When I was having these interviews in Spanish, there were definitely grammatical errors on my part, and people were patient and also excited to share their experiences. “They were also understanding of me as someone who’s learning Spanish. “I wanted to hear a lot of people’s stories and I think most people were open with that and happy to talk,” she said. She conducted about half the interviews in Spanish, and wrote her SIP in Spanish, which was challenging and important in her Spanish learning progression. ![]() O’Rielly ended up interviewing 15 hikers from all over the world, including Spain, the U.S., New Zealand, Ireland and Argentina. Most pilgrims were open and friendly, willing to be interviewed and to share their stories. O’Rielly plans her journey along the Camino de Santiago. “A lot of people will walk the whole day alone, and then come together, gather, share a meal, play cards, and get to know other walkers in these hostels.” “I wanted those conversations to happen more organically, and I did talk to people that way, but those conversations specifically for my SIP happened mainly in the albergues, which is the main community aspect of the Camino,” O’Rielly said. She would also conduct interviews for her SIP. In the evenings, O’Rielly would reconnect with her friends and other pilgrims in the towns and albergues along the route. Well-marked with yellow arrows, the Camino passes through a range of landscapes as well as many small towns where pilgrims stop at cafes to eat or at albergues (hostels along the route) to stay the night. The path varies in style and surroundings, ranging from mountainous dirt trail to flat gravel path to narrow road shoulder. Some days she listened to the sounds of nature other days, the rhythm of traffic at times, she plugged into music on her phone, especially a folk band from Ohio called Caamp, which released a new album while she was walking. She carried a backpack with a change of clothes, a sleeping bag liner, a guidebook and lots of water.ĭuring the day, O’Rielly did a lot of solo walking, often starting off with two friends who joined her on the Camino before each settled into their own pace and thoughts. to get the day’s miles walked before the heat of the day. She battled heat rash, sunburn, dehydration and blisters, often rising by 4 a.m. “A lot of the time, the sun was very intense and there wasn’t a lot of shade.” “It was pretty unbearable some days,” O’Rielly said. August wasn’t much better, with an average daily high of 81˚F and a peak of 100˚F. That July, the average daily high was 85˚F, with the hottest day reaching 106˚F. Jean-Pied-du-Port in France to the cathedral in Santiago, in the heat of summer. O’Rielly walked the Camino Francés, the most popular route, which stretches about 500 miles, or 800 kilometers, from St. Although some of those walkers continue to be religious pilgrims, many now walk for a variety of more secular reasons. ![]() Since the 1990s, the Camino de Santiago has regained the popularity it had in the Middle Ages, with hundreds of thousands walking the route each year. ![]() It began in the ninth century and became a major pilgrimage route of medieval Christianity by the 10th century. James, is a network of pilgrimage routes leading to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain, where tradition holds that the remains of the Biblical apostle St. The Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. O’Rielly wrote her SIP in Spanish and in four parts, focusing on the historical context of the Camino de Santiago, the shift toward more secular pilgrimages and increase in use, the impact of the pandemic on the Camino and on tourism in Spain, and O’Rielly’s interview findings and personal reflections. The SIP process helped O’Rielly reflect and gain perspective on community, solitude and relationships during her last year on the Kalamazoo College campus-which was also her first full year on campus, due to a college experience upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. O’Rielly’s sweltering passage along the ancient pilgrimage route Camino de Santiago, and the interviews she conducted with other walkers along the way, formed the basis for her Spanish Senior Integrated Project (SIP), Caminando el Camino: Una experiencia de comunidad. July 2022 was the hottest calendar month in Spain since records were first kept in 1961. It was also the month that Fiona O’Rielly ’23 set out on a 500-mile hike across Spain. O’Rielly walks during her first day at the Pyrenees mountain range along the Camino de Santiago.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |