Kindness

 Today stopping in Portela de Tamel, tomorrow Pointe de Lima.

When walking earlier today, just as I decided that I wanted the title of this blog today to be "kindness," I turned the corner to see this painting on the side of a building

The gathering question today was: "What has walking changed in you in your life?"

My answer this morning was that it has increased my faith in humanity. I've always known that people help others in dire situations (hurricanes, etc) but something about walking has confirmed what I suspected all along that people are wonderful.

The people that I have met that have walked many Camino's seem to exude this humanity. 

One woman from Sweden in the last Donativo told me that she thought if only more people walked we would care more for one another.

So, I thought that I would share a couple of stories but there are so many more.

Jaball, a personable man who grabbed Mando and quickly let him go and said "maybe I shouldn't do that, but let me ask what are you doing, where are you walking?" We probably talked for an hour sharing all sorts of things. His heart is good, that was easy to see. He is 78 and seems a decade younger

Alister from the UK, Fran from Australia, and Nelson (right), our waiter. Fran and Alister were passing through and stopped for lunch, with stories about their travels, then off to eat barbequed sardines around the corner, because sardines would soon be out of season (who knew). Nelson a young man with a beautiful heart. He tried to visit his mother in Sacramento but was denied a visa. He is now working and saving to have a better chance to visit her in the future. He will try harder. I told him to tell his mom that he was raised well. He got a shy smile and said that he would tell her

While waiting near the river for a long time for my hostel to open I was sitting at this monument.

This young woman walked out 

of this building (which turned out to be a fancy  restaurant)

and brought this heavy glass filled with ice and water. She just smiled, handed it to me and said "bom Camino"

When I returned the glass I had something in my hand to give her and she said "please, don't pay me." I told her I wasn't paying her but giving her a necklace that had been given to me by a café owner on the Camino Frances, many miles ago. She saw that I was handing her a silver colored tree and became emotional for a moment. She told me that she had recently started a nonprofit to bring people closer together and the tree was the symbol she was using for her work. I said that the woman who gave me the tree gave it to me to bring to her.

A stand-in for the young man I have no picture of

This morning walking the road a young man came up introduced himself and in the course of the conversation he mentioned he had not had much in the way of electrolytes and felt cramping. He was walking 30+ km this day. 

A few kilometers later I saw him at a café, gave him a couple of packets of electrolytes (I had just bought a new box yesterday) 

and off we both went, walking.

The Camino provides

                        

                           From my friend Alex today:

We do not aspire to do more in the future.

We aspire to do better than what we are doing now.