A New Start After 60: Saving Soil and Embracing Adventure
Sousan Samadani was scrolling through YouTube videos one day when she stumbled upon a post about the alarming rate of soil degradation worldwide. The video, created by the Save Soil movement, struck her like a bolt of lightning. “I thought: ‘How is it possible that the soil that gives us food is dying?’” says Samadani, now 65. In that moment, she made a life-changing decision: she would dedicate herself fully to the cause.
According to Unesco, 90% of global soil could be degraded by 2050. The Save Soil movement, launched by spiritual leader Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, announced a 19,000-mile motorbike journey in 2022 through Europe, the Middle East, and India to raise awareness. While Sadhguru traveled to 27 countries with a team of volunteers, Samadani, living in Utrecht, Netherlands, decided to create her own parallel journey. She visited all those countries and more, including Nepal, Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana, helping at campaign events along the way.
Her travels were far from luxurious. Aside from three flights, she relied on buses, trains, and even hitchhiked from Turkey to Georgia. She stayed in hostels, with volunteers, or in the cheapest hotels she could find. For three months, she often went days without a proper meal, rushing from stations to campaign events with her rucksack. This was her first foray into activism, but she felt an irresistible pull.
Why Soil, and Why Now?
Samadani’s empathy for others dates back to her childhood in Iran. Growing up in Kermanshah, near the Iraqi border, she would feel her stomach churn at the sound of an ambulance, imagining the suffering of strangers. She would pick up banana skins from the ground to prevent accidents. Her family, who are Bahá’ís, moved to Shiraz when she was 19 to escape persecution. “We were lucky that at least we could move to another city. We could start a new life,” she says. Bahá’ís have faced severe persecution in Iran since the revolution, including property seizure, imprisonment, and execution.
Before Samadani was born, her father owned a farm with wheat fields and a garden full of fruit trees—apricots, pomegranates, apples, plums, grapes—and livestock. Though she never saw it, her parents’ stories painted a vivid picture that lingered in her mind. In Shiraz, she played piano at a cultural centre, eventually teaching 40 children a week. She married, had two children, and in 1995, at age 35, fled to the Netherlands as a refugee to give her children a better life. There, she taught piano and tended a rented garden, growing flowers, vegetables, and herbs reminiscent of her family’s basket in Shiraz.
Life of Adventure
Samadani’s newfound activism has transformed her life. “It’s where my life of adventure started,” she says. To raise awareness, she has skydived and cycled nearly 400 miles from Chennai to Coimbatore in southern India. In Utrecht, she bikes around wearing her Save Soil T-shirt, enjoying interactions with curious passersby. Her ultimate dream is to bring the campaign to Iran, which she believes desperately needs soil restoration. She hasn’t returned in 31 years, but she waits for a time when the current regime is gone. “My dream is to have a garden like my parents’. I believe that I will make it,” she says.
