Now my question. This afternoon, two Spanish-speaking women came into the albergue asking for a stamp on their credencials. I had seen my predecessors stamp credencials for individuals who did not stay at the albergue, so, I said "OK." They sat down and one pulled out about 6 new-looking credencials with 5 or 6 stamps on them. She proceeded to write tomorrow's date on one credencial, grabbed our stamp, and stamped it. Then she started to write tomorrow's date on the rest. I grabbed the stamp and told her that I would only allow stamps with today's date. She argued that it was just for mañana. I refused, and, she left, calling me foul names in Spanish (at least, my companero, Michael, told me that's what she was saying.
Reviewing this in bed, I'm thinking she was working some sort of scam, possibly producing credencials for sale to wannabe peregrinos who were too lazy to walk the walk. (I didn't notice whether the personal info was filled-in on those credencials.) So, questions:
1. Is it ever OK to stamp credencials for peregrinos who just want a stamp and don't plan to stay? We've averaged, ~5 such requests per day.
2. What might have been this woman's game?
3. What would you have done?
Thanks for your thoughts.
So Hospitaleros, what would you have done? Anybody else have this happen?
I have stamped people who were not staying, but before I did so, I verified their ID and made sure the date was correctly stamped. In our case, at the albergue I volunteered, we had the albergue stamp and a date stamp, so she would not have been able to fudge it.
ReplyDeleteWho knows what her game was. Probably trying to get a compostela without walking.
I would have only offered to stamp one credential, not all six, and I would have dated it correctly and sent her on her merry way.