We Are The Baye Fall: Pilgrimage of 5 Million in Senegal

There is an energy, a cosmic energy, around this island It’s a spiritual place, with a history that has a universal echo This cannon was brought here by the French army to occupy our country It’s the biggest cannon that they built in West Africa

My name’s Modu, they call me Modu, my parents called me Modu, I’m a Baye Fall We are under the cannon here This was a manual lift a manual lift under the cannon to be able to bring the munitions up to charge the cannon The French said ‘we’re going to exist here

Intellectually, culturally, with our religion here and instruct them to follow us’ But the Cheikh saw through his vision that what they were bringing here was not in the interest or the benefit of the population Thank you Amadou Bamba Thank you Amadou Bamba Thank you Amadou Bamba We are here in Dakar

Very excited to be here to prepare for the Magal Touba The Magal is the most important thing for me in my life The money I give to them isn’t a lot of money they can buy transport to go to Touba I lost my dad when I was three years old

We didn’t have any work nobody in my family like my mum or my sister had any work at that time My mum came here to start a street restaurant selling food my sister started selling tea and I started hustling here I always thought that I wanted to go to Europe

Maybe there I could get more money to help my family When I got to Spain I didn’t have residency one person goes and feeds twenty people and is responsible for the whole family I couldn’t make what I earn in Europe here at home

But with what I earn I bring it here and share it with the people This is the way of the Baye Fall acts are better than words We work so hard but we take action, always action Baye Fallism is a concept of living it’s a concept of life linked with spirituality

Share my food with you, share my drink with you, share my house with you we’ll even share clothes, I’ll give you clothes, we’ll even share a bed It’s simple but it’s the source of spirituality to take care of each other You have to do for God

You cannot just say that you believe in God No you have to do for God Doing is like praying Every disciple who was close to the Cheikh became a teacher, a teacher of doing If you don’t know how to plant he’ll teach you he’ll teach you how to dig a well

He’ll teach you how to feed yourself, he’ll teach you how to have an economy to be able to sustain yourself and sustain your surroundings The French authority saw that this citizen in this country he is an obstacle to our authority

We have to send him out of the country, and they sent him to Gabon A lot of rain, a lot of insects, a lot of mosquitoes everything that you can imagine that could hurt the life of a human being and they brought the Cheikh there They kept him there for seven years

They never had any impact on him and then they had to bring him back because they didn’t know what to do with him anymore And he just said to God ‘forgive them because they didn’t know what they were doing’ Every year the community gets bigger for the Magal

Over five million people come to the Magal everybody eats, drinks and sleeps and nobody pays a penny In Mecca you don’t have that Where’s that coming from? From the service of the Baye Fall He is the one spending all year in the fields preparing for the Magal to feed everyone who comes

It’s the day that Islam had a victory in this country I’m walking without shoes! I’m walking in socks because this is the holy city it’s different to Marbella if I walk in Marbella I walk like a European and I’m not European

But when I’m in Senegal I feel like I’m living my real life I feel like I’m back in my real life There’s a lot of people! They’re from everywhere Every year there are 5 million people just for the day This makes me feel the power of Cheikh Amadou Bamba

Because everyone that you see is a disciple of the Cheikh and they follow the Cheikh When I’m in Spain this day is stuck on my mind every day I’m thinking about this day We’re living together, we’re living like a family

This is the way the Cheikh taught us, first of all we have to love each other Now we’re approaching the Great Mosque the holiest mosque in Africa This for us is like a symbol With the help of the Cheikh I was able to get my papers

In Europe and have the opportunity to come every year When I leave here to go back to Spain the only thing I want is to come back to the Magal I need to be here in my homeland I need to be here in holy Touba getting money and bringing it to Touba

Getting money and helping people It’s like a legacy It was my grandfather, my dad, my mum and now it’s me maybe tomorrow it will be my son or my daughters I feel so happy, excited to be here that’s why I don’t want to miss this day I don’t want to miss it

The writing of the Cheikh was not meant only for the Senegalese, he was writing for mankind The Cheikh, Cheikh Amadou Bamba he is our everything The Cheikh is the energy that will help Africans to come together The unity of Africa will come from the source of the Cheikh

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