THE ROYAL FAMILY: Prince Yuray, Prince Armando, Their Majesties Adam Sheikh Thabit Kasamburaand Queen Sheba Debra Amelia Kasambura and Princess Vanessa.Her Majesty is a Trini.
The new queen of Nubia is an aesthetician Debra Amelia George from Diego Martin who use to lime at the Pelican Inn, St Anns and the West Mall.
I’m still a Trini, proclaimed Her Majesty Queen Sheba Debra Amelia Kasambura from her temporary residence in Holland.
After working as an aesthetician in Trinidad she married a Dutch native and emigrated to Holland.
Her husband died shortly after.
Left with three children, Kassambura studied law, psychology and international marketing. She practised law while running a clothing and design business, she sai, and also ran a consultancy firm.
She met her husband Prince Armando in Holland while they were both studying. The Prince had recently assumed the throne following his father’s death a few years earlier. The wedding took place in Holland.
Being a Queen, she had to give up her most recent job to fulfil her duties. Her three children, Vanessa 18, Yuray (pronounced Yoo-ree) 16, and Armondo, 11 are now Princess and princes of the new Nubian dynasty.
So what's it like to be an African queen?
As Queen of Nubia, Her Majesty Queen Sheba's official role is that of private advisor to the King.
"On all international matters of concern to the Nubian people," she said even though the Nubian people do not live in any one place.
"The Nubian dynasty is not limited to borders. There are Nubians in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Egypt. It's beyond borders." The dynasty is not about politics either, said Kasambura. Rather, it's about helping the more than 60 million Nubian people scattered throughout the world to understand their ancestry.
"People don't know where they're from. Nubians are always Nubian in terms of race.
"If you saw a Nubian," she said, "you'd see yourself."
More than 90 per cent of slave descendants in the West, said Her Majesty Queen Sheba, come from that area which was the formerly wealthy kingdom of Nubia-south of Egypt and north of Sudan.
The royal couple's mission, according to a release from the Office of Nubian Affairs in Holland, is to "bring, in a passive form, the peace to their people, give them back their identity, their pride".
"When slaves were taken they suffered a lot," said Her Majesty Queen Sheba. "The Nubians who were left still consider them family. They were taken from them, they didn't go by choice.
"We're your people!" she said.
Every woman is a queen, she said, and each Trinidadian and Tobagonian has a responsibility to the world.
But Queen Sheba insists that underneath her title and new responsibilities, she is still a Trini.
"I'll just be a Trini with protocol," she said.
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