Camino Tales: The Kindness of Strangers and The Perils of Sweaty Feet

Originally written on June 22nd 2013, day 18 of walking.

I left my last post with the hope that I would regain feeling in my toes. This hope has been greatly undermined by the blisters forming and bursting on my feet, and producing many tears. The "hilly" hike of day 11 resulted in a chance meeting of a French couple to whom I will always be grateful for. After the first 15km of that day, we decided to stop at some picnic tables at the top of the first big hill. I took my shoes and socks off to dry out my feet. There was a French couple at a picnic table nearby, and the woman asked me in French if I had bad feet (two words which were similar enough to two Spanish words that were in my limited Spanish vocabulary). When I replied in the affirmative, she came right over to our table to take a look. The gasps of concern were humorous and really quite touching. With Adilene translating, she asked for my needle and thread and used her own gauze, tape, and betadine to clean up my feet. Blister after blister, with gasps and swears coming from her husband standing behind her, she cleaned my feet, unfazed. The blister underneath my big toenail even squirted out onto her at one point. "She wants to know if you have any more," Adilene kept telling me. Two days later we saw her again in Burgos and she immediately asked to see my feet. Unfortunately for me, some blisters were infected. Marielle, whose name we asked later that day, said that if it were her daughter, she would tell her to go to the hospital to get cleaned up and advice.

The hospital incident was unfortunate to put it lightly, but the kindness of Marielle is something I will never forget. She gave us her information and invited us to visit her in France. And with a big hug we said goodbye. The nurse advised I take one to three rest days - so we stayed one extra day in Burgos.
It's interesting how we can be dealing with something so painful and Christ shows up to comfort us through the love of other human beings. It's easy to miss his presence when we are in such pain. On the way into Burgos, before the hospital, after our first meeting with Marielle, we decided to leave at 5:30 am. We knew Burgos was supposed to be a cool city so we wanted to get there before noon. The first 5km consisted of an extremely rocky terrain - big white rocks sticking out of the ground with no relief in sight. As we climbed a hill of these rocks I kept thinking "Why is it so rocky? This is so painful; God, why is this path so rocky?" At the top of the hill Adilene and Jael stood waiting for me. Seeing my face, Adilene asked if I was ok - I burst into sobs and cried in Adilene's arms for about thirty seconds, barely able to get out that it was the rocky path and my blisters that were causing the tears.
At the top of that hill there was a big cross, and I vaguely thought about the fact that it was not comforting at all as I cried in Adilene's arms. And as I whimpered down the hill and for the next 5km, I barely noticed the beauty of the sun rising and the reflecting lights of Burgos in the distance. C.S. Lewis wrote, "It's hard to see clearly when your eyes are blurred with tears" in his book A Grief Observed. I resented that comment when I first read it. I felt like he was sying that I needed to stop crying or that if I could see the situation clearly, I wouldn't be crying. I still think that it is alright to cry, but I've come to realize that it is the reflection and acknowledgment of Christ's presence that begins to bring healing. If we are only focusing on our pain, we cannot do that. Sometimes there is a huge cross right behind you, representing all the pain and suffering Christ endured, and you're too busy crying about the wounds you've gotten along the way to acknowledge it. But then Marielle shows up again and points you in the right direction, which might be the hospital - sometimes we need a little more direct kind of healing.