FEATURE STORY
‘I am an
African
before
I’m anything
at all’
by Joseph Rutakangwa
One afternoon in mid-March, I am standing at one end of the Arch of Septimus Severus when Aimée
appears at the other. “Heey you,” she calls as she approaches my end, with a big smile. “Do you like the
place?” Aimée asks, walking towards the cracked, fluted column of a nearly vanished Temple of Vespasian
and Titus and touching the walls. It is a dry, chilly Thursday in Rome, during the Harvard World Model
United Nations, , and we have just met Pope Francis at the Paul VI Audience Hall in Vatican City. >>