Day 9: May 17, 2016 Grañón: The Donativo

 Grañón, Spain

May 17, 2016
Grañón
San Juan Bautista Donativo
18.9 miles, 41820 steps, 24 flights, 7:19 hr

I should have known better. The signs were all there.

Even the guidebook subtly substituted "mat" for "bed". The barefoot woman with the tie-dyed shawl and ankle bracelets skipping around the courtyard was another clear sign. But Ben and Linsey, my walking companions specifically wanted to stay at this albergue. To be honest, I did see the signs, but the other albergue in town was "completo". After a long day walking, my feet were hurting, and I wasn't up for another 5km to the next town.

So I found myself hearing the group orientation by a woman whose name I can only assume was Moonshine, or Stardust... you get the idea. She explained that this was not a "normal" albergue, but a donativo, where you pay what you can, or take what you need from the donation box. It was in the attic of the church, and run by volunteers. It was all quite dicey really. At normal albergues, they stamp your pilgrim passport, but Rainbow explained that they aren't even certified to have an official stamp.... so she drew a little heart in my passport to commemorate the visit.

Regardless of the casual, feel-good, free-spirit approach, there were lots and lots of rules to review- more than any other albergue I have encountered. The group collectively prepares a dinner and a breakfast funded by the donations from the previous day. There is a pilgrim's mass at 19:00, and after dinner there was a required group reflection and sharing session. The facilities were bare bones... a single toilet and shower for what was ultimately 45 people (they never close their doors) There were no beds, but mats on the floor of the church.

I had heard of donativos as I was preparing for the Camino, and anticipated participating at some point, simply as a unique cultural experience. This particular donativo apparently is famous, and many pilgrims specifically structure their journey in order to stay here. Some actually stayed in town for several days to participate for several days (generally you're not allowed to stay in a specific albergue for more than one day). So, I was game for a new experience; and well, there were no options.

That said, I probably didn't approach the evening with the right frame of mind. I was marked as an outcast early on when I confided that I was preparing an interpretive dance from "the Wind Beneath My Wings" for my "group sharing" session. When a woman near me raptured about this being the beginning of her "New Camino"... I pretended to misunderstand and asked about the practical aspects of a "nude Camino". I mean, do you wear socks? She was not amused.

As dinner was prepared, it was all I could do not to run. Imagine 45 enraptured pilgrims trying to prepare dinner by collective group process. I could tell it wasn't going to end well.

With dinner still only marginally prepared, we were trundled off to the pilgrims mass, which I have to admit was pretty cool. The church was beautiful and the priest called all the pilgrims to the front and gave what I assume was some sort of magic benediction.

Dinner was preceded by multiple rituals which included everyone sitting down (imagine trying to get 45 enraptured pilgrims to sit down), then immediately getting up to walk down the street to the bakery to sing (literally) for our bread (this really happened).

Then there was the prayer.

Again, taken alone, this would have been nice... something along the lines of: "in a world that is often dark and cold, we appreciate the yellow arrows leading to a place of peace and beauty." The prayer was then repeated in each pilgrim's native language. It's a beautiful sentiment, even in the first five languages, but this went on for 30 minutes as they searched through the group looking for any other language that could be spoken, before they started again with English and German (they forgot that these had already been covered before they got to Hungarian). The highlight for me was when they demanded that an old Asian man repeat the prayer in Chinese... He turned out to be from Japan and didn't speak Chinese... it simply didn't matter, they wanted the prayer read in Chinese. He should have just pretended.

Not un-expectedly, dinner wasn't served until near 10:00, which is quite late by pilgrim standards. This was followed by dish washing, then the promised reflection and sharing. Some pilgrims went on and on... I simply shared that my name was Brad, "I'm a Leo and my favorite color is blue". Again, a few muffled laughs... no new friends.

I'm not one for early morning departures, or missing any meal, but after an uncomfortable night on a mat with epic snoring and tuberculous coughing from the Japanese/Chinese man.... I was in no mood for breakfast. I got up and escaped before they could coerce me into the many breakfast rituals. Later, I was told the coffee machine didn't work...no surprise there!