She is writing a memoir of her walk across the globe, which began in 1991 from Los Angeles to New York.
She says: “At the start, there were a hundred persons. But a smaller group (of 5 to 10) got going from London to Athens.
“The walk from Bombay to Delhi contained three American women, an Indian man, and a Nipponza Mihoji Buddhist Monk.
“One, a Japanese American, Teru, in her fifties, a little woman, was tough and acted as our mother hen; she carried the Hiroshima peace flame all the way. She was very patient with us.
“The rest of us were in our early twenties.
“A second woman, Esse, became my closest friend, and we are still close friends. She has invited the group to Colorado for a reunion. Teru is not with us. When we completed the walk she stayed back in Japan in 1993. She developed stomach cancer and died.
“On the way, we were invited to people’s homes, and we experienced acts of kindness and generosity every day in every way.
“Walking through India, because of the heat, we would start at 4 a.m., the sun would be coming up, a huge ball glowing, lighting up the immense arch of sky, and I had a sense of being on earth, being a part of life on earth.
“We were invited into a home in each village, and we women were supposed to stay with the men. The Indian man in the group translated for us. I would wander off to the kitchen to hang out with the women.
“They would be cooking up enormous meals over a fire pit, a hole in the floor. Their kindness poured out every moment.
“The food was spicy, and we would be tearing up, but we grew to like Indian food. We did this for two months. We were well; we felt safe.
“We carried a pump that filtered our drinking water. We began to relax. And one hot day, we ate a sort of popsicle, made of crushed ice and syrup from a street vendor, that did us in. Esse got very sick, then we were all sick, we could not move.
“Sicker than sick, while crowds of villagers watched us from open windows.
“The two men, the Indian man, and the Buddhist monk walked on ahead.
“Later, we caught up with them; we were able to go on. But we ate no meals and lived on biscuits at chai shops along the way for two weeks till we reached Agra.
“We walked up to Pakistan, I met Hilby* at Islamabad in a camp ground, we went up to the border of China, and down to Nepal.
“We flew to South East Asia. In Hong Kong, Hilby tried to work as a street performer, but got picked up. I worked as a waitress, and made enough money to buy our tickets to fly to Japan. We covered Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia; we completed our journey in Hiroshima in 1993. Everywhere we experienced help from the Nipponza Mihoji Buddhist monks.
“The last leg of the journey, Teru stayed on in Japan.
Hilby started to make a fortune in Japan as a street juggler.
“Hilby and I flew to Goa diverging from the group. Goa was wild, with parties.
“When I returned, I found out that I was pregnant. I thought,
Okay, here it is. I am ready to settle down. I registered for college, towards a degree to teach first grade; I have been a teacher for 12 years.”
Although both her parents were powerful influences, Abigail says, she leans towards her Tunisian background. Her father is of Tunisian origin.
Her earliest memory is the smell of the ocean in L. A. and Venice, CA, and her earliest sound is the return carriage bell sound “Ting!” of her father’s electric typewriter. She says, “After my first sleep he would come to give me a hug, and I would smell garlic on his breath, and he and I would have a midnight snack. Writing art film scripts is his avocation.
“In Ithaca, NY, people know him as the owner of a Tunisian restaurant Café des Amis, and as the current owner of the art film Theater, Fall Creek Cinema, in downtown Ithaca.”
Being Jewish and Tunisian, hers is a tight knit family where the evening meal is where they meet frequently according to the old system.
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