Every Saturday we go to the market. We buy our vegetables, fruit, and often the meat we need for the coming week. As you can see, someone really enjoys her time and we are constantly making sure we have paid for everything she has dropped, licked, eaten, or placed in our market cart without our knowledge.

As we stood to leave they asked, “Are you from the States?”
We had just finished chatting with our friends in a coffee shop. It was our first time to the city of Astorga and we knew no one. That is when the couple in the next booth over posed their question. “Are you from the States?”
“Yes. Where are you from?”
“Minnesota.”
“What part? We are from Minnesota as well.”
“Minneapolis.”
“We lived in Edina for 6 years!”
“We live on the river downtown! We came to do the Camino…”
You never know who you will meet in the coffee shop!

It was Friday night at 8:50, and we found out that the next day would be a holiday, meaning that all the shops would be closed. That gave us ten minutes to do all our shopping before the stores closed for Friday night. We were having company over on Saturday and we run out of food on Fridays. Awesome…
So Saturday morning I went out to forage. What could I find to fill our pantry? We actually thought for a moment that we might have to serve cereal to our guests that evening, except we were almost out of cereal as well! I walked down to the mercadillo to see if anyone was open, and found one older lady who was cleaning out her musty storage area.
“Can I buy any of these vegetables?” I asked, pointing at several small piles of produce.
I ended up buying peppers, oranges, potatoes, and tomatoes, which was great. However, the whole process was part frightening and part hilarious.

Our dear benefactor would throw a bunch of vegetables into a bag (and I emphasis “throw”) and then use an ancient scale, followed up by more tossing into the bag. Another older gentleman who was caught in the lurch, but should have known better since he is from Ponferrada, told her, “careful!”
“No, no. It doesn’t hurt them.”

*The two of us just stare at each other.*

He asked for 10 kilos of potatoes and she weighed out 13 kilos for good measure. He paid her for 10.
I bought a bag of oranges and then she threw some rotten ones in as a “present.”

I walked away laughing and promising myself I would never again miss a holiday.

There has been a strike for the past week. Anytime there is a strike it is meant to communicate a message, but this one stinks. Literally.

 Garbage removal in Ponferrada is done by a government entity. As I understand it, there are cutbacks to the workforce due to the crisis here, and they are firing more garbage and cleaning personnel. In order to fight against the cuts in these areas, instead of others, the sanitation workers have decided not to collect the trash. So it sits there in the sun and rain, day and night. It stinks.

A few years ago Ponferrada was named as one of the cleanest cities in Spain. Not today.

Inside I have this driving desire to start up my own trash removal business. Well…I guess I wouldn’t say a “driving desire,” but more of a “hey-this-would-be-a-great-idea-for-someone-else-to-do” idea.

But that isn’t how things work in Spain. I am not here to offer a better system of garbage disposal or political change. There are deeper desires which move sanitation workers and politicians, and those deeper desires need a Healer. We all do.

I suppose until that happens there will be stinky streets every now and then.