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Prophecy, Sorcery, and Reincarnation
instructor’s cousin, Idrissa Camara, arranged for us to visit Bafata-
Oio, a farming village several miles southwest of Farim—the capital
of the Oio region. Having arrived in Bafata-Oio in the middle of the
night with only a flashlight to guide our path, we had no idea what
the village actually looked like until we awoke the next morning to
the sound of children—students—reciting passages from the Qur’an.
There was a mist hovering around the large compound, which con-
sisted of a big rectangular courtyard circumscribed by a series of sim-
ple mud brick homes, some covered with corrugated tin, some with
thatch. Shortly after we emerged from our room, donated to us by one
of the teachers, we were led to greet Alhadj Fodimaye Touré, his three
wives, and his numerous children and grandchildren. Alhadj asked us
about the nature of our visit and decided to allow us to live in his vil-
lage. He even granted us exclusive use of one of the village’s unoccu-
pied homestead, Camarakunda, which had been previously occupied
by a teacher–student who had moved on to start his own school.
We hired local villagers to do some minor repairs and renovations,
including building a new outdoor latrine, and we gradually settled into
a routine of daily visiting and language study. The stories we began
to accumulate about the village in general, and about Alhadj Touré,
in particular, were both inspiring and impressive, and it was no sur-
prise that several thousand pilgrims came to the village in late May
for a three-day prayer vigil and sacrifice to celebrate the birthday of
the Prophet Mohammed. The people of Bafata-Oio spend most of the
year preparing for the annual ceremony, in which visitors from as far
away as Mali, Morocco, and even France, arrive to receive the bless-
ings of Alhadj on this special day. As a consequence, Alhadj’s reputa-
tion has grown in the past several decades, and he is one of the most
revered traditional healers in the entire Senegambian region, which
encompasses Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea.
Alhadj Touré is a devout Muslim who preaches peace and presides
over a traditional Qur’anic school based in Bafata-Oio. The school
is a place where children learn to recite the Qur’an by memory and
to provide for themselves and for others by learning basic trades, like
farming and animal husbandry—a combination of school and expe-
riential learning not unlike Outward Bound and alternative education
