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January 30, 2009
Showing off the world
Seniors taste adventure with "armchair travel."
SARA NEWHAM
Imagine visiting the cave where Abraham was born, heading into a nuclear waste zone or viewing a religious ceremony where men test their faith by sticking sharp metal objects into their skulls.
These are just some of the adventures Robin Esrock shared with seniors during his recent Empowerment presentation hosted by the Jewish Seniors Alliance.
"I sell inspiration," Esrock told the crowd of seniors. Esrock is a freelance travel writer and co-host of Word Travels, the second season of which debuted on the Outdoor Life Network on Sunday, Jan. 18. "Generally, I focus on adventure travel, so I do activities and anything that's going to get my blood pumping."
Just viewing the photographs of the religious ceremony were enough to get this writer's blood pumping during Esrock's presentation Jan. 14. Watching the episode, shot in Sri Lanka, made me flinch at the thought of the pain that inserting a knife and other objects into one's head or carving one's tongue would bring and the blood streaming down their faces is hard to forget.
So far, Esrock's travels have brought him to four continents and 82 countries, a dream to many people.
As seniors advance in age, it may not always be possible to travel to the nether regions of the world like Esrock does, but thanks to the Jewish Seniors Alliance, many of the community's seniors can travel to exotic destinations through "armchair travel" presentations like Esrock's.
"It was very, very disappointing, the turnout. Totally unexpectedly disappointed with the turnout because the first time we had him, about a year ago, there were about 100 people and it was really great," said Karon Shear.
While the crowd of 15 people was significantly smaller than expected, the audience was nonetheless enthralled by his stories and photographs.
"This is really education. It's education about what's happening in the rest of the world from the wonderful point of view of Robin. It's interesting and it's entertaining," said Shear, adding that Esrock's travel presentation is part of the Empowerment of Mind, Body and Soul series, which is hosted by the Alliance and which is intended to expand the horizons of seniors. "It keeps them aware of what's going on in the rest of the world, places that you will not be going to.... It does give them the opportunity to get out and to mix and to learn."
And learn they did.
Esrock told stories of the fountain of youth near the cave where the prophet Abraham was born in Eastern Turkey. He explained a little-known Islamic tale of Abraham, who is also a prophet within that faith. Esrock explained that Abraham was persecuted for trying to convert people to monotheism and was burned at the stake, but a miracle took place and the fire turned to water and the wood to fish. Now, a large, holy lake, the Pool of the Sacred Fish, rests beside a 17th-century theological school in the city of Urfa.
"It's very interesting because you cross over biblical faiths and how they all start meshing together," he said, adding that Jewish people can travel very safely in Muslim Turkey and added that the people of Turkey are very friendly.
Among the 13 countries Esrock visited during this season of Word Travels, one of the most unique spots was in Ukraine, where he took a tour of the town of Prypyat, evacuated following the explosion of the reactor at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986.
"The most interesting place was Ukraine as the stories go," he said. "I'm a travel writer and I'm looking for interesting stories more than just holidays so, in Ukraine, I went to a nuclear missile base and Chernobyl. Not very easy travel but very interesting."
Interesting, indeed. Esrock showed the audience a photo of his Geiger radiation counter in Pripyat that read 0.530 at one point but went up to 2.000 at a hot spot within the 30-kilometre "zone of alienation." In Kiev, a hundred kilometres south of the site, it was 0.007. Esrock's photographs of Pripyat are like a journey back into time. Evidence of Soviet life littered the buildings.
"They can't burn or cart anything out," said Esrock, who had a picnic with his tour group inside the zone of alienation.
Esrock explained that he would have liked to have explored Ukraine further, but he was sent on that specific assignment and thus did not have the time.
"I am Jewish. I'm always curious about Jewish communities in all the places that I go to, but I don't have time unfortunately to really explore that further. With Ukraine, it has a rich Jewish history but I couldn't explore it," he said. "I kind of think that there's a TV show out there just travelling around the world exploring different Jewish cultures and traditions ... and I wish I could do that, but not yet."
Esrock has also travelled to various parts of Canada, Taiwan, Philippines, Maldives, Korea, Romania, Slovenia, Jamaica, Belize and Mexico for the upcoming series that airs each Sunday on the Outdoor Life Network.
For more information about upcoming Jewish Seniors Alliance events, including the Kabbalah Connection with the Mind, Body, and Soul session on Feb. 4, contact Shear at 604-732-1555 or www.jsalliance.org.
In the meantime, Esrock is off travelling again, finding new adventures to share with readers around the world.
"Someone has to go out and see the world and it might as well be me," he said.
Sara Newham is a Vancouver freelance journalist.
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