Wasimbä means traveler in the Sango language of the Central African Republic. Or so I read. I do not speak Sango, or any African language for that matter. In fact, I have never stepped foot in Africa. I do not pretend to write this blog as an expert – only as someone who is madly, truly, deeply interested in Africa. I will try not to be the girl who has naive romantic fantasies about Africa, but it may sometimes happen. The point of Wasimba is really just to collect different news items about Africa that I find interesting, and maybe spark a discussion.
You need a little context here. My grandfather’s lifework was in central Africa. He graduated from the French colonial administration school and worked as an administrator in Ubangui-Shari (now the Central African Republic) and Congo. He remained there for some time after the independence before returning to France for good in the 1970s. My mother grew up in central Africa until she was sent back to Europe as a teen to continue her schooling. My interest in Africa grew as I spent long afternoons in my grandparents’ house staring at African art and strange animals.
Let’s talk about me briefly. I am a student at the Missouri School of Journalism in the newspaper sequence. I work mainly as a reporter, aspiring to be a foreign correspondent – preferably in Africa of course. My minor is in Religious Studies, which I find is a good way to get to know different cultures. I also studied economics for a long while. My interests in writing and journalism are very diverse: business reporting, narrative journalism, documentary film-making, radio journalism, video editing, screenwriting… I want to try my hand at everything. I am currently an assistant city editor at the Columbia Missourian.
