What a friend we have in Cheeses

Once when I was visiting my Aunt Ethel and Uncle Alvin as a child, a cheese tray was presented for guests and my Uncle Alvin uttered words that have continued to stick my whole life....What A Friend We Have in Cheeses. I remember giggling and my Aunt Ethel somehow expressing disapproval...mostly as a reminder to her husband that impressionable child's ears were present. This of course upped the likelihood of my remembering it which I have. I confess to never seeing a cheese tray in the subsequent 6 decades without Uncle Alvin's lame pun running through my mind.

 

Galician cheese starts with these gorgeous creatures. Cheese was definitely an appropriate choice of fuel.

 

Generally I don't speak the words the wise words of my Uncle Alvin out loud anymore largely because a lot of people won't get the joke. Unless you have attended a certain kind of Sunday School during a certain era you will not know about the rousing gospel hymn, " What a friend we have in Jesus".

So it was with Uncle Alvin's wise words in mind that I set out to prepare to climb O Cebreiro. It is the highest point on the camino and involves scrambling up a rock path for 9km. That is by personal calculation about 18,000 puffs by me.

As usual I planned well and bought a little circular packet of laughing cow cheese wedges and a box of toasts. The plan was to refuel regularly, and it worked brilliantly. Here I am at the top.

I had planned on doing it in one big push but was stopped part way up by rain. Rain in Galicia, the northwesterly portion of Spain, is a given. It is simply a question of how hard, how long, from which direction etc. The area resembles Scotland and Ireland and the inhabitants are Celts. They have the bagpipes although I have not heard them yet. They also speak Galego, a Celtic language that apparently has lots of different words for rain. The rain that stopped me part way up was a callebobo rain which based on my sketchy understanding means a rain that drives everybody off the streets or calles except the bobos.

At the unexpected halfway stop I encountered overwhelming hospitality at a albergue run by Germans. I had barely walked through the door when an elderly woman saw that a piping hot cup of strawberry tea was in my hand. she helped me with poncho and pack, sat me down, placed her open hand on my upper chest as if to still my beating heart and said, "You have a bed and a home with us for tonight." Bringing comfort to the overwhelmed is such an important thing to know how to do. I am resolved to improve my skills in this.

The summit was accompanied by euphoria. It meant a lot to me. I think perhaps there was a touch of pride and arrogance as well because I then proceeded to take on the long descent. When wiser travelling companions knocked off at albergues along the way, I kept on going far longer than I usually do. I also made some food choices that were goofy.

When I saw these beautiful cows I thought about the wonder of cheeses. That made me think of the hymn and I sang all the words I could remember...

What a friend we have Jesus

All our sins and griefs to bear

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer

Oh what joys we often forfeit

Oh what needless pains we bear

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer.

 

 

I had eaten a lot of bread of cheese. I had sung that hymn a lot of times. As I entered the town at the bottom, I was full of energy and strut...and then it struck...a pain in the chest and gut that folded me up. It was accompanied by weakness, shakes, shivers. It is a reaction bariatric patients are warned about, although I had experienced it only twice before and never this severely.

I had left my camino buddies behind but fortunately was cared for by 2 social workers from Belgium who provided blankets and water bottles filled with hot water. They even went around to the various albergues and hotels and turned up a retired American doctor who assured me that I could be cured by a day of rest, a liquid diet that ideally would include prune juice.

I slept in, took a long hot bath, got a taxi to the next town, and I am taking care of myself today....reminding myself that I am a humble pilgrim. I guess it is a question of balance...cheeses, hymn singing, physical challenges...all in moderation.