Follow Your Arrow

Last night we hosted five lovely humans – three men from Spain and two women from France. We looked after them by feeding them, offering clean and warm beds, and laundering their clothes. This albergue is a very nice one – it’s relatively new (built in 2021), with private showers and plenty of hot water, and a stocked kitchen for shared use. I also suspect that breakfast this morning was a real highlight for our “peregrinos” (pilgrims). Dana had made banana bread last night, improvising with a frying pan because we had no loaf pans in which to bake the bread. Along with the banana bread, today’s buffet included hot oatmeal, fresh fruit, yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, toast, and an array of beverages – juice, coffee, tea, and the fixings for hot cocoa. This was an especially abundant breakfast spread for a Camino albergue, where the usual offerings are long-shelf-life croissants and muffins (yuk), bread for toasting, jam, coffee or tea, and warm milk – for cafe con leche. Our guests were very appreciative of their night’s stay with us, thanking us profusely for our hospitality. When they left, I had that sweet feeling of having gifted something that landed in their hearts.

But then…there was a knock on the door. I opened it to be greeted by a man who asked (in Spanish) “Do you remember me”? I did not. Nonetheless, I invited this man into the albergue, seeing he wanted to talk. The man proceeded to tell me that he was one of the people who asked to stay last night, and I had turned away. Last night, this man and two other men had shown up in a car – and this is not allowed at our albergue and at many others, especially “donativo” albergues, which cater to pilgrims who are walking a Camino. It was now 8:30 a.m. so this guy was delaying the start of his walk or his ride to come and speak with me. He began to scold me for turning him away last night. I tried again to explain our policy to him, but he would not accept this rationale and became rather rude. Dana joined me at the door and together we tried to explain, but this man was not interested in listening. He berated us for not being real hospitaleras, finger wagging at us saying (in Spanish) “you need to learn about Spain and you need to learn Spanish.” I was and have been doing my best to speak Spanish with our guests and visitors, so this felt particularly harsh. Knowing the conversation would go nowhere, we ushered this obnoxious man out, saying “adios y buen Camino,” and closed the door.

This is part of the deal with being a hospitalera: we will host lovely, warm and appreciative pilgrims, and we will encounter other people who will go out of their way to be mean spirited. You take the good with the bad and trust that goodness will prevail.