Why the preoccupation with the virgin?
In 1494 a German pilgrim came along the camino. He rode on horse to Burgos, then parked his horse and switched to a mule. He complained that in Spain you have to sleep on the floor, you have to eat barley, and you will find no oats or hay for your horse. "In summary, Spain is a terrible place."
So at least I´m not the only pilgrim to complain about this place. One of the pleasures of being a non-practicing anthropologist is that I can take off my cultural-relativism dress from time to time. Nation of nervous gerbils!
Yesterday the librarian called the police on me. I had walked through the open front door and begun doing research (on the German, among others) in the open conference room, when a policeman came up to me. He was gentle enough, but still. How embarrassing in front of the 90-year-old woman beside me doing her daily reading of the encyclopedia.
"So the door is open but you´re closed?" I asked. Sounds like a Hindu puzzle. Take me to prison for doing research motherfucker!
He explained the rules, asked where I was saying, looked over the books I was reading.
When he left, I went to the librarian, one of millions of nervous gerbils inhabiting this forsaken peninsula, and asked, "Was it really necessary to call the police on me? How can a man concentrate on the Middle Ages when he had just had a policeman touch his arm?"
"But you cannot be in the building before 5 p.m.," she said.
"Why don´t you post the hours outside. Nothing is indicated there. I walked in through an open door."
"Everyone in town knows the hours."
"But for 1,000 years you have had foreigners passing through here, and like me, they might not know the hours." I was feeling like a German and not happy about it.
So, my second run-in with the police on this trek. Back in Roncesvalles, the first stop of the trek after crossing the mountains dividing France and Spain, I was briefly suspected of murder.
That´s because I was the last person to see a Quebecoise before she disappeared near the summit, by the Virgin Mary statue. I had mounted a rescue operation, leading ten men in my rusty Spanish, maps spread out on the table like a general. "This is where I think she fell off the trail!" I barked.
As journalists know, firemen are nicer than cops. The rescue workers dashed off to find her, and the cops stayed behind to interrogate me.
"You were together until the virgin?" one asked.
"Yes."
"What was your motive in separating at that point?"
"I wanted to write in my journal. She wanted to keep going. She´s a very independent woman."
"Where did you separate?"
"By the virgen, virgin, vierge," I was still wrestling with the word virgin, and half my words came out French.
Another cop entered. "Why this preoccupation with the virgin?" he asked.
"That´s where they separated," another cop answered.
Eventually she was found asleep at the refuge where we´d begun the day in France. She´d gotten lost, and a kind man sent by Virgin Mary had driven her back to the inn.
It was the second time I was the last person to see a woman on a trail before she´d gotten lost. Both were found, I swear. The first was in Alaska, a woman from Houston who passed me along a trail north of Fairbanks, then disappeared for a week. I was in California when I read about her recovery.
So at least I´m not the only pilgrim to complain about this place. One of the pleasures of being a non-practicing anthropologist is that I can take off my cultural-relativism dress from time to time. Nation of nervous gerbils!
Yesterday the librarian called the police on me. I had walked through the open front door and begun doing research (on the German, among others) in the open conference room, when a policeman came up to me. He was gentle enough, but still. How embarrassing in front of the 90-year-old woman beside me doing her daily reading of the encyclopedia.
"So the door is open but you´re closed?" I asked. Sounds like a Hindu puzzle. Take me to prison for doing research motherfucker!
He explained the rules, asked where I was saying, looked over the books I was reading.
When he left, I went to the librarian, one of millions of nervous gerbils inhabiting this forsaken peninsula, and asked, "Was it really necessary to call the police on me? How can a man concentrate on the Middle Ages when he had just had a policeman touch his arm?"
"But you cannot be in the building before 5 p.m.," she said.
"Why don´t you post the hours outside. Nothing is indicated there. I walked in through an open door."
"Everyone in town knows the hours."
"But for 1,000 years you have had foreigners passing through here, and like me, they might not know the hours." I was feeling like a German and not happy about it.
So, my second run-in with the police on this trek. Back in Roncesvalles, the first stop of the trek after crossing the mountains dividing France and Spain, I was briefly suspected of murder.
That´s because I was the last person to see a Quebecoise before she disappeared near the summit, by the Virgin Mary statue. I had mounted a rescue operation, leading ten men in my rusty Spanish, maps spread out on the table like a general. "This is where I think she fell off the trail!" I barked.
As journalists know, firemen are nicer than cops. The rescue workers dashed off to find her, and the cops stayed behind to interrogate me.
"You were together until the virgin?" one asked.
"Yes."
"What was your motive in separating at that point?"
"I wanted to write in my journal. She wanted to keep going. She´s a very independent woman."
"Where did you separate?"
"By the virgen, virgin, vierge," I was still wrestling with the word virgin, and half my words came out French.
Another cop entered. "Why this preoccupation with the virgin?" he asked.
"That´s where they separated," another cop answered.
Eventually she was found asleep at the refuge where we´d begun the day in France. She´d gotten lost, and a kind man sent by Virgin Mary had driven her back to the inn.
It was the second time I was the last person to see a woman on a trail before she´d gotten lost. Both were found, I swear. The first was in Alaska, a woman from Houston who passed me along a trail north of Fairbanks, then disappeared for a week. I was in California when I read about her recovery.
posted by Thon at 2:13 AM
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