Monday, October 31, 2011

Day 32: Thin

I woke up thin one day, hardly noticing until it was made clear to me. The first indication came in the form of a slight wardrobe malfunction at my morning coffee break. When I unclipped the hipbelt of my pack, I didn't realize that the weight of my pack had the effect of a plumber's belt on his jeans... a bit cool back there and several patrons noticed. I must more snugly tie the drawstring on my spandex-y hiking pants.

More notable has been the reaction of the priests, nuns, village ladies and even the barmen. They've all been foisting food on me like I'm a growning teenage boy. It's been like this since last Wednesday, the same day as the wardrobe malfunction.

I'd put on weight over the summer in preparation of the first series of mountains I knew I'd have to cross. Put some fuel in reserve, was the plan. It worked. Those mountains are behind me and I'm lean and strong again - down about 15 pounds - and forever miniature, eye to eye with typical 10-year-olds. Eating more won't make me the size of an average adult.

I'm being given a lot of food, so much I can't eat it all... this is the current content of the deli I'm now carrying: two sticks of salami, 3 bocadillas (1 egg and potato, 1 cheese, 1 serrano ham), a round of sheeps cheese the size of three hockey pucks, a tin of mackerel in olive oil, a 200-gram bar of milk chocolate and whole almonds, and a sleeve of chocolate-covered tea biscuits. In the fruit section that are the outside mesh pockets are 2 clementiness, 2 oranges, 1 lime, 1 apple, 1 pear, 1 pomagranite and an assortment of nuts in the shell.

For the mid-morning coffee break this morning, I opened the bag of goodies the nuns sent me off with and found 2 pots of yoghurt, 1 pot of chocolate pudding, 2 hardboiled eggs, 2 muffins, 1 tomato and 1 cucumber. I had to eat it all, none of it really suitable for carrying. I wasn't even hungry.

This is definitely an off-camino condition. I encourage the feed-the-pilgrim campaign, I just wish I were more up to the task of eating it all. I've begun looking around for potential guests for the candlelight supper I'd like to host. I foresee a cycle here - the more food I'm given but can't eat, the more I'll have to carry, the more weight I'll lose, the more food I'll be given. Wash, rinse, repeat. A pilgrim with too much food - life's not so bad here on the trail!

5 comments:

ksam said...

I find the learning not to eat like a pilgrim afterwards, the most difficult part of the whole deal!

Anonymous said...

MATTHIEU DE lAMAZELLE started from Paris may 18th. He finally succeed in crossing Syria through Alep & LATAQUIA AND IS GOING TO ENTER Lebanon today, Should be in al Quds and of the month. Ultreai and Shalom to all Jerusalem Pilgrims !!! andreweill.fr

Anonymous said...

Sounds all too fabulous - being thin and having too much too eat. Sounds as if everything is as it should be - no snow to walk through or ice to chop. We miss you, but so happy you are putting one foot in front of the other (all too quickly)!

Anonymous said...

If you have the time, it would be interesting if you could say a little about choosing your route.

You only walk on standard pilgrim paths sometimes, the rest of the time you make your own way, which of course is excellent. But does this mean you are mostly road walking?

Maps or GPS? - (which everybody seems to have now, bar me).

Ta!

Juan María said...

¡Hola Ann!
Uno o dos días más y se abrirá todo un nuevo mundo para tí,¡sólo para valientes y decididas como tú!
Que el Dios de los cristianos, musulmanes, y judios, que es el mismo y único Dios, esté en tu camino en África.
¡Buen camino!