She is not the usual person that I meet on the Camino. She is five-months pregnant. And hiking from Porto to Santiago!

Like other walkers, I find an alternating life-style on the Camino. I allow my solitary walking to be filled in ways that are renewing. I listen to the sounds around me; I find the visual stimulation of new surroundings unending; I find time to pray and meditate at my spirit’s own pace. I also love the conversations with other walkers. For brief coinciding moments, I and others share an experience. And, if we are fortunate, we can put that experience and our lives into focus.

Back to the unusual person that I met. The snatches of her story intrigue me. She is married. Both she and and her husband are professionals. She is a veterinarian in Germany; he is a professor of Engineering in Switzerland. Late summer they had hiked the Dolomites together. Now she had maternity leave; he was back teaching in the university. Whether it is from her being a professional or from some other source, I find her exude that quite confidence. She talks about her practice as a small animal veterinarian. . During covid, on the one hand, she found that cats were not bothered by her mask. Cats looked at her eyes. On the other hand, dogs panicked since they could not see her mouth. A good doctor notices differences like that! I sensed that she a competence not only in her profession, but also in life.

A day or two later in the afternoon I saw her again. This time she did not have that cheerful countenance that I had seen before. Instead, she was slumped over a cafe table, her head on her heads. When I joined her at the table not far off the path, she smiled as she greeted me. She could read my facial expression. “I’m okay. I think the heat and the distance simply got to me.” Since she had already called a taxi to take her four or five miles to her lodging for the night, I offered to join her in the taxi since I was going to the same city. “Sure. And I’m really okay.” As we waited for the taxi, we talked. She really was okay. She was aware that being pregnant simply meant that she couldn’t do what she usually could do. Her prior hiking in the Italian Dolomites with her husband showed that she was quite fit. Today though, she knew that she was simply tired. Tired and ready for a rest.

I find her fascinating. I don’t know her perspective on politics or on religion. Although I’m projecting, I see her as a modern woman, a modern person. Unlike others who have some obvious issues that accompany them on the Camino, I don’t detect any major issue with which she is dealing. Welll, okay, she and her husband’s life are about to change dramatically with the birth of a new baby. Maybe more appropriately, I don’t detect any major issue which hinders her, which scares her, which worries her. In addition, I don’t pick up anything about her approach to life. I can’t tell if she is an atheist, an agnostic, a Buddhist, a Christian, or simply a modern European secularist. Not a word used, not a criticism of someone else or some group, which might allow me to understand something of her stance on life.

Meeting people on the Camino is often brief and incomplete. Sometimes in that brief encounter, each of you come away with a partial understanding of the other. In meeting this cheerful and competent professional woman, I have a partial understanding. That is all. I certainly will have a prayer for her, her husband, and her forthcoming baby.