Ever wanted to know what it’s like to travel across the world through the footsteps of thousands of migrants but don’t have the determination to? Have you heard of the Out of Eden Walk project? This project was started by Paul Salopek. It is a 21,000 mile odyssey experiment in slow journalism. Paul walks the pathway of the first humans who migrated from Africa during the stone ages, to build Earth of what it is today. ALong his way, he covers many stories, from climate change to technological innovation, and from mass migration to cultural survival. He documents these moments though his photographs, videos, and audios to create a global record of what human life was like at the start of all of this.
Holy Lands: Walking Jeddah
Paul’s journey through Jeddah, Saudi Arabia is the first thing that caught my eye. He is joined with Sami, a historian of Jeddah and Mohamad, a desert guide.I was very shocked at Sami’s action of walking ever so calmly into the speeding traffic. Paul compared his action to Moses, when he confidently parted the Red Sea. The climate there seems to be ridiculously humid and dry. There were streets dedicated to quarantine and isolate pilgrims during plague times. Throughout his journey in Jeddah, I noticed that there are not many people who go outside during that weather. Paul writes that people tend to run into their houses during 100 degree weather.
Milestone 53: Rally
During this time, Paul has traveled 5,200 miles and is located on the outskirts of Abbottabad, the garrison town where Osama Bin Laden was killed in hiding. During his time here, he wrote that he witnessed a political rally going on at the moment. Vehicles whizzed past the restaurant with bright colored flags. On top of those vehicles were microphones that broadcasted political ballads that praised the prime minister who recently had been overthrown for corruption. I was surprised to see that not only did the people travel int cars, trucks, and buses, but they also traveled on small motor bikes too. Although the climate there seems to be very dry and humid, the men there still wore long sleeved clothing to protect themselves from the sun’s harsh rays.
Autumn Wars: No Reply
After dark, soldiers cut the border wire. Thousands of flood across the border and into Turkey. This became the largest stampede of humanity out of Syria since the war began more than three years ago. The Turkish border town became completely overrun by Syrians. Even though Syrians basically over took the Turkish border town, young workers from the municipality walked among the Syrians and handed out shiny packets of biscuits as a way of welcoming them into their country.