A month in Pieros

Donna served at a private albergue in Pieros and kept a blog during her month of service. Lots of pictures and a real view into life at an albergue as a hospitalera. She said that is was the "best month of my life".

https://walkingonthecamino.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/mi-rutina-or-my-routine/

Enjoy the read!

Report from Zamora

Hola Amigos,

We've been working as hospitaleros and welcoming peregrinos to our albergue (pilgrim's hostel) in Zamora since Thursday, October 16. Our albergue is on the right side of this street.

Zamora is a beautiful ancient town, in existence since before the Romans conquered it over 2,150 years ago. The site of many battles between Moors and Christians between the 7th and 11th centuries, it became heavily fortified.

Our albergue is built into the ancient city wall on a ramp coming up off the Río Duero. Pilgrims cross over this roman bridge before climbing into the city and passing our doors. First they pass our kitchen door, then continue climbing and winding around to our front door 2 stories higher. 

We took over from the previous hospitaleros - Randy from Corvallis, Oregon and Gabriella from northern Italy

We welcomed Fatima Carbonell from Cadiz, España, the 3,000th guest in the albergue this year, on October 19. We never know how many guests we will have. We had 21 pilgrims that night, the most in a month and a half. 

The 19th of October was the first anniversary of our wedding, when we surprised 75 guests at our open house by getting married. It seemed only appropriate that the guests at our anniversary dinner were all a surprise to us. We had 19 for dinner. 2 Swedes, 1 Portugese, 12 Spaniards, 2 Australians and us. We toasted Fatima, our 3,000th peregrina, then ourselves and then had dinner. Conversation is primarily in Spanish with a little English and other languages thrown in. We nod our heads and smile a lot when people speak too fast. 

We cook dinner each night and the peregrinos wash the dishes.

And sometimes provide after dinner music.

The next morning, Pam put the finishing touches on the breakfast table.

Note the tomatoes with olive oil and salt nearby for españoles, as well as yogurt, müesli and Nutella for Northern Europeans. Making peregrinos feel like there having breakfast at the Paradore before they leave fills them with animo and probably pays for itself in last minute donativos (but who's looking?)

After everyone left, we cleaned up the albergue.

That's the 2,000 year old city wall behind Steve to the right, with a somewhat newer wall to the left. 

We have settled in to this life and enjoy it a lot, we're talking about doing it again. We love Zamora, the people are very friendly and this albergue is beautiful and very special. 

A day in the life of a hospitalero - 

Each day starts at 7 am when we prepare breakfast - coffee, tea, hot milk, toast, jam, olive oil and tomatoes (spaniards love it on toast) juices, yogurt and muesli (for Germans and Northern Europeans), cereals. 

We cue up Gregorian chant music on the PA system when breakfast starts at 7:30, that way the CD will play Andrea Bocelli singing 'Time to Say Goodbye' at 8:30 sharp, right when pilgrims need to be out the door and on their way. We hug most of them farewell. 

We clean, sweep, mop and scrub everything from the kitchen to the toilets (in that order.) Pillow cases are washed after each use, sheets every two uses unless they look dirty. We count the past day's donations, no charges here, we are strictly 'donativo', donations as you can comfortably afford only. Then we have a few hours to go shopping for food, see the town and have a little personal time. We like to get a quick nap in before we are back 'on'.

We open the doors again for pilgrims at 2 pm, and it all begins again. We greet peregrinos  warmly, offering iced tea, cold water and a bowl full of fruit to choose from. We have some relaxing background music, from classical to light rock and John Lennon's 'Imagine'. Repetition of some of the music is starting to grow (ear worms) on us. 

We register peregrinos for their stay, stamp their pilgrim's credentials and show them around. We take turns cooking dinner, which is served communally at 7:30. We've had incredible company for dinner, with great mixed language conversations. Peregrinos always offer to wash the dishes and we always accept. We lock the doors at 10 pm, the lights go off and we all turn in for the night.  

In our first 8 days, our 66 peregrinos have come from:
Spain 33
Germany 9
Ireland 3
Korea 2
Australia 2 
Sweden 2
Canada 2
Estonia 2
Italy 2
New Zealand 1
Latvia 1
France 1
USA 1
Hungary 1
UK 1
Portugal 1
Belgium 1
Brazil 1

44 are Men and 22 are Women. 

We have another week until we hand off our duties and move on. 

We hope that you are all well. 

With Love y Abrazos from Steve y Pam. 

Roslyn and Santa in Nájera

This first missive written on 13th October s from Santa and Roslyn, from Victoria BC, and is directed at Tom, who will be in Nájera, serving as hospitalero, on December 1. It is clear from what they write that the role of hospitalero is very much appreciated by the local people. And three days later, after they had completed their service, they wrote again. Read on!

13 October, 2014

Thank you for keeping in touch with us. Greatly appreciated. Santa says you will be coming here December 1. You will really like it. We have been having 70 pilgrims per night, which is a lot for one room but it has been a lot of fun every night. Julio, a local 87 yr old comes everyday at 1:30 when we open to help us greet (mostly checks that we are doing it all correctly ha ha) and then comes again at 8:30 to sing local Rioja songs for everyone. He is well received and usually the guitar then comes out and singing continues amongst all that can sing or play. There is a newspaper article on the wall taking about how Julio represented this area and sung for the Pope last year. You can read it when you get here. 

Los Orcas is where we eat every breakfast. The owner is lovely and pays for our coffee everyday. We love going there. One of my daily highlights. Today they surprised me for my birthday with cake and singing. So special. Santa and I usually clean till 11:00 after breakfast and then walk to Azofra (6km away) for another mid morning coffee and back to shower and reopen At 1:30. Lunch is paid for as you know at a local restaurant. We made the mistake of not going one day and she came that evening to ask us why. Needless to say we have returned daily every since. Very generous and we have become great friends. The whole town is very respectful of us and our work. Saturday and Sunday they send someone to clean so we ( and you) will get a bit if a break. Great fun and very special. You will love it here. The people are what really make it special. We leave in two days. It won't be hard to stop washing toilets but it will be hard to leave the people and the beauty of the cliffs, the river, the grapes, the walks etc etc 

And on the 17th October, they sent this:

We are presently on the bus back from Madrid to Burgos after spending a few days in Madrid. It is so interesting how the mind works post Camino isn't it? I have two more shells to give away so am returning to do so. (Not the only reason) When I went to Finisterre after my Camino I collected 15 shells from the beach there to bring to Najera for my 2 weeks if volunteering. I had planned to give one shell each day to a Pelegrino that was in need of motivation to keep walking or to keep heading towards their personal goal of what they wanted from the Camino or from life. I found this such a wonderful experience for me and I have so many different stories; one for each shell I gave away. Each story was completely different as I listened to many people open up their life stories to me. I felt touched that they would open up so deeply and share such important information to me. For me, it helped me grow as well and it helped me verbalized what I learned from the Camino. The receiver was in turn touched and all were so appreciative of my simple gesture of giving them a shell from the end if the Camino. They said it gave them faith or gave them light. Which was my goal but I had no idea how much power was really there. Tears came from a few and always a hug. 
I just wanted to share that story to you as I want you to know that your course and your motivation and your song is what encouraged me. Thank you.