by Cristell Ramirez

For this blog post I dove into the website of the Out of Eden Walk. What is the Out of Eden walk? It is a journey completed by Paul Salopek. It was 24,000 miles and it took a decade long to complete. Salopek decided to walk the path of the first humans who went from Africa during the Stone Age. He covers different stories of our time which can be either climate change or tech innovation or mass migration and much more. He writes, takes videos, takes pictures and audio, whatever he can do in order to create the record of human life and he gathers all this information as told from villagers, traders, farmers, and more. He went out to rediscover our world and shared it with everyone.

Chapter Six: Middle Kingdom

I started off by researching more into chapter six which is In Progress: Middle Kingdom. I saw an interesting post called “Crossroad of Memory.” This is a post about the time he spent in China during the COVID-19 epidemic. This was October 13th 2021 in Yusan, Yunnan China. Salopek calls China a crossroad of memory. He was used to traveling by foot and on ground and suddenly he gets on a plane to reach China.He hadn’t walked for 20 months and COVID-19 had put everything on a pause. Everything is down because of the pandemic and business is bad.

He begins his journey in Yunnan province which he calls “a crossroad within a crossroad.” Indian and Asian plates were collided in Yunnan. There are glaciated peaks and sweltering valleys with brown rivers that cut into the jungles of Asia. Yunnan contains over 19,000 higher plants and there are 2,000 vertebrate animals. And that represents the higher part of China. He follows the paths of unknown people, the hunters and gatherers who mapped the paths over 60,000 years ago. He landed in Shanghai and he was carrying no money. He couldnt buy a cup of tea, so his friend 500 miles away must use their online shopping app in order to even buy the cup of tea in the quarantine hotel. Since the pandemic is still going on, they need to quarantine for a while.

This is a video Salopek put in this article. This is the “yellow ochers of drying corn and the lipstick reds of drying chillies.” The families of the frontier town of Tengchong thresh rice. My favorite quote from this article is “All the world is a crossroad. But so is the heart.” He talks about the whole planet and how it is walking backwards into the uncertain future with new economic competition, mass migrations, and more. And he continues his journey.

Chapter 2: Holy Lands

From this chapter I read about Sami’s World. Sami Nawar is Salopek’s host. He is the director of Al Balad which is the famous historic district of Jeddah. He has over 1,000 plans for projects and he even says “Jeddah can be pronounced “jaddah”. In Arabic this means grandmother. This is the city of humanity’s grandmother.”

Salopek came here looking for Eve’s grave. The Koran says, Eve alighted on a mountaintop near Jeddah after Allah exiled her from Paradise for eating the forbidden fruit. There is a modern Tomb of Eve Cemetery in Old Jeddah but Salopek did not find a mausoleum or a shrine only a sterile burial ground. Other than this we learn more about Sami and his stories and how he did being a guide for Salopek.

Chapter 4: Silk Road

This chapter is about the Silk Road, on May 16th 2016 in Olanak, Kazakhstan. Salopek talks about an ancient form of mystic healing. “Amir Khan is a certified sage.” He has an office in a compound outside of Aktau. Inside the compound, Khan has his mansion, dust yard and a detachable complex with many different room. There is a tent that is like a waiting room with 200 sick unhappy people and these are Khan’s patients. They have already given up on modern medicine so they are hoping for the old practices of folk healing.

A quote from Khan, ““We pray to the ancestors. We read the Koran to them,” Khan says. “This makes them happy with us, because we remember them. They protect us.”

The mass ceremony goes like this: they gather around an ancient burial ground. They feast at a guest house while the sunsets and then they line up in the night before bonfires. They ceremonially “wash” themselves with the smoke of the sheep fat being burned. Then Khan blesses them beside the grave and then blows in their ears, eyes and heads. He then is driven back home by a driver in a SUV. He has finished his work.

Summary

I have truly enjoyed reading about the Out of Eden Walk. I was able to see different kinds of culture and the different walk that Salopek had taken. Even though I read a little out of order, I did enjoy learning so much. I will definitely be going back to learn more about the other chapters and more in depth with the chapters I already read.

Check out my twitter! @CRamirez2001