior carrying memebership card of a government secret service.
I always saw Tino as a part of our future. Now suddenly he is a part of our past.
When he visited us the last time in April this year, he looked very thin and haggard and told us he had just recovered from a strange disease which caaused malabsorption of the intestines. In other words, he could not get any nutrients out of his food. I was still joking then if I could not please borrow that condition for a while to oose some excess weight.
It did not occur to me that this condition would kill him.
Major Tino Phuthego died on Saturday 13 October after a short crisis in hospital in Gaborone, Botswana.
We still cannot believe it and tears are running down my cheeks as I write this. He is leaving a great gap that cannot be filled.
Tino come back, we miss you!