Misery, and Mattresses

Want to know what pilgrim misery feels like?

First, walk 30 kilometers uphill, in the rain. With 8 kilos on your back.
Arrive at the mountaintop, and realize you don't have the money for a 10-Euro bed, not if you want to eat, too. Go to the place that accepts donations.
Check in. Eat a nice hot meal, take a hot shower, roll out your sleeping bag, wiggle inside, and take that first deep breath that says, aaaah, sleep! Roll over.

That first deep breath tells you that mattress has been hosting pilgrim bodies for, oh, maybe a couple of decades. Probably longer. And then the mattress starts to sag, right down the middle. You're enclosed on either side, like a wiener in a hot-dog bun.

Every mattresses in the place is shot. The albergue lives on donations, and a lot of the people who stay at "donativo" albergues are traveling for free, leaving nothing at all in the box. New mattresses would run 2,000 Euros or so, and they don't pull in that kind of money there.

You sleep just fine, because you're exhausted, but you wake up miserable. Everyone in the place wakes up miserable. You are not wet or hungry, but you're stiff and crooked.

A decent mattress would have made the difference.

You can make that difference for a pilgrim this year, like you did last summer at San Anton de Castrojeriz. Up in the mountains of Leon at Domus Dei de Foncebadon, they need new mattresses on their 18 pilgrim and 2 hospitalero beds. A new, decent-quality mattress costs about 100 Euro. A waterproof, bedbug-proof mattress cover costs another 20 Euro.

Can you step up again this year, people?
Peaceable is still not a non-profit organization, but that's in the works. Meantime, use the PayPal button up to the right, and give what you can to outfit another worthy place with a better night's sleep.

We won't fly your nation's flag outside, or put up a plaque with your name on it, but hundreds of tired pilgrims will bless your generosity. Anyone who wants an accounting will be given one for the asking, as well as I can provide.