The students in Denise Waters’ 4th grade class at Norman Rockwell Elementary in Redmond, Washington, have started to send me their questions, so you’ll see my answers starting to appear on this blog.
Alisa asks, “Why are you walking alone?”
The short answer is, “Because no one will come with me.”
Actually, Alisa, it’s a little more complicated than that. This is a lengthy project — I’ll be on the road for 8 months. That’s over half a year!
Every day for 8 months, walking across Turkey will be my job. Every single hour, of every single day, of every single week, of every single month, for 8 months. It’s hard to find another adult able to dedicate that amount of time to one project.
There are lots of adults who would like to do something like this, but they have other obligations they need to meet — they need to feed their children, they need to pay their mortgages, they need to go to their jobs, etc.
Maybe, if they’re lucky, they get two weeks a year to do something like this. But 8 months? No.
So the number of adults able to do something like this is very small. You know that saying, “Like finding a needle in a haystack”? Finding another adult to do this with me is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Actually though, I am not doing the entire walk alone. On the very first day a friend joined me for the first day’s walk, and at other times during the walk, other friends will be joining me for short legs of the journey. It’s just that it’s very hard to find another adult able to dedicate an entire 8 months to something like this, so I am doing it alone.