Be Careful What You Ask For!

So....a bit of follow-up on some of my ( brief) Camino experiences...

After meeting the "Boob - oggling young priest" on the bus to Logrono my narrative mind got to wandering...What if I had accepted his offer and gone to stay the night at his albergue? In reality...probably nothing much...but still, I've been wanting to write a one, or two hander for a while and got to thinking perhaps this might be of interest...So what would happen? I got to daydreaming various story possibilities...Unfortunately I don't know a lot of priests...I know NONE, and so it was difficult to imagine the answers a priest might give to my many questions. I settled on the idea that, once I return to Toronto I will have to try to find a YOUNG priest that might be willing to answer some of my questions about celibacy, becoming a priest, being a young priest in a modern world, etc....Done.

So...I take my day of rest in Logrono and the next day, hop a bus to Burgos on the edge of the Meseta. I find the albergue with the help of my cab driver...and end up there an hour before they are letting pilgrims in. So, I sit myself down at a pic nic table for a bit of lunch: bread and a tin of sardines. Ah - but of course the tab on the tin can breaks off without opening the can at all. Typical. I was not too worried though, as I had a knife with me which I pulled out and proceeded to try stabbing into the lid of the can. By the way - we're talking a simple jack-knife that folds to close...You all know what's coming!

The knife folds in half on my second stab and slices right into my pointer finger on my right hand! Oh - and it was DEEP too! I immediately stuck my finger in my mouth, grabbed the knife and headed towards the office of the albergue. I grabbed the knife to show them what I'd cut myself with because none of the men in the office spoke English. There was a couple at the table next to me..and the woman sensed something was wrong and gave me a curious look. The couple spoke only German. I showed her my finger, which gushed blood as soon as I took it out of my mouth...I started to cry. The woman came with me into the office and we showed the man my finger. MORE BLOOD! Thankfully blood, tears and the offending jack-knife were universal in their message!

The man brought out, much to my dismay, a wad of cotton....Not tightly packed cotton - it looked more like cotton candy! He pressed it to my finger for a bit, and when he pulled it away to have a look wisps and threads of cotton were stuck all over my finger and inside my cut! So there I was crying, switching back and forth between French and English with a German woman trying to keep me calm and a Spanish man filling the gash in my finger with cotton bits. It all got dealt with. The Germans has some adhesive sutures and the Spanish man had iodine....What I was not able to convey was my concern that it was a deep cut that might need stitches....I calmed down, got bandaged and finished my lunch. The Spanish man opened my sardines and put them on a plate for me!

I went back into the office to see if I might be able to better communicate - and there was a young man there who spoke Spanish and English!!! Joy!!! I told him what had happened and that I thought I might need stitches. He translated for me and we found out there was a clinic 30 minutes away that would treat pilgrims for free. I felt a bit overwhelmed by the idea of trying to get treatment on my own, he sensed this and offered to come with me and be my translator.

So - we set out along the path by the river. He introduced himself as Albert. Guess what Albert does?! Well, he's a YOUNG, catholic priest as fate would have it! Crazy! I told him about the priest on the bus ( minus the boob part) and how I was thinking about writing a play...but that I needed to ask a priest a bunch of questions...Albert said, "Feel free to ask me anything you want. I'd be happy to talk with you".!!!!!

We had a GREAT talk all the way to the clinic and back. ( didn't need stitches - just some more adhesive sutures and a tetanus shot)...AND he gave me his email address in case I have other questions. It turns out that Albert is a priest in New York - and has invited me to be in touch with him if I ever get to New York!

Ask and ye shall receive! ( I could have done without the sliced open finger...but still...)

More later....