El Camino

No, not the car.

I walked to class this morning. (El camino means "the way" in Spanish) It was still dark when I left at 7 am, and a little bit cold outside. I made it to campus by 8, grabbed some coffee to kill some time, and then had class from 8:30 to 2:30. (Specific Grammar Problems, Discovering Spain, Conversation and Lecture, and Art in the Prado Museum.) And then I walked back home, with a rather warm sun in the sky and a slightly heavier bag (we bought our books today.) I stopped at a grocery store on the way, and paid significantly less for my groceries than I have been at the other grocery store. (I will be returning to this one.) And then I carried my three bags of groceries the rest of the way to my apartment. The walk, excluding my time in the grocery store, takes an hour. About twenty minutes of it was with three bags of groceries.

People keep asking me why I walk everywhere. You're probably wondering, too. I had a Metro ticket in my pocket. I passed ten different Metro stops. It would have been really easy to just hop on the Metro and be home in twenty minutes, instead of an hour. So, why walk?

Well, partly because the weather here is beautiful. Partly because I really enjoy walking. Partly because I am a foreign exchange student and I honestly have nothing better to be doing with my time, anyway. But mostly? Because I can.

Every day I pass people on the street, handicapped and unable to go anywhere unless someone is willing to come and help them. You would not believe the amount of poverty and sickness that exists in this city. Well, maybe you would. But I have never seen anything like it before.

I have been given such an incredible gift, here. I've been blessed to be able to study abroad, to live in another country, to learn another language. I've been blessed with two legs that work, and all the time in the world to use them. I've been blessed with a heart for this city, and a desire to walk its streets, so I can meet and pray for its people as I go. So I can honestly look this city in the eye, and love it for all its worth. So I am not tempted to ignore the 'ugly' parts of the city, but am listening to what God has to teach me in the parts of this world that everyone else ignores.

So, I think I'll keep walking.