They write your name in Latin

There is a moment in the Pilgrims’ Office around 8.45 am when the peaceful atmosphere begins to stir. The team arrives in ones and twos. There is little chat. Computers are booted up, forms laid out, inkpads inked and piles of Compostelas refilled. This is all done with quiet efficiency. We know what awaits because to get into the office we had to pass the queue stretching from many yards down the street and right up the stairs to the glass door at which pilgrims must wait to be called.

Close to 9 am Eduardo our supervisor this morning asks, “Are you ready?” Heads nod and he opens the Green door below. He barely gets back in ahead of the queue of pilgrims. They spill enthusiastically into the office with rucksacks and sticks bustling. “Por favor” Rosa says loudly enough for them to fall silent, “Please wait at the glass door until you are called forward, have your Credenciales ready.” The pilgrims shrink back and some order is restored.

One by one we call them forward. I quickly realise that every member of staff has their own approach. Some deal with pilgrims quietly and efficiently. Others chat in their own language. It becomes apparent that most of the team have some knowledge of a language other than Spanish or Gallego. “What route did you follow?”, “Where did you start”, “Please fill in this form” are phrases which fill the air.
Many pilgrims want to chat. They are proud of their achievement. Occasionally couples bend the rules and come forward hand in hand. Inseparable after many days or months of walking together. Then there are the groups. 85 young people from Valencia who walked from Madrid. 24 people from a parish in Lisbon who walked via Fatima. 4 girls from Ireland who walked the Camino Ingles. There is a low hum in the office which is sometimes pierced by the hilarity of one group or another. But that soon stops when they are called forward and their Credencial inspected. This is the final step in their journey. Every one takes it seriously.

Some times there are problems when the supervisor has to be called. Soon after opening a group of very well dressed women arrived. I could almost feel Pilar sitting beside me think “they can’t be pilgrims”. One of them handed over a pile of Credenciales. “These are for our husbands who made the pilgrimage on horseback”. “Where are the pilgrims?” Pilar politely enquired. “They are with the horses” was the reply in a tone which implied, ”Where else do you think the might be?” Pilar explained that to get the Compostela the husbands would have to attend in person. The ladies left. A few minutes later an Italian couple approached my desk and handed over three Credenciales each. I opened them out. Dozens of sellos. They had started the Camino Frances from France at St Jean de Pied Port and in stages had walked the route over 4 years. I could see all of this from the dates. They stood beaming in front of me as I looked through the documents. But there was something wrong. “Do you have one more Credencial?” I asked in Spanish. They looked uncomprehending. “Do you have one more?” I asked in very slow English, holding up one finger. “No” was the reply. I asked them to wait and went to fetch Eduardo. He understood the problem immediately and came out and spoke to them in fluent Italian. “Si” they answered. “Si, si, si” they repeated. Their faces dropped however when Eduardo explained that we had been unable to find any sellos from Sarria, the 100 km point from Santiago. When he had asked them they confirmed that when they got there they were tired so they just got the bus to Santiago. Eduardo explained that this is the 100 kms EVERYONE has to complete to get a Compostela. Like true pilgrims they simply shrugged and said “ See you next year” Off they went.

Eduardo explained that this is a common phenomenon. Having walked many hundreds of kilometres some pilgrims think they have walked enough and get a bus, train or taxi the last part of the way. Alas this is not the case.

I realised receiving pilgrims could become a conveyor belt and that it is important to spend a little time talking with each. I’m a little slower than the others in any event as the procedures are still new. The name of each pilgrim is written in Latin on the Compostela. While the others know the most commons names off by heart I need to look each of them up on a list or use the special dictionary on the computer. As a last resort there is an encyclopaedia of names with their Latin equivalent.

Gradually my own way of dealing with each pilgrim emerged. I ask for their Credencial, ask them to fill in the form. Then I ask how they enjoyed their pilgrimage and ask them to look as the last stamp is applied. Then the Compostela is prepared and I give it to them saying, “Here is your Compostela with your name written in Latin. Congratulations” I can say this in English and Spanish. I need to learn other languages.

It can be a poignant moment. A young, tall, striking German hobbled to my desk with a stick. He was obviously in agony. He had walked with bad blisters all the way from León. I sympathised and gave him his Compostela. When I said “Congratulations, you can now go and rest your sore feet,” this young strapping lad just burst into tears.

Late in the afternoon a group of men arrived at the glass door. They were imposing figures, dressed very well, like upper class farmers going to market. Corduroy, velvet collars, deep green jackets and tooled leather boots. Their faces were weatherbeaten and shiny from recently being washed and shaved. I guessed that these might be the horsemen who had sent their wives earlier in the day. They were in the queue but I could see that they weren’t best pleased to be there and weren’t used to being kept waiting. They muttered among themselves. There was a little tension in the air.

I called “next”, and a regal figure made his way to my desk. Imperious looking, he became increasingly nervous as I looked over his Credencial. He and the others had come on horseback all of the 1000 kms from Seville. I’ve walked that route and it is no mean undertaking. To do it on horseback requires a lot of planning and support. He got a little prickly when I had to ask him to spell his apellido, his second name, because I couldn’t read his writing and I think he thought there were extra security checks as I rifled through the lists looking for his name in Latin. Carefully I wrote it out Immanuelem Angelorum Perez Diez. A little of the arrogance returned. “My name is wrong”, he said as he looked at me writing it. “This is your Compostela with your name written in Latin. Congratulations” I said, and shook his hand.

He gazed carefully at the certificate with eyes glistening and then like a wee boy he almost whooped and jumped up and down as he shouted to the other caballeros “They write your name in Latin!”

Behind the Green Door

I arrived in Santiago on the 3.30 flight yesterday. It will be a busy week. I’ll spend a few days working in the Pilgrims’ Office as I did a couple of weeks ago then later in the week one of my friends, fellow pilgrim and checker of my Guidebooks is arriving in Santiago. Joaquin has asked him sing at the Pilgrims’ Mass on the Feast of Santiago on 25 July. If that happens the lunch which follows should be splendid! We’ll see.

I’m also hoping to meet pilgrim and author Tracey Saunders as she finishes the Camino Portuguese and Iain from the Pilgrims’ Forum at the end of his Camino Frances. Apparently I owe him a glass of Johnnie Walker.

I’ve been reflecting on where the idea came from to do voluntary work in the Pilgrims’ Office. I think it stems from that first visit at the end of the Via de la Plata when I walked from Seville 3 years ago. I had arrived the night before. Exhausted. I stood in a queue and I remember it was my turn and someone behind the desk called me forward. I looked on as they turned leaf after leaf in my Credencial looking at the stamps which I had collected wherever I stopped. Dozens of them. Each able to unlock a fond memory. Then there was a slight nervousness as the girl checked the last few stamps in some detail. “You stopped in Ponte Ulla?” she enquired and after confirmation applied the last stamp from the Cathedral of Santiago. She asked me to fill in a form which involved ticking some boxes. When I had finished doing that she took a certificate from a shelf under the desk, wrote my name in Latin on it and gave me my first Compostela.

I remember the moment vividly. I took the Compostela in its cardboard tube to lunch and proudly sat it on the table, like a student after graduation.

I assumed that the young people behind the desks in the Pilgrims’ Office were all volunteers who were pilgrims themselves. In fact whilst one or two volunteers do work in the office most are paid employees on temporary 9 month contracts because of the nature of the funding which the Cathedral gets from the government. But volunteer I did, and after a week of training and orientation earlier in the year I’ve started going back for a week or two as often as I can. Next year I’d like to walk a route and then spend a total of three months or so in Santiago. I want to be there for the month of July to experience the celebrations around the feast day in the last Jubilee Year until 2021.

Working in the Office is proving to be one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. There is a team of around 12 young people, led by Mari and Eduardo (photo), the office supervisors, under the watchful eye of Don Genaro, the priest in charge. He calls in several times a day and when he is not there he is usually sitting in Confessional Number 2 in the Cathedral. Look out for him. He is the genial wee man with the warm smile.

The team is supplemented by some temporary staff during the busy months and this year a young student in his first year at University is working full time for the month of July. Then there’s me – the old guy and very part time volunteer.

A couple of weeks ago on my first morning there I knew it was going to be just a tad busier than when I had done my training in February. Before the cafeteria opened for breakfast at 8am I decided to take stroll around Santiago at 7.30am. That would give me plenty of time to have something to eat and be at the office for it opening at 9 am. The sun was shining but it was surprisingly cool. Council workers were washing the streets, exactly as they do in many towns and cities in Spain. There were very people around.
My route took me down by the Cathedral and to complete the circuit back to my hostal I turned to walk past the Pilgrims’ Office. There was a queue. Already! I counted 32 pilgrims standing around, some in a line. There were more rucksacks neatly laid in a line stretching from the closed green door.

The queue didn’t go down when the office opened at 9am. It got longer. That day 1,000 pilgrims were received. The next day 1100. The team in the office work in 2 shifts – 9am – 2pm and 2pm – 9pm. They rarely take breaks. Perhaps 10 mins to grab something eat. Each day someone goes out for coffee. We drink it at our desks. The wave of pilgrims is unrelenting.

In many ways the routine is simple. Pilgrims are asked to wait at the glass door into the office. This is exactly like waiting at the line on the ground at airport passport control. They are called forward one at a time. They are asked for their Credencial first and the route they have taken is checked, their starting point identified and close attention is given to the stamps they have obtained in the last 100 kms in the case of walkers and 200 in the case of cyclists or those who travelled on horseback.

Whilst this is going on, pilgrims are asked to fill in their details on a form. Name, country of origin, starting point, age, profession and then three boxes under the heading “Motivation”. These are Religious Reasons, Religious or other reasons, Non Religious.

The person behind the desk waits until the box is ticked. If the pilgrim has ticked the “Religious” or “Religious and Other” boxes then the stamp of the Cathedral is given and the Compostela prepared. If the “Non Religious” box is ticked an additional stamp of the Office of Pilgrims is applied and a Certificate of Completion is prepared – not the Compostela.

The reason for this procedure appears straightforward. The pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela is very old and for centuries the motivation was religious – the forgiveness of sins or time off the period in purgatory people thought they would experience. The destination is the tomb of St James, one of Christ’s closest associates. The Compostela is the traditional certificate that the pilgrimage has been complete “in a pious cause” or plainly, “for religious reasons”. The roots of the Compostela go back to the 13th Century. The pilgrims’ office sees itself as the guardian of that tradition and hence the questions are asked.

For most people the reasons for their pilgrimage are straightforward and the vast majority of people tick the box for Religious or Religious and Other reasons. Some others confidently tick the Non Religious box. A few find the whole thing confusing,

My own view is that the category “Religious or Other” is ambiguous. What the Pilgrims’ Office means is “Religious or Spiritual reasons” but it is almost as if they feely they would be diluting the tradition by saying so.

A number of pilgrims have either rejected formal religion or are at odds with an established church. But they remain deeply spiritual and can have walked a great distance to get to Santiago. Some discover to their horror that having ticked the Non-religious box that they do not receive a Compostela. Either they ask about this or their disappointment is palpable. Last week one young woman was crying and her boyfriend was angry. Mari, the supervisor was called. She is both patient and multi lingual. The girl explained that she had ticked the Non religious box because she doesn’t go to Church. “Why did you do the pilgrimage?” Mari enquired. “To deepen my love for my boyfriend and to think everyday about my sister who recently died”. The certificate was withdrawn and the Compostela issued. But some clarity and guidance could have avoided the difficulty.

The case of the girl and the Compostela is the first of hundreds of stories from the Pilgrims’ Office. I’ll tell you some of them next time.

Whew!

Over the last few weeks I’ve often tried to make time to write some of the stories which have been in my mind. Unfortunately reality intervened every time. I’ve also been doing too much. Friends would say that there was a time in my life when I thought I was superman. Nowadays, they say, I think I am Mighty Mouse. It started with the 9 Day festival in Clapham. There are 4 services a day and it is now in its 36th year. I started playing for the evening service 5 or 6 years ago. When I finished 9 of them I felt very virtuous. The church was packed and the singing was amongst the best I have ever heard in any church of any denomination. My friend Joaquin, the organist of Santiago Cathedral plays to a full Cathedral at the pilgrims’ mass each day at noon and he loves a full church. We all do.

Such is my obsessive personality the following year I decided to play at 2 of the services per day then last year I stepped that up to three a day. 27 in all. This year I decided to attempt all four. The Church is a 30 minute walk from my house and so at 6.20 am on the first morning I set off to play at the 7am service. There were 120 people there. I went back for the lunchtime service at 12.30 pm and there were even more people there. By mid afternoon I felt like nodding off at a meeting I was attending and by the 6pm service I was feeling a little disorientated. But the people kept coming and they kept singing. The Church had in excess of 300 people attending the 8pm service but to be honest I was by then too tired to care. I took the sensible decision to go back to three services per day and slept for 10 hours!

Even the 27 services in 9 days took a lot out of me. But it was great fun. By the last evening there were 500 people in this old Victorian Church and at one point I thought the singing would lift off the roof. That is one of the significant differences with the pilgrims mass in Santiago. The people don’t sing. Well, the Spaniards who are in the majority never sing anyway. So whilst the cantor valiantly tries to rehearse and rouse people all she usually gets in response is a faint mumble from the congregation.

But that silence apart there are other downsides to Joaquin’s enviable position of playing to a full church everyday. The first of course is that he has to play every day. Twice. He accompanies the 9.30 Mass which is in a traditional style. The Canons of the Cathedral process in at the start, many of them looking as if they have seen better days. They sing the Office and then they go into a High Mass with sung prayers and responses. Traditional right enough. But no one attends.

Joaquin then goes back for the Pilgrims’ Mass. He usually turns up at 11.55. He turns on the organ and uses a telephone to phone the singing nun on the altar. She dictates the running order of the music and 4 minutes later she announces that Mass is starting. Joaquin pulls out a few stops and the ceremony is underway.

This routine is repeated 365 days of the year. There is another organist, Manuel, who spells Joaquin and they cover each other for holidays. But the routine can be deadly. I also suspect that whilst the music varies a little, the sermon is basically the same every day. Mind numbing.

One of the things that struck me during the 9 day playathon in Clapham was the way the time passed so quickly. The routine is all absorbing. There is little time to fit anything else in. One day merges into the other. I think I’m beginning to understand how life passes for people who follow a monastic way of life. Turning up for prayer 5 or 6 times a day would sure make the time flash past.

And of course Cathedrals are in many ways like the other total institutions described by Erving Goffman in his book Asylums such as prisons and mental hospitals. When people live and work for very large parts of their time in an institution which has its own rules and culture, the internal world becomes more important than the external. So the community life of the Cathedral is vitally important to everyone who lives and works there from the priest who is the administrator or boss of the Cathedral, the porters who take up the collection and fly the Botafumeiro, the people in the souvenir shop and the night shift of cleaners. All personalities in their own world.
I was in the Cathedral about 10pm one evening practising on the organ with Joaquin. It was a quite different cathedral. Huge cleaning machines were passing up and down the aisles. The cleaners were chatting to one another. Candle sticks were being polished and that particular evening there was intermittent sound of an electric drill as repairs were being made to a wall bracket. Towards the end of the session I asked Joaquin if he would play something. He showed me the score of a piece of music by a modern composer. One glance told me that this was technically demanding but would certainly not have a tune that would stay in my head afterwards.

Joaquin set to it. It was quiet and loud, it was slow and fast. At times his fingers danced along the keyboard. It was fascinating to watch but listening to it was quite a different matter. Suddenly there was shouting from down below. I looked over and there was one of the cleaners shouting up to the organ loft at the top of her voice and shaking her first. I could barely make out what she was saying as Joaquin kept playing. Then I understood one word. “Basura”. Rubbish. She was shouting “that music is rubbish”! Joaquin said to me as he played, “what is she shouting about?” I explained that I thought she was shouting that his music was rubbish. Crazy musician that he is, he took his hands from the keyboard, flew off the organ stool to the railing and shouted down “Maria, why don’t you just shut up? I have to listen to your cleaning machine from hell. So you can listen to me.” In high dudgeon he pulled out every single stop and started playing. It was so discordant he could have been playing with his elbows. Musical revenge.

But to recover from all the musical exertions I then spent a week in the Pilgrims’ Office receiving pilgrims and issuing Compostelas. That is another story.

One year ago - Gareth Thomas

Last year pilgrim Gareth Thomas walked from Worcester Cathedral to Santiago. He retraced his steps from earlier in his life. This is his reflection.

A year ago I was making my plans for the longest journey I have ever made: a pilgrimage from Worcester to Compostela on foot. When I finally set out in May, I remember feeling oddly afraid at the magnitude of the task ahead: to put one foot in front of the other continuously for three months. Now that the pilgrimage is successfully completed, I look back on a very satisfying once-in-a-lifetime event and see that the fears were realistic. It was very hard at times, and tempting to give up at some points; but I am so glad I kept going to the destination and I look back at the 1200-mile walk as a defining event in my life.

My long association with the Camino began in the 1960s at the age of fourteen, wearing the blue-shirt and red beret of a certain Spanish youth organisation. Our moustachioed and uniformed leader, a retired Civil War army officer and school history teacher, Capitan Nuñez, marched us down the Camino during our summer camp. He was the Spanish equivalent of Dad’s Army Captain Mainwaring. It was he who taught us how to load and fire the antique Martini rifles on Saturday morning drill sessions on a remote beach, for he was convinced we could repel the communist invasion he seemed to expect at any moment. We were pleased he put his trust in us, though we had no idea of the particular advantage of his strategy or indeed any interest whatsoever in politics.

Marching to Compostela for the glory of the Patria and its national patron saint was the curious way in which I first walked on what we now call the Camino Francés, but in those days they didn’t call it that. It was simply a dusty route-march for uniformed youth that the old Spanish officer class and clerical old guard saw as the guarantee of Spain’s future. There was no welcoming hospitalero or menu peregrino for us: we camped out on the hillside or slept on the bare floors of parish halls. A bottle of Coca Cola cost five pesetas. We bought bubble gum and collected the cronos: picture cards of the aircraft of the Spanish Civil War, but the Fiat CR32 biplane always eluded us and we concluded that the card didn’t exist. It was just a ploy to make us buy more bubble gum.

The main things I remember about the route are the overwhelming smell of primitive toilet arrangements and the unsightly piles of refuse that you found in every village in those days. And there was one other thing: the sadness and the poverty: the ever-present amputees, and the general brokenness of most people you met in that land.

Not long after, I returned to England with my family and it was twenty years later before I explored the Camino again. In the 1980s, as an Anglican Franciscan friar, I hitch-hiked in habit from England and walked part of the Camino over a two-week period. It had then begun to gain some popularity: there was a new awareness of the Camino and the priests I stayed with on my journey were convinced the pilgrimage would be reborn. They were right, but it was not quite the future they imagined, for the Camino took on its own life independently of them.

I remember standing in the rain looking down from Monte Gozo – which in those days was an empty hill – in my soaking wet Franciscan habit, and wondered what emotion a medieval pilgrim might have felt, arriving at that point after walking from England. I suppose it was then that the idea was born to walk all the way from England, but the practical expression lay dormant for another twenty years. I built up to it gradually. I arrived in Compostela by bike from Canterbury; then from St Jean-Pied-de-Port on foot; I walked in the winter snows from O Cebreiro. And then I finally did it: I walked from Worcester to Compostela, and I still have sore toes.

The Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, in a book about marathon running quotes this runners’ mantra: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” He explains, “The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not he can stand any more is up to the runner himself.” (H. Murakami: What I think About When I think About Running.) There is truth in this. When you first begin a long physical journey, travelling under your own steam, just as with starting at a gym or going for a keep-fit run around the block, it will hurt; and that is unavoidable. The Jesuit priest Gerard Hughes wrote a book about his one thousand mile walk to Rome (G. Hughes: In Search of a Way), and he explains how he had worked out a 100-degree pain scale on an earlier walk. When he was only a short distance along the road on the day he set off, he felt a pain in the knee which “only merited 20 degrees, so I attributed the pain to psychosomatic anticipation and limped on.” In his account, the physical hardships of the road gradually diminish as he becomes accustomed to the walk, but he soon learns that undertaking a long-distance walk requires psychological strategies too.

Hughes explains how he disliked using the rosary as a child and “used to try to speed up the prayers to have them over and done with” He never overcame that boredom and eventually abandoned the rosary; but while walking to Rome he rediscovered it: “It is a rhythmic prayer and I could vary the rhythm, sometimes a few steps to one syllable. I could pray almost effortlessly for an hour in this way.”

In the anonymous Russian Orthodox classic, The Way of a Pilgrim (trs. R.M.French), the pilgrim – a seeker of true prayer - travels hundreds of miles on foot. His object is not to arrive anywhere in particular, but to learn how to “pray constantly”. I have found that the Jesus prayer is very well suited to praying the road. Breathing in, while stepping forward a few paces, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…”; and then exhaling on the next steps, “…have mercy on me a sinner.” Hundreds of repeated prayers become thousands, and eventually the rhythm becomes the prayer.

It was certainly a hard journey, walking to Compostela, particularly in the day after day of unrelenting rain across France in May. Yet, the trials of the journey became the point of the journey. I was mentally engaged with the Jesus prayer and I was undertaking a significant journey of transition, from one life to another.

The individual effort was only part of the story: the reality was broader than that. All the way along I was part of a community – even when I felt most alone – and that sense of belonging to a wider community made the journey possible. The three-month pilgrimage involved contact with hundreds of people, all of them playing some part in getting me to the destination. And now, in my prayer times in the seminary, I often reflect on that journey. I pray the road, mentally revisit the people I met on the way and pray for them, and I pray for those on the road now.
When I arrived at Monte Gozo I finally knew the answer to the question I had wondered about twenty years earlier: what does a pilgrim feel after walking all the way from England? I felt numb. All who arrive in the Pilgrim Office in Santiago receive the same certificate – and rightly so – whether they have walked from Worcester or Sarria. The printed piece of paper is a charming souvenir, but what is imprinted on your heart and on your soul is the great gift that you carry home. It has taken me a long time to absorb the experience and it will take me longer yet. Perhaps one day, in my last conscious moment in this life, I shall recall the sound of the breeze in the tall spiky plants on that steep descent in the Meseta towards Hornillos del Camino, the ribbon of white Camino stretching out ahead. And I will give thanks for the experience. ___________________________________________

Camino People - Rebekah Scott - The House of Welcome Moratinos

A life in the day of Rebekah Scott - The House of Welcome, Moratinos

Every year over 100,000 pilgrims walk to Santiago along one the many Camino routes. They experience a simpler way of life. Everything they need is on their backs. They carry few clothes and no luxuries. At the end of each day they enjoy simple, hearty meals often in the company of others they have met along the way. The Camino is time out of regular life into a world where needs are separated from wants by the weight in their rucksack.
In addition to hotels and hostals, pilgrims are supported by a network of albergues, which provide a bed and washing facilities. Many only ask for a donation, a donativo, or a small charge of a 3 euros. They are staffed by people who welcome and care for pilgrims. They are volunteers called hospitaleros.
Many pilgrims are envious of their way of life, living in Spain, working with and for pilgrims, doing something worthwhile.
I have yet to meet a pilgrim who hasn’t fantasised about giving it all up to move to Spain to live permanently and run an albergue.

Most don’t, but that’s exactly what Rebekah Scott and her husband Patrick did.

What's the story? Here are her answers to my questions:


Rebekah, how did you two meet? Where did the idea of living Spain come from? How did you do it?”

We both worked at The Toledo Blade newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, USA. Paddy and I both enjoyed Spain greatly, started keeping company, and vacationed in Spain together a time or two. When I made my camino in 2001, he stayed at my house and watched my then-teenage children. He saw the effect the Camino had on me, and went and walked it himself in 2002. In years since we became hospitaleros, and kicked around the idea of retiring to Spain someday... and after Patrick retired officially in 2003, (and we were married), we thought we´d look seriously at retiring to someplace on the Camino. The actual move took LOTS of courage, and years of planning, saving, and stripping away all the worldly goods accumulated over many years. In retrospect it was a perfect moment to retire from newspapers and the American economy in general! We sold the house in 2006, gave away almost everything, and came to Spain in June to start looking for a new place to be whilst hospitalero-ing in promising sites all over the caminos.

We found Moratinos via an Irish couple who were hoping to open an albergue here. We came to visit them that summer, but they weren´t home. The townspeople were still very welcoming, and invited us to their fiesta the following month... We came. And that´s when one of the families said they had a finca for sale on the edge of town. And Et Voila!

It took almost two years, a million tears and gray hairs, and many thousands of Euros to make the place into what we (thought we) wanted. It was basically a barn and sheep-fold compound that hadn´t been lived-in for two decades. Now it´s a nice, almost-American style house with room for six guests and two hermits.

How did the villagers react to you two? Was "integration" a slow process? How long will you be "outsiders"?

We were welcomed wonderfully from our first day visiting here. The story is long and touching, and I hope to write it into a book sometime soon... We continue to integrate, and are now listed as one of the town´s eight “households,” and as such have responsibilities and rights and a voice in town meetings. We provide needed services in the town, (including plenty of comic relief!), we party and are invited to parties, we are seen working hard around the place and we have a wifi access open to all. We will always be “outsiders” in some peoples´eyes. A woman from the next village who called us “foresteros” was corrected immediately, told that “no estan foresteros... ellos son vecinos!”

Could you say a little bit more about your vision for the place? If it isn't an albergue how do people get there?

Our house (aka “Peaceable Kingdom”) is NOT a pilgrim albergue. It is our home. It´s not open to the public on a daily basis, but we do have a word-of-mouth and internet-buzz presence. In Camino parlance we´re a “casa de acogida,” a “house of welcome.” Pilgrims who are worn-out, injured, hurt, lonesome, or otherwise need of a break can stop in here and stay a while. Most only have a cup of coffee and a sello. Some take a nap, or a shower. Others stay overnight. A few, usually skilled laborers in need of work, or seekers in need of stationary solitude, stay for days or even weeks! We´re donativo all the way, but we are still working out how to balance that with our limited resources. (As Paddy says, “I´m not here to subsidize European middle-class freeloaders.”)
We don´t advertise our presence beyond the listings in CSJ and Paderborn Guides, our blogs, and a sign on the church porch telling pilgrims we are here. (The neighbors send anyone to us who doesn´t speak Spanish!) So far, it´s working. We go for days without having guests, and then will have a full house for a week... pilgrims seem to come in waves. It evens out.
As for the future, we are letting the place evolve as needs arise and funds are found to meet them.

What happens on a typical day?

The time I get up varies wildly. Depends on the season, weather, noise level, who else is in the house, and how late I stayed up the night before. There are no routines around here. Every day is different. The only constant is a good long walk for Una and Tim, the dogs. And coffee.

Do you have lots of pets?

Una and Tim, said dogs; a cat named John Murphy; a canary named Bob; and five red hens. We´re now considering a goat.

What are your hobbies?

Trying to make vegetables grow; cooking ethnic meals; local history; blogging; reading Tarot; writing; horse riding; Spanish wine (we have a bodega cave!); long-distance walking; traveling around Spain; editing camino trail guides and other publications; trying to improve my spoken Spanish.

Is that all?

I've also been a hospitalera since 2003, most recently at the CSJ refuge in Miraz, but over the ages also in Rabanal, Eunate, Fuenterroble, Ourense, Ponferrada, Salamanca, and the Benedictine monastery in Sahagún. Been training new hospitaleros since last year via the Canadian Company training program.

What do you usually do in the afternoon?

Plan dinner, hoe the garden, meditate, take a siesta. I am a night person, and do most of my productive work after 9 p.m.

Tell us about a memorable dinner with pilgrims as guests - what was on the menu, who was there, why was it memorable?

One balmy evening last year I had a lovely great gang of young men stop in and decide to stay over. They´d walked from Carrion de los Condes, almost 40 km., but still had energy enough to chop a great pile of wood and move some heavy timbers for us. We then fixed a huge meal of gazpacho, fettuccini alfredo, fruit salad and yogurt (a couple of them were vegetarian, one was a Buddhist monk); much wine was taken, songs sung, etc.
They traveled together and helped one another. They were from Germany, South Africa, Australia, Italy, and USA. And as the South African was Jewish, and the following day was Yom Kippur, we all agreed to join him in his daylong fast. They spent the morning here. We sat in meditation, talked about atonement, judgment, and grace, and the Kol Nidre was sung. I blessed them all the Anglican way when they left the house. Lovely. And with fasting pilgrims, there are no dishes to wash! I felt like a part of something wonderfully international and interfaith.

And finally...you recently had a visit from your mum. What does she really think of the whole adventure?

No one knows what my mom really thinks. But after an itinerant childhood, following my dad from one military posting to another, I guess the traveling got into my blood. Mom was upset when I first told her I was moving so far away. “I realised, though, I was being selfish, I just wanted you near for my own sake,” she said. “But you have to go and follow your dream. You´re just being the child I raised.”

Rebekah's Blog

Read stories of Rebekah's life and adventures in Spain on her fabulous and popular blog:

Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo - www.moratinoslife.blogspot.com

What about the God bit?

My passion about the Camino is relatively recent in my life. My passion about playing the church organ is much older – 44 years older to be precise! Yes, I started young.

In these last few weeks I’ve been in Church more than many priests and ministers. It is the season of the great feasts, Pentecost, Trinity, Corpus Christi plus 2 Sundays of First Communions and a Friday complete with Bishop for Confirmations. It is also about to get considerably busier when on 19th June I embark on playing for an annual festival which comprises 36 services in 9 days. Future postings will be the evidence I have survived.
Some people assume that organists are holy people, firm believers, devout. I suppose because of the amount of time we spend in Church. To be honest I’ve always been secretly jealous of those who are able to say “I definitely believe in God.” Or “I’m a confirmed atheist”. I’ve always been much more uncertain and for me a prayer I learned many years ago is appropriate: “ Oh God, if there is a God, save my soul if I’ve got one.”
As a young philosophy graduate I would challenge and bate priests. Then I realised that I was the only one getting angry. I visited Rome and was awestruck by the Vatican and horrified and ashamed at the blatant display of class distinction, authority and power of a church of which I am a baptised member. I love the music and the liturgy. I try to pray. But not only do I disagree in whole or in part with many of the Church’s teachings I also hate the misogyny and obsession with sex. Maybe it is because my mum was staunchly Presbyterian and my dad fiercely Catholic that I was brought up to believe in “live and let live”.

For along time I didn’t know that there is a world of pilgrimage where I’ve discovered many people like me struggling with belief, at odds with established churches but compelled to search, sometimes even without realising it.

Before I discovered the pilgrimage routes in Spain to Santiago de Compostela, I thought “pilgrimage” was something which the older ladies in parishes did when they went on a bus to Lourdes with their rosary beads. Then as I prepared for my own first pilgrimage I discovered what seemed like a parallel universe of thousands of people walking to holy places in many countries. Lourdes in France, Fatima in Portugal, Santiago de Compostela in Spain, Knock in Ireland, Iona in Scotland, St David’s in Wales, Canterbury in England, Rome and of course Jerusalem to mention but a few.

As I read I discovered that the history of pilgrimage has deep roots in many world religions as well as Christianity. The Muslim famous Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. The Jewish people are drawn to Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall. In India many millions of Hindus make their way to the River Ganges to bathe to wash their sins. For Sikhs the journey is to Amritsar to visit the Golden Temple.

Whilst the Camino to Santiago is essentially a Catholic pilgrimage to the shrine said to contain the bones of one of the apostles another thing I discovered is that there is no right or wrong way to travel the Camino to Santiago. It isn’t just for holy people, or those who go to Church or people of faith. It is for everyone. But is it a spiritual experience? “What about the God bit?”

Over the last few days as I’ve thought about that question and how to answer people who ask it, I’ve been drawn to notes on my real experiences of pilgrimage. They describe for me real encounters with kindness, love, tolerance, respect, understanding. Maybe they are the ”God bit”?

Alto de Perdón

On the way up to Alto de Perdón I encountered a red faced pilgrim with a gigantic rucksack lying flat on his back by the side of the path. I stopped to ask if he was ok. He said yes and urged me to keep going. When I got to the top I met two girls one from Sweden and the other from France. It was windy and I sat down beside them sheltered a little. As we each took out our packed lunch it was the most natural thing in the world to turn it into a picnic each sharing what we had. When the pilgrim I’d met earlier appeared, even more red faced, we called him over and asked him to join us. He explained he was having a few problems. His pack was far too heavy and he already had blisters although he had brought two pairs of boots to try out! He set off slowly and stiffly down the rock path on the other side. When I caught up with him he asked me if I’d left my friends behind. I could see the surprise when I explained I’d only met my picnic partners 15 mins before he arrived! We met again the next day. His name was Hans. He explained that he’d left some things behind that morning: One pair of boots, three quarters of a first aid kit, his spare torch and box of batteries, two t shirts leaving three… He shared that he was a successful restaurateur but he’d become divorced had been boozing too much and had developed an over reliance to cocaine. As the words came tumbling out he said he’d kept it all a secret. No one knew. He knew he needed to leave all that behind too…

Via de la Plata
On this route from Seville there are many isolated long stretches. I walked alone and on some stages rarely met anyone else. Occasionally I would see a shepherd and his flock high on the hill. Birds of a feather perhaps, alone, carrying what we needed, often my wave would be returned by an encouraging hand held high.
But not every day is a good day. One day I woke feeling dejected. New to the pilgrimage walking had brought me painful blisters, painful memories and a morning of driving rain. I remember that day well because I wrote in my note book: “This is the day when even the shepherds didn’t wave back”.

A few hours later I was starving and stopped in a little bar in Villanueva de Campeán. I asked the elderly woman behind the bar if she had any food. “We don’t do food” she replied. I sat at a table with a coffee feeling very sorry for myself. The woman approached, “Señor,” she said, “ If you wish you may have some of the soup I have made for my family. I’m afraid it is only fish soup.”

My favourite.

The Rio Esla
“Can something this beautiful just be an accident?” was a question I decided not to try and answer whilst sitting on the banks of the river in total stillness. Some things just have to be enjoyed.
Dusseldorf
I recently visited Wittem in Holland where the Redemptorist Order run a pilgrimage shrine in honour of St Gerard. Almost 200,000 people travel there every year. The Redemptorists have staffed the Church where I play the organ for 150 years. They are now looking at how to reshape their ministry for the future. One of the things they are looking at is building up the work they do with homeless and friendless people. On our way to Wittem we stopped in Dusseldorf to visit a project for just such people. Our German is poor so we took a translator.

We were shown into a room at the Centre and the man in charge was introduced through the translator. “What can I do for you?” he asked. “Could you tell us, please, what this Centre is all about? What do you do here? “ was the translated reply.
He sat perfectly still for a moment, deep in thought. Then he crossed the room and from a drawer brought a candle held by the wick. We could see it was completely broken. He suspended it in front of us. “Would you like to buy this candle to help us with our funds?” He asked. “How much?” one of us enquired. “as much as you care to give. Don’t you think it is worth it? Be honest now.” He stood patiently holding the broken candle in front of us. By the time it took to translate all of this into English I could see that like me my companions wondered whether he was mad. This was confirmed when he dangled the candle in front of me. “Don’t you agree this is a perfectly good candle and worth a lot?” he said directly to me. “Errrrr, I’m afraid I don’t actually” I said.

He gave a satisfied smile. We hadn’t got the point.

From a cabinet he produced a plant pot filled with sand and he pushed the candle in. He lit it.

“With some support”, he said, “This candle can become whole again. Look at the flame alive in it. Strong. Warm. It lights the room. It is beautiful again. That’s what we do here.”

And maybe that’s what the pilgrimage to Santiago does for many of us.

Pilgrim People Series - Marion Marples

A day in the life of Marion Marples, Secretary of the Confraternity of St James

The more I’ve got to know Marion Marples the more titles I give her in my head: Mum, Wife, Pilgrim, Administrator, Newspaper publisher, social entrepreneur, Pastoral Auxiliary, Singer, Editor, Writer, Lover of early music – click here for her favourite. Most of all, The Boss.
So many talents in one person. Formidable.

Marion’s journey to the CSJ office is short as she lives just across the road from where it is located at the back of Christchurch in Blackfriars. This is in the district with the postcode SE1 and Marion with her husband and son also run a social enterprise publishing a successful local magazine and website called, funnily enough, inSE1.

SE1 is in the Anglican Diocese of Southwark with its beautiful Cathedral. Marion is a Pastoral Auxiliary there. This is a kind of lay ministry where her job is to make links out into the local community. For example she organises volunteers to help in the Cathedral junior school and to visit the older residents who live locally in sheltered housing. She has also been working with a number of local churches to set up facilities for homeless people in the coldest months of the year. At that point in our conversation she says, “ I want to talk to you about that project”. I realise that whatever she asks I’ll probably agree. That’s Marion.

Marion has been the Secretary of the CSJ “for about 15 years, if not more”. She doesn’t seem to care exactly how long it is because it is clear this is more a way of life than a job. Her interest in the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela started when she was at university and attended some lectures on Gothic architecture and pilgrimage. In 1972 she and a friend got a grant to make the pilgrimage. She says with a laugh,” Unfortunately we had no concept of the distances involved, there were no guide books and we just had one book, Great Pilgrimages of the Middle Ages by Hell and Hell! It had wonderful photographs and told us the names of the places we had to pass through but gave no information on how to get there.”

Marion and her friend set off with their tent from Poitiers in France (above). They managed to walk for two days before realising the tent was too heavy, so they started going forward to the places in the book by bus and train and occasionally hitchhiking. After three weeks they got to St Jean de Pied Port which is now the traditional starting point of the Camino Francés. Alas they had completely run out of money so Marion decided to phone home. In those days it took two hours to book an international phone call back to England so they decided to send a telegram. Eventually Marion’s mum sent them £5 which enabled them to get to Pamplona and then Santander where they used their tickets to come home. They never got to Santiago but if they had they would have been pilgrims 7 and 8 because only 6 Compostelas were issued that year.

Whilst the journey to Santiago was not complete, the experience inspired what has become a life long passion for the pilgrimage routes to Compostela. Some years later in 1983 her husband noticed an advertisement in a newspaper calling a meeting of people interested in the Pilgrimage to Santiago. There was a telephone number given and it belonged to Dr Mary Remnant, historian and musician who had organised the first meeting in St James’ Church, Picadilly, London. The Confraternity of St James in the UK was founded at that meeting.

By this time Marion and her husband had a child named James. Marion didn’t work then and used to telephone Pat Quaiffe who was then secretary of the CSJ to plan the many activities of the fledgling organisation.

As baby James grew so did the organisation and time passed. In 1996 Marion managed to have the time to walk with a French group from Bayonne to Pamplona and then in 1996 the rest of the Camino Francés from Pamplona. Gripped by the whole thing Marion then took 10 years to fill in all of the other stages from her home in London to Bayonne. During this time she also walked other routes such as the Camino Inglés. She is now considering what to do next!

While she thinks about it the daily routine of running the CSJ continues. Breakfast is with the family. Marion leaves for the CSJ office to arrive at 9.30. Son James and his Dad work together running the magazine.

Once in the office Marion deals with a constant stream of e mails and telephone enquiries. Most are from people who have been thinking about the pilgrimage for a long time and are now in a position to make real plans. The most common question is “where do I start” and that’s not always a place! Marion thinks that people who contact the CSJ are changing. Previously there were people who had heard a little about the pilgrimage, packed a rucksack and set off. Nowadays people seem to have thought about it for a long time. The most common question is: “How do I get to St Jean de Pied Port?” Also most pilgrims have no knowledge of Spanish.

Then most common piece of advice Marion gives people is to travel light.

A lot of the time Marion helps people prioritise their questions – how long do they have? Do they want to get to Santiago in the time they have available or are they happy to do it in stages? Then they can work back to choose a route and a starting point.
As well as all of this Marion runs the organisation of the CSJ. Much of its work is done in Committees such as the Publications Committee (above) or those which organise and run the two Albergues the CSJ provides at Rabanal del Camino on the Camino Francés and at Miraz on the Northern route.

Nowadays the membership is spread across the world with about 1400 being in the UK and approximately 400 in Europe and the rest of the world. A major task is preparing the quarterly monthly bulletin which is posted out to all members.

The best bit of the job is listening to pilgrims talk about why they want to do it. There is no single reason but people do realise it is a special time out of their daily lives. Some describe this in the language of religion many don’t. Often people ask, “How do I become a pilgrim?” and find it hard to believe when Marion answers, “Pack your rucksack, get to your starting point, and just walk following the yellow arrows.”

Marion has a sandwich lunch at her desk usually but on Thursday there is an open day and the number who can call in demanding attention is unpredictable. Some ask general questions and others are looking for very detailed answers about particular routes. Marion is modest about her ability to answer all of these but in fact her knowledge is pretty encyclopaedic. And if she doesn’t know the answer she always knows someone who does.

She also organises the CSJ’s famous and invaluable Practical Pilgrims Days around the UK. These are sessions which explain the preparation and equipment needed and provide talks about the routes. Ideal for beginners. Marion also spend time linking pilgrims with each other.

Landscape photograph of the Valée d’Aspe on the Arles Route through France - taken by Howard Nelson of the CSJ

Whilst Marion can recount visitors to the office who have been very difficult she doesn’t dwell on that. She’d rather talk about that moment on a route in France, early in the morning, alone, experiencing an immense sense of peace and joy.

Pilgrims know exactly what she is talking about.

On behalf of pilgrims every where – Thanks for all of your work Marion.