Ubuntu first
I am because we are. Every trip we plan should leave the people who host you better off than before you came.
About Us
It started with one proud African and a promise.
amafirka began as a simple frustration: Africa was being described to the world by people who had never sat at its tables. So we started telling it ourselves — one journey, one language lesson, one photograph at a time.
The founder · Timileyin Bayomi
A traveller who kept being asked the same question.
Our founder, Timileyin Bayomi, grew up between Nigerian family life and long stretches of travel across the continent — West African markets, East African highlands, and eventually the Western Cape, where the photograph above was taken. Everywhere the same question came back from people abroad: what is Africa really like?
The honest answer was that no one trip, no one country and no one photograph could answer it. Fifty-four countries. Over two thousand languages. Food, faith, music and history that shift from one valley to the next. What was missing was not information — it was somebody to walk people through it with warmth, and with respect for the people being described.
So amafirka was built in three parts that feed each other. A travel practice that plans journeys around who you actually are, instead of a fixed package. An education side that teaches the languages, cultures, food and history of the continent in short, human lessons. And a creative studio in Nigeria where African identity is photographed, filmed and celebrated by Africans.
The name and the work both rest on Ubuntu — umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, a person is a person through other people. Or simply: I am because we are.
What we hold to
Three things we do not bend on.
Africa, told properly
No single story. We teach the languages, food, history and modern life of each place with the care they deserve.
Travel as family
You are not a tourist on our routes. You are a guest, introduced by people who live there.
Where we are going
A community, not an audience.
Today amafirka is a growing community of Proud Africans and friends of Africa — travellers, students, photographers and families. The plan from here is more languages taught, more countries covered properly, and more trips where the money you spend stays with the people who host you.