Bill Arney

On my last full day in Santiago, in the garage of the five-star Parador Hotel where pilgrims wait in the open air for the butler to come take them to their free lunch in the Pilgrims’ Dining Room, I met Melide, a nineteen year-old woman who, when asked by a fellow pilgrim what language she speaks, said, “German, French, Spanish, English, some Italian.” Swiss.  Over lunch she had mentioned that she tried to do most of her walking alone, and she had some funny and some biting comments about what other people, especially men, had to say about about that preference.  But it was her eating that impressed me.  Not the eating of her lunch per se, but her attitude toward it.  Her age and her wanting to walk alone reminded me of one of our students and I mentioned that the student was a vegan and that she had had some logistical difficulties and cultural differences to deal with in order to eat well in Spain.  “I’m vegan also,” she said, to which I replied, “But you’ve just eaten those pork ribs and that soup with chorizo…” She looked right at me and gently said, “Yes, but this meal was a gift to all of us.  Had I not eaten what I was served, the food would have gone to waste and I may have insulted the people who prepared it.”  Maturity and wisdom sometimes comes in a young package.