TEHRAN – For French adventurers Sabina and Jerome Bergami, who are travelling along Silk Road, travelling is a kind of spiritual journey to know more about themselves and about people of different cultures.

We met each other on a sunny afternoon at the Tehran Times office. They were in Tehran to get their visas to cross Iran-Turkmenistan border. It was a friendly meeting with people who live more than their age!

Jerome and Sabina founded an association in France titled “La Terre Marche”, which literally means “Earth Is Walking” two years ago. Since then, they have been travelling on foot carrying two small bags of soil gathered from different parts of the world.

“We carry soil, which we gather from five continents, in two small bags. It is just a symbol of peace and respect between people of different cultures,” Jerome explained.

“The path we have chosen from Italy to China is along the two oldest commercial routes in the world. One from Durres to Istanbul, which is called Via Egnatia, and the other from Istanbul to China, which is the Silk Road. We transform symbolically, on foot, these two roads into a shared road.”

Sharing their adventures with people of different countries is a part of their 8000 km travel on foot.

“In each country we cross, we stop in schools, in universities and villages, and organize some events with children and adults. It is an opportunity for us to remind people of values,” he said.

---- We want to be vulnerable!

“We [have] walked about 5000 kilometers until now. We started our trip about 16 months ago. We realized that while walking you earn lots of things and gain lots of experiences along with others,” Sabina said.

“Physically and mentally, it is too long to walk nonstop for two years. So we stop time to time. We walk 20 to 30 kilometers each day. It depends on weather and the geographical conditions. Anyway we do better with mountains,” she laughed.

“We also stop in people’s houses and time to time go to motels just to be with ourselves.

When we start a day, we don’t know where we sleep at night. That is very fun,” she explained.

We want to be vulnerable. We want to ask help. It is the sense of our action. If we have a lot of money may be it will be easier. But now what is interesting is to be helped by people and people want to help you, Jerome added.

The important point is that we realize more and more that we are enriched by meeting people during our walking. The more you meet the people, the more you understand yourself. The more experience you have with the people, the more you help yourself and help others.

“Gradually we understand that travelling and adventure is a need not a desire. It is a need to go and talk with people and share something with them. We remind them that there are a lot of good things in the world!” Sabina said.

--- Respect Mother Earth, respect each other

On their journey, they assigned some missions for themselves.

Jerome said: “First of all, we want to remind them of the spiritual and sacred relation exists between human beings and the Mother Earth. Everything in our life comes from earth and we go back to earth. We have to protect our planet. It is vital for earth. We have to stop killing the planet. Stop the murder!

“We also want to remind people of just the pleasure of meeting others. A kind of non-profit meeting! The next point is that we want to promote bravery and believing in yourself that you can do more than you think you can do by sport.” And the last very important point is that we want to recommend children and adults, too, to taste travel, she noted.

---------- Sharing experience with Iranians

Jerome and Sabina held a ceremony for school children at Tehran’s Azarin School, which is a bilingual school for girls, where they learn French and Persian.

They also held a meeting for people in a village near Rasht to exchange their experience and talk about what they should do and also in Tehran with tourist guides. They held a seminar and talked about what they did and they were very curious about how could they do such a long trip by walking.

“Sharing experiences is an important part of our mission. We also plan to organize some photo exhibitions and write a book about our journey,” Jerome explained.


-------- Iranian hospitality: Sweet and difficult!

The most difficult part is the hospitality of the people, Jerome laughed.
Iranians are offended if you don’t accept their invitation, he added.

“However people are very friendly, nice and very emotional and there is a friendship between we and people and not just travelers and hosts,” he explained.

“They become happy to share their things with us,” Sabina added.

--------- Iran: Nuclear country of 1001 nights!

“My image of Iran was stories of 1001 nights. I knew some Iranians who come to my homeland Romania when I was younger. I know it is a Muslim country. I also heard about the Iran-Iraq war but I don’t know about details,” Sabina explained.

For Jerome, it was not the case. He grew up in France and he watched more TV programs than Sabina.

“For me, Iran was different. In France we speak about nuclear programs. I know about the Islamic Revolution and Imam Khomeini because he was exiled to France before the revolution,” he said.

“I know a little about Persian culture as well. But what I imagined was totally different and I believe that it is the problem of media and newspapers,” he lamented.

----- Earning money is an adventure too!

“This is the sense of our life since we met each other ten years ago. Five years before that, I began such adventures and wrote some books on cultural identity of different societies according to my observations. When I was in France, I changed my job regularly to discover different aspects of my society,” he said.

“In the last three years we were nurse assistants. We worked in hospitals, clinics and also I washed dead persons too. It was very difficult and very interesting,” he added.

“We are two pilgrims not only two travelers. It is really different. This adventure is a very important step in our life.

Jerome said that they plan to hold several conferences and meetings to share their experience when they go back to France.

Sabina and Jerome are now in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. They plan to spend winter in the city and continue their journey in spring to China. They changed the meaning of everyday life by living no day like the other. Life and journey are not separable if anyone wants to live the life!

PHOTO: Sabina and Jerome pose for a photo at Tehran Times Office
SB/
END