Bamba is an rural commune

Communes of Mali

A Commune is the third level administrative unit in Mali. Mali is divided into eight regions and one capital district . These subdivisions bear the name of their principal city. The regions are divided into 49 Cercles...

 and small town in the Bourem

Bourem

Bourem is a commune and small town in the Gao Region of south-eastern Mali. The town sits on the left bank of the River Niger....

 Cercle of the Gao Region

Gao Region

The Gao Region is located in eastern Mali. The region's capital city is Gao. Gao Region is bordered to the south and east by Niger, to the north by Kidal Region, and to the west by Tombouctou Region. Common ethnicities in the Gao Region include the Songhai, Bozo, Tuareg, Bambara, and Kounta...

 of Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

. The village is located on the left bank of the Niger River

Niger River

The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea...

, 190 km east of Timbuktu

Timbuktu

Timbuktu , formerly also spelled Timbuctoo, is a town in the West African nation of Mali situated north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali...

 and 230 km north west of the town of Gao

Gao

Gao is a town in eastern Mali on the River Niger lying ESE of Timbuktu. Situated on the left bank of the river at the junction with the Tilemsi valley, it is the capital of the Gao Region and had a population of 86,663 in 2009....

. In the 2009 census the commune had a population of 28,524.

The commune of Bamba includes 19 villages and 7 nomad

Nomad

Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...

ic population groups. The population are primarily Songhais but also Tuaregs and Bozo

Bozo

Bozo or bozo may refer to:*The Bozo people, a fishing people of the central Niger delta in Mali*The Bozo languages, languages of the Bozo people*Bozo the Clown, a clown character very popular in the United States...

s.

Ted Joans

Ted Joans

Theodore "Ted" Joans was an American trumpeter, jazz poet and painter.Joans was born in Cairo, Illinois, but not on a riverboat as had been claimed. He earned a degree in fine arts from Indiana University. He later associated with writers of the Beat Generation in Greenwich Village and San Francisco...

wrote a poem to "Le fou de Bamba" (The madman of Bamba).