"Waka Waka" means "Do it" in Swahili, and what players are doing in this game as African traders is buying goods – hides, salt, tea, textiles, jewelry and fruit from faraway lands – as cheaply as possible.
The goods on offer, however, are mostly obscured, so whoever doesn't want to buy a pig in a poke, so to speak, might want to send out his chimpanzee for a closer look at the goods before laying out any money. The players want to keep the village shaman fulfilled for as long as the fire illuminates the shaman, he'll help you in your trading efforts. The other villagers have special skills of their own that you can call on for support.
Waka Waka is set in the same thematic world as Rüdiger Dorn's Jambo, which Kosmos first released in 2004.