At first I sat with Maurice from the night before. He had his coffee and cigarette before he started his walk. Out of the blue he confessed to me that he forgot to pay for his dinner last night. Forgot, huh?
For the duration of the two and a half hours I sat at the metal patio table, I consumed: 2 coffees, 2 croissants (because the pastry truck came late to deliver the chocolate napolitano that I wanted the first time), and four pieces bread with jam from the night before.
Updated my blog, emailed, and read some of my book. It flip-flopped between warm and cool as we sat out on the bar patio. Three times a farmer passed us by with his heard of HUGE black and white cows. Walking them from the barn to the pasture to graze. So if you're wondering why the cow crossed the road, that's probably why. At least a hundred pilgrims passed us by as we sat there for 2.5 hours.
We walked backwards on the Camino 0.7km so that we could stay in La Fuente del Peregrino (an albergue run by Agape). As we made our way back, another hundred pilgrims passed us by. Oof. The Camino is getting busy. You can start the Camino at 100km before Santiago and still receive the Compostela certificate, so that's what most people do. The Camino will be ridiculously crowded from now on.
We got to the albergue and it was also packed. People on the hammocks. People on the cots. People in the greeting room getting stamps and gifted coffee. People in the grass. And a young man on the bench playing guitar and singing worship. I dropped my pack against the rock wall and sat on the bench to accompany him singing the worship songs I'd learned in Mexico. It was a little rough singing with him becaue of his unique rhythm of playing and singing at the same time, but music is music is music. I was enjoying the moment.
After a few songs, I asked a gal about staying the night. Check-in would be at 1:00, so we had some time to kill, but they'd remember our faces. But... They only had seven beds. Shoot. And I couldn't reserve any for our friends that were still coming. Double shoot. Hopefully they'll get here fast. And there would be five of them, so even if they did make it, one would be the odd man/woman out. We'll see what happens. For now, hakuna matata because I wanted to sing some more worship songs with this guy. He leant me his guitar for a few. A lady named Suli who's from Magdala, Spain, is blind, and has a chubby seeing-eye-yellow-lab named Pookie came and sat to sing with us on the bench. Beautiful voice and double beautiful spirit. Another gal from Madrid named Gema also came to sing, too. Both of the gals even knew the Marcela Gandara songs that I know and love, so I played and they sang with me. My heart was full to the brim.
Suli plans on doing a stage (up to 25km) of the Camino this Saturday to test how well she and Pookie could manage together. If all goes well, she has the goal of doing all 500 miles starting in France. Love it!
Gema, who lives in Madrid, gave me her contact info and invited me to her church, Shalem, when I end up moving in September. So nice to be making connections before I even get there.
After two or so hours of singing and playing instruments with this wonderful new friends, I went up to check-up on Lainie and Chris who were perfectly content cuddling in a cot, catching rays, reading books, and listening to podcasts. Couple of cuties. 12:30 rolled around and it was time for an open reflection out at the picnic tables. Natán, the head volunteer/hospitalero, had a basket full of thoughts and prayers of pilgrims who had passed by previous days. He asked us to take a handful, sort through the ones in our language, and pick one to share with the group. After we each shared one, he asked us to think about or pray for that person. So we had a moment of silence. Then he gave us paper to write and leave our own. A few people cried. It was a really cool connection a neat way of thinking of others rather than ourselves. You think about yourself a lot on the Camino. After the reflection was wrapping up, I saw Olya and the rest of the group had arrived.
There weren't enough beds. Three more people had been put on the tentative, by-face, check-in list which meant there was only one bed left. We asked the volunteers if they could sleep outside on the cots. No. Can they sleep on the floor? No. Can they stay for dinner? No.
The bummer about this, is the answers to these questions are being interpreted as rejection. And Jesus' name is connected with this particular albergue. It was overwhelming and I was ready to just leave because the tension was so thick within our group because of the divide. And Chris, Lainey, and I had stayed until 1pm so we could stay here. And it was over 100F, which is way too hot to walk a long distance in to another town. And I really wanted to stay here, but the tension made me both disappointed in this albergue I was excited about and feel guilty for already having a bed. Chris and Lainey stayed calm and encouraged me to do the same and to not burden myself with the worry of it all. That we would stay here and that it would be fine. And it was.
We all hung out in the hammocks and cots chatting. I finished my book while I half-listened. We met a young family from southern Galicia who is traveling Europe by bicycle for a year. Their kids are 3 and 2 years-old. Amazing. It was fun watching the kids play and interact with other pilgrims. The two kiddos were hanging together in the hammock. Dennis was tickling and high-fiving the 2-year-old boy while pushing them in the hammock. It was adorable hearing the giggles and seeing the joy on both ends.
The rest of the group moved on. Athough it didn't work out the way we'd hoped, the tension settled and everyone did their own thing. The group will reunite somewhere down the road. A sweet guy from Canada named Matt who really needed the last bed was able to get it. We had good chats with him at the communal dinner tonight.
A little after one, the three of us checked in. I showered, did laundry, colored, and tinkered on my uke while Lainey and Chris joined the rest of our group in the next town down for drinks and munchies at the bar.
I ate bananas and drank copious amounts of coffee, milk, and lemonade on the albergue "gift" table.
When they came back there was another reflection time like the one earlier. Lainey joined me for it. I offered to translate for Natán into English. This time the past "pilgrim thought" I picked out of the basket resonated hard and strong for me. It could have been my own.
"I have been on a long process of finding my identity, but every day God has brought me people who remind me and teach me who God wants me to be."
Can I get an "amen"?
When it came time to pray for the person, it was much easier for me to do since my Camino has been the same.
After reflections, they showed the Jesus movie (which I'd never seen) and made us each our own bowl of popcorn. The Jesus movie is definitely due for an update, but I still enjoyed it. If anything, by recognizing the parts that were biblically inaccurate, but were adapted for the sake of time or effect.
After the movie, we hung out for a bit upstairs and then outside at the already set picnic tables where we'd enjoy dinner. Someone had a guitar which means I would sit as close to them as possible without being a creep. They asked me to sing the song Oceans in English, which I don't know very well since I first learned it in Spanish. Apparently they recorded the guitarist and me and we'll be on YouTube. #ididntsignupforthis
Right as we were getting ready to pray for the food, a tall German man cane gimping up with his heavy pack and walking stick. Natán invited him to join us for dinner. He also was able to stay the night on a cot so that he would't have to gimp any further to find an albergue with a free bed (which could be several kilometers ahead still. We ate a pleasant communal meal of green beans, pasta salad, salami, bread, and wine with yogurt and melon for dinner. Lainey and I mixed our yogurts to make a piña colada flavored one (one of my favorite flavors of almost anything--add banana to the mix and we're golden).
The German man and an Italian gentleman were on the end with us. Unfortunately none of us spoke either Italian nor German, so we mostly spoke to Matt, the Canadian, about his Camino experience thusfar. He ran with the bulls in Pamplona and survived.
After dessert we did an activity at the tables using pictures. Natán asked me to translate instructions and answers.
We were asked the following questions and were asked to use pictures spread out on the table to aide in our answer.
-What were you like before the Camino?
-What is spirituality to you?
-What will you take home with you from the Camino?
It was a great activity and a deep way to get to know these mostly strangers around the table.
Natán wrapped up the night with the encouragement to all to follow Jesus and tied it into the whole Camino theme.
Tomorrow Lainey, Chris, Matt, and I plan to leave at 5:15 to beat the heat. It will likely still be dark, but hopefully between the four of us we'll have enough flashlights and headlamps to find our way for an hour.
I finished my book today and I had a very important and humbling (as Chris added) revelation and self-realization. I could die. I could die in any moment. For some reason, I've grown up with this idea that I had a big thing--an important duty/task/mission--that God had for me to accomplish before He would ever let me die. That until that mission was complete, I would escape death every time. I know. Super prideful. I didn't see it that way before now. I thought that was just how life was for me. But tonight in the last pages of my book I read about instances of a few people who were set up for really cool plans for God--even missionary work--that they were never even able to begin because they died. I could finish nursing school and have my ticket ready for whatever part of the world to open up a med clinic at whatever orphanage and suddenly die and never get to do any of that. I am not so special that I would escape death. Just because I have good intentions or even selfless dreams does not mean that God will "reward" me with a longer life to fulfill them. Life happens. And in any moment life can be over. Including mine. I have a lot of pride that has built up in my short 24 years of living. I'm not the woman I want to be yet. But every time a perspective-changing, humbling realization like this happens, I get a little closer. And maybe I'll never be 100% that woman, but at least I'll know I died trying.
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