TOUBA:
is a small religious city that was built by Cheik Amadou Bamba and his one true disciple Cheik Ibrahima Fall...it had been a baobab forest, the bush as they say...Ibrahima Fall cleared the forest himself, some say by mystic powers...my friends Boubacar and Lamp Fall (his Baye Fall name) escorted me on a five day journey...my first time leaving Dakar (after five weeks) for the interior...Bouba and Lamp are deep into Baye Fall...dedicated for sure...it was a memorable trip and i will write about it in detail but right now i gotta go. I am going shopping for fabric in Serrakunda, the main market city in Gambia. While doing research on the internet about fabrics, tye dye, batik, traditional indigo dying, weaving and spinning in Gambia, i found a American woman who runs a business out of Gambia. She directed me to a Gambian family in the area who host travelers and who specialize in helping people with all my interests in fabrics etc. The head of the family is Bakary and he is going to show me around today...Gambia is a very very very small country, and the heart of the urban area lies between where i am staying out by the tourist hotels on the beach, and the tiny capital city up by the mouth of the river...in only maybe 30 kilometers by 20 kilometers...lots of open space, light traffic, and frequent, extensive and cheap public transportation by public taxis and mini vans.
