Hello everyone! Hope everyone is safe and their families are safe during this pandemic. During this crisis, I was able to explore a project called “Out of Eden Walk.” This is where Paul Salopek went on a 21,000 mile journey in a decade. Paul was exploring where the first humans who migrated out of Africa during the Stone Age, as he covered the complete path and everything that goes along with this journey of migrating across the globe. There were three specific parts of the journey that interested me more then others that I went in depth on, and I will be talking about them here!
The first place I went in to explore in the journey was the Holy Lands which include Saudi Arabia, Jordan, West bank, and Israel. The reason this certain part of the journey sparked an interest in me is due to my personal interest. I am a history major and aspire to become a history teacher, as I enjoy history. This certain part of the world is an area that I have studied great depths in and all of the ancient history that has taken place in this part of the world. The Middle East has been a place where I have studied and still study today with what is currently going on. I enjoyed reading the specific article about the Children’s Crusade. Where 800 years ago Europe ships had armies of kids shipped to the promise land to convert and conquer the land, and then the merchants actually sold the children into slavery. This can be a great website to use for my classroom and specifically if I cover this area of the world, as there was a bunch of good information on the culture and certain things that took place in this part of the world.
The part of the journey that I explored was the Silk Roads. The Silk Roads are one of the most important aspect of history as it was able to connect countries from China and the Middle east to Europe. These roads opened up the world into a new era of the world starting to connect countries with their different cultures. Also, these roads were so important as this is where armies would travel and go on their conquests. A lot of the articles were interesting here but I enjoyed “Passage to Another Time.” Reading about his interactions with the people from those lands and to hear about their culture was something good to read. Especially in this article, it was a 9 hour walk to exit Afghanistan, as he goes on the mountain and looks at the horizon and sees the gateway to Pakistan. Paul went through a bunch of different cultures and experiences tons of different things on this road, as he tried the Foods of the Gods which where the Himalayan shrub. I also enjoyed the article talking about where Butter is actually buried as gold in Pakistan and it is stashed underground for decades. These articles show how different the world is from different lenses across the globe.
The place I explored was the Autumn Wars, which included Cyprus, Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Paul explores some of the very oldest agriculture lands in Turkey which were so important in history, he explores Bronze Age ruins and a bunch of medieval cities. However, that was some great history that I enjoy studying and was cool to read about, however the thing I enjoyed the most about was how he ran into the refugees from the Syrian Civil war. This is something that I can use in the future in my classes. Being able to share the stories that Paul shared and the information that eh shared as he is a primary source will be something great for students to read. It is always more interesting to read something when they are actually there, especially when it is something like this interactive website and virtual tour. The current problems in the Middle East are issues that were still going on during Paul’s exploration, and the fact that he was able to cover it firsthand is something that can be a create historical account.
This is something that I would love for everyone to view as this website is a great platform of an interactive type of teaching that will spark an interest regardless of who you are. There is great information here and some crazy things to read about!
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