On the Road, Part II

This is my daughter. Can you tell she hates it when I take her picture at times like this?Yesterday we took her to D.C. for what the Peace Corps calls "staging". This is preparation for her assignment to The Gambia in West Africa. She's at the start of many lectures and innoculations. Tomorrow she's off to Banjul, the capital of The Gambia, for the beginning of about three months in-country training. She will be an education volunteer if she successfully completes this training. To make this fiber art/fabric related, I am hoping she sends home some wonderful fabric from The Gambia. They batik, tie-dye, and also beat some fabric with wooden sticks until it shines.

The round trip from NJ to DC took 9 1/2 hours: 1 1/2 hours longer than usual. (There was a terrible accident on the NJ Turnpike.) As we neared home, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky. A little while later as we got even closer, another rainbow appeared. A sign of things to come, I hope: one rainbow for each of the next two years.

Your assignment: can you find The Gambia on a map? Do you know why "The" is part of its official name?