Mansilla de las Mulas

9pm

La Casa de los Soportales

In the last few (brutal) kilometers of our walk today, I was already planning the basic gist of this blog. It was going to start like this:

The theme of the day has been "heavy." 

So yeah, spoiler alert, the day wasn’t my favorite (again). But once again, the Camino has a funny way of presenting hope and growth. And it got better. So I decided to be less pessimistic and try to highlight some positives too. 

Now, I haven’t entirely changed my mind about the theme, because I think you can feel the weight of situations that aren’t necessarily awful. And the positive carries a lot of weight too. But the connotation is bad, and that’s what I was trying to convey at first. Bad. Because that’s how I was feeling. 

My bag has never felt heavier than it did today, due to what I think is a flare-up of my chostocondritis or "slipping rib syndrome." My ribs move a little too easily out of place from time to time, which causes serious inflammation of the surrounding areas, and PAIN. Thankfully I’ve had a lot worse than today, but it wasn’t comfortable. 

But the real meaning behind the heavy theme of the day has more to do with people. For starters, I learned of a friend of a friend’s precious newborn baby girl who is fighting for her life. I see sick babies and children every day at work. And it does not get easier. I have been thinking so much if this sweet girl whose parents I don’t even know, and sending all the love and good vibes I can muster. Please pray or meditate or whatever you believe in, for Lilly. She needs us in her village. 

The next bit of horror was during our first rest stop of the day. We enjoyed an incredible breakfast and coffee break after walking 7km before 9am! Feeling pretty good about ourselves. 

As we finished our meals, the most joyful man approaches from further down the way. He is smiling brightly, speaking to everyone as if we’re old friends. 

This is Pablo. 

 

We got to talking with him, and he asked where we are from. And then Pablo said something that had me choking back tears. 

"I love the United States. It’s a wonderful place. I am from El Salvador. I served in the US Army. Went to Iraq twice. It was very hard, I lost many friends. But now Donald Trump treats me and other Latinos like we are animals. I fought for the USA. And now he thinks I am an animal?"

His face and head fell. His hand over his heart. 

"But I love the USA. It’s just beautiful. The people are beautiful." It takes a strong and mighty person to be able to think this way. To see the beauty and hope in the dark like that.

Can you imagine that feeling? 

I can’t. 

And it absolutely gutted me. 

Now read that story again. And read the other stories like Pablo’s. And don’t stop reading them. Don’t dampen them. Let them ring. 

They deserve to ring. 

We walked on, and I just can’t describe the weight I was feeling. I had already resolved myself to a quiet and antisocial evening. I’m not doing dinner with new friends. I can’t. I don’t have it in me. I need to recharge. And reflect. And rebuild. After a day of heavy and roads that don’t quit, I just can’t. And as I mentioned, I was already distracting myself by  planning my blog all about how hard this day was.

Of course it’s the same day our guides miscalculated the kilometers ahead of us by about 3, and not in our favor. When you think you’re about to reach the finish line only to find out you have a couple more miles, it ain’t great. But we made it. And set out for dinner (oh yeah, the only thing we ate between 9am breakfast and 7:30pm dinner was an orange). We arrived at the first restaurant we found, and ran into our new friends Toby and Rachel from England. They’re also vegetarians, and we shared an AMAZING meal a few days back at The Green Tree, that adorable place in Hornillos I mentioned before, owned by Emma from N. Ireland. 

Well, when you run into friends on the Camino, there’s no wondering IF you’ll eat together. You pick a table and you all sit down. And you eat together. After all my promising to myself that I would close off and recharge, I wasn’t disappointed to see Toby and Rachel. And I think that’s why the Camino gave them to me tonight. We had the absolute loveliest meal (grilled tomato, almond, and goat cheese appetizer followed by mushroom and asparagus risotto, of course with wine), and even better conversation. Topics included educational research (Toby is a teacher too... he and my dad could be great friends), technology, vegetarianism, you name it. And I shared with them the way they lifted my spirits.

And I shared with them what I was pondering today: This stuff is hard. Definitely. And like I said yesterday, you can’t make it go away. But you know who else can’t make their pain go away? Patients where I work. Parents losing their babies. United States veterans who are treated like animals because of where they were born. They can’t make that go away. But they put one foot in front of the other, and they keep walking the walk of their lives. I saw faces of patients in my mind. Smiling in the midst of treatments and sutures and medications and tubes and beeps and pokes and prods. I drew strength from these people today. These people fighting hard. And I think I always will. 

Rachel then said something that will stick with me, after I shared. She said, "Here, we say ‘ok, this is hard, but it’s what the Camino gave me today.’ and we do it. I hope I can take that home with me. After hard days at work or any hard day. This is what life gave me today. And I can do it."

I hope so too, Rachel.