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I felt better when I woke up. I had gotten dehydrated and then chilled when I had sat wearing a sweaty t-shirt in the cool shade waiting for the albergue to open yesterday.
I got out and on the road early. With the masses traveling, people were leaving the albergues by 4:00 in the morning. I could not have slept until 6:00 or 7:00 if I had wanted to.
I walked twenty-two kilometers, farther than I had planned, before stopping at a private albergue in Boente. Between Palas de Rei and Boente, I passed Galician granaries, pilgrim hospital ruins, churches, horses, barns, and cemeteries, every bit of the way smelling noxious, sweet manure. Having taken my backpack off before entering a church in Melides, I lost my borrowed IPod Nano.
The hospitalero in Boente was a good host, waiter, and business man. I loitered in his cafe some that afternoon, sipping a Coke and watching the Olympics, which were playing everywhere. It was strange to watch them in a country where the U.S. was hardly featured, alongside viewers who were cheering for every team but the U.S.
I felt better when I woke up. I had gotten dehydrated and then chilled when I had sat wearing a sweaty t-shirt in the cool shade waiting for the albergue to open yesterday.
I got out and on the road early. With the masses traveling, people were leaving the albergues by 4:00 in the morning. I could not have slept until 6:00 or 7:00 if I had wanted to.
I walked twenty-two kilometers, farther than I had planned, before stopping at a private albergue in Boente. Between Palas de Rei and Boente, I passed Galician granaries, pilgrim hospital ruins, churches, horses, barns, and cemeteries, every bit of the way smelling noxious, sweet manure. Having taken my backpack off before entering a church in Melides, I lost my borrowed IPod Nano.
The hospitalero in Boente was a good host, waiter, and business man. I loitered in his cafe some that afternoon, sipping a Coke and watching the Olympics, which were playing everywhere. It was strange to watch them in a country where the U.S. was hardly featured, alongside viewers who were cheering for every team but the U.S.
While in Boente, I visited the church across the highway, then took a walk toward the sun.
Outside a cafe, a seventy-four-year-old man named Xuan asked me to sit and have a drink with him. Having just had a Coke, I declined the drink, but I gladly sat down with him, and we visited for a half hour or so. Xuan was Galician. He had grown up in this village. His father and grandfather had been blacksmiths. His family had raised pigs and had grown all of their own food. He told me how his mother had "bought sugar or a fish maybe once a month."
When Xuan was twenty, he had moved to London, where he first worked as an orderly in a hospital and then as a switchboard operator for nearly thirty years. He, his wife, and his son came back to Galicia in 1986. He still owns the home in London which he rents out as well as a home near Santiago. Xuan went on to tell me how he comes to Boente a few times a week. Pointing beyond the highway that now runs through what, back then, had been fields and narrow roads, he showed me which house in the village was his and which was the home that he had grown up in.
Having recently had heart surgery, Xuan had much to say about life and about what really mattered to him, "What matters is that we are kind and helpful to others," he said, and furthermore, "We should have enough, but not live extravagantly and not be greedy."
I went to sleep that night thinking about Xuan's story and contemplating the impermanence of my own earthly form. I prayed that going forward, every step I make will be a prayer for understanding; every breath I take, a whisper of gratitude; and every moment, a chance to awaken from the dream that has kept me separate from my eternal source.
Outside a cafe, a seventy-four-year-old man named Xuan asked me to sit and have a drink with him. Having just had a Coke, I declined the drink, but I gladly sat down with him, and we visited for a half hour or so. Xuan was Galician. He had grown up in this village. His father and grandfather had been blacksmiths. His family had raised pigs and had grown all of their own food. He told me how his mother had "bought sugar or a fish maybe once a month."
When Xuan was twenty, he had moved to London, where he first worked as an orderly in a hospital and then as a switchboard operator for nearly thirty years. He, his wife, and his son came back to Galicia in 1986. He still owns the home in London which he rents out as well as a home near Santiago. Xuan went on to tell me how he comes to Boente a few times a week. Pointing beyond the highway that now runs through what, back then, had been fields and narrow roads, he showed me which house in the village was his and which was the home that he had grown up in.
Having recently had heart surgery, Xuan had much to say about life and about what really mattered to him, "What matters is that we are kind and helpful to others," he said, and furthermore, "We should have enough, but not live extravagantly and not be greedy."
I went to sleep that night thinking about Xuan's story and contemplating the impermanence of my own earthly form. I prayed that going forward, every step I make will be a prayer for understanding; every breath I take, a whisper of gratitude; and every moment, a chance to awaken from the dream that has kept me separate from my eternal source.
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