The Out of Eden Walk - Year Three Kickstarter campaign is officially a success. Thank you.
You not only carried us to our Kickstarter goal, but in one large step further, you helped Abundance Foundation reach the matching campaign goal of $15,500 — raised just three days ago from the initial limit of $13,000.
Your essential enthusiasm and participation gives the journey purpose.
We’re excited to fulfill the rewards you’ve chosen as soon as possible as a symbol of our appreciation. We welcome any thoughts or questions in the coming weeks to info@outofedenwalk.com.
With gratitude,
The Out of Eden Walk team
Yuval Ben-Ami and Deniz Kilic. Turkey.
Friends,
Walk ten miles with a person, and their character is revealed. Walk across a subcontinent with them, and their character no longer matters — because you are bound to them as to a sister, a brother. The trail engenders its own form of unconditional love.
On the “Out of Eden Walk,” I have had the privilege of moving through the world, slowly, with some remarkable human beings. They are my walking partners, nominally my guides, but actually my teachers. Almost everything that I have learned and shared on this journey has coursed directly through their spacious hearts and minds. They are more than translators. They are more than cultural interpreters. I would not have survived the walk’s first week — much less its first two years — without them.
And now, because you have generously pulled this Kickstarter campaign over its stretch goal, these trailblazers’ original voices and creativity will be channeled straight to you.
Over the next year, we will curate and post the work of the guides who trekked with me out of Africa. They include novelists, desert flora experts, journalists, musicians, transcontinental motorcyclists, retired soldiers, photographers, human rights activists, fossil hunters — poets all. The additional funding will allow us to pay these fellow voyagers fairly for their artwork, to be showcased in quarterly “Trail Gallery” exhibits. You also will have an opportunity to interact directly with each featured guide.
In sum, you have transformed this long, wavering solo into a richer, stronger, truer medley.
Thank you again. And onward.
Paul.
Ali Al Harbi & Manal Himidan. Saudi Arabia.
Paul Salopek
