I Had No Choice But to Learn

Tired of hearing his mom complain about being single and alone, in 2003 her son encouraged her to put an ad in the paper for a mate. She was looking for someone who wanted to go dancing. He answered.

“I don’t dance, but I have a bike,” he wrote.

“A bike,” she thought, “that could be fun.”

So they met, and they biked. And they had fun. Then he, a Catholic, mentioned the Camino and she, a Protestant, liked to walk so she thought, “why not?”

So now, here, on their 17th Camino together, they have each logged more than 20,000 Camino kilometers. Each year she walks for someone different, she said, because when you’re absolved in Santiago you go straight to heaven, or the church says anyway. But this year she’s walking for the first time for herself.

From Germany, I commented on how excellent her English is. “Well of course,” she said, looking at me in surprise. “We’re an occupied country. I had no choice but to learn.”

It’s so interesting to be here, eating dinner in five different languages and hearing about the world from a myriad of different perspectives. As an American I’d never thought of our military “occupying” other lands, but I can see how that’s true. We don’t discuss that in our history books, at least not using that exact language.

She went on to tell me about shortcuts on the Camino and safety precautions for me, the solo traveler. I am learning lots and growing my perspective, and only a little tiny bit of it has to do with the walk.