Camino II — Day 4
Long Live Freedom
I saw this on the window of a childcare center in one of the towns we walked through. My feeling is that whoever wrote that in that particular place is thinking about the children inside. That person hopes that the freedoms won on April 25, 1974 — Liberation Day in Portugal — will persevere into the days of these little ones live.
And we of the US hope the same for our children and grandchildren.
Speaking of Freedom
The young woman on my right is from Russia. The young lady on my right shoulder is from Spain. Just behind her is a young man from the Chechen Republic, and the young man on my left is from Romania. They met at an “albergue” — (hostel — like a free dorm) and decided to travel together. I met them and struck up a conversation. They were very gracious to speak with me as we walked for more than a mile.
I spoke mainly with the young woman from Russia. She was so sweet and curious. The others followed close behind us listening intently. We were talking politics and war and religion (she’s not but wishes she was) — good stuff. I won’t share what we talked about because I don’t think that’s wise for her or me, but it was deep stuff.
You or I would be proud to have this young woman as part of our family, or any of these young people for that matter. She asked me if I was traveling alone. I said no, my wife was with me. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
”Get her to travel with you? I have a husband and I begged him to come with me and he said ‘no’. Russian men are so stubborn.”
“Well,” I said, “that’s not a trait limited to Russian men.”
As we parted, the young man from Romania said — “See? On the Camino we can be friends.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Blue Collar Workers
I like people, all kinds of people. People are funny and interesting and most people want to engage with others. Just a mile or so before this wonderful photo, one of our group, Vern maybe, he’s a curious guy, wondered out loud about “who maintains these pathways?” Then we came upon these guys.
The one with the hammer is the craftsman, I think. The other guy does the heavy lifting. You can see the red string that the craftsman uses to get the blocks laid out straight. When we came upon them they were on a little break. I went over to the line of blocks and asked the craftsman if I could take a photo. He jumped down into a squat, and his buddy jumped over to join him, huge smiles, and they posed for me.
God, we all laughed — I mean with them, not at them. I don’t know why, but that little encounter made my day. These guys are the men I remember when I was little. Blue collar, hard workers, cigarettes hanging out of the mouths, and just characters. I learned a lot from those guys, and not all of it was good. But they were good to me. These guys reminded me of those guys.
Bom (Good) Camino (Way) For You Today!
That’s a cork tree. Portugal makes most of the cork for the entire world.
