Santo Domingo Day 5

Wow, Day 5 already....how the days start to meld together. Amazing that the world can have so many different people and so many people with such different responses and interpretations to things. So many people today...and sunshine. I definitely prefer working with the Frenchman as alongside the Spanaird woman. Antoin, 71, and very healthy and interested and Hunckl still caught up in managing and controlling and doing things 'her way'. Today I talked to Martha Gay, a professional harpist that plays professionally at Renaissance festivals in the US and she is pulling her harp behind her. She tells me that pulling behind halves the weight. She is 55 with a long grey braid out to the side and a beret. She and and Irish flute player played in the lounge here tonight. What a wonderful sound.


I used my teacher skills to quieten a couple of loud people. Wow, and then there was the architect, come pen drawing artist, drawing bridges from Texas - and they are going to walk together tomorrow. There was the fellow from Toronto who exists apparently on an inheritance. He has spent the last 18 months hand writing Shakspeare's original script (including flaws) and now is on to some project relating Wagner's music to math??? Anyways, I guess that it goes on display in galleries in Toronto. Then the 70 year old female Aussie who had her first experience in a foreign land alone yesterday. She was petrified but managed. As the younger fellow who brought them to the Camino experience said to me today .....we meet our baggage on the camino and relationships can be made or broken on the camino. For most people it seems that it is a very moving experience and intense and all seem to be gaining something. Then there was the German who managed to tell me - by placing his camino shell (the symbol) on the desk with the dates that he has been here before - 4 times. Not a single word of English, French or Spanish! Hard to believe - then he was annoyed that his bunk was near a window!...and the coveted lower bunk at that. Wanting to communicate and yet so unwilling to communicate. Three Japanese today, 1 and then 2. A South Korean yesterday spending time with 2 young American girls who like to catch the bus...because walking is too hard. Some people work so hard to do this....through weight on their back, blisters, pulled muscles, etc and then some who drive a car and say that they are walking. The French girl who sleeps out most nights but occasinally sleeps in an alburgue and cooks. The Irish gal who lost her vivacious husband to brain cancer last year. The Swedish gal who flies down every holiday break to do a few days and then continue next time.
All of the cyclists are on mountain bikes and well laden down.
Num bers seem way down this year on the camino.... a holy year....world cup soccer, the volcano or world economic slump.
So many people, so many stories....so many people enjoying connecting and living and enjoying today.