After completing my Hopitalera training with Richard and Eileen in January 2024 I was keen to volunteer. After applying to the organization, a few weeks later, I was offered a placement in Salamanca. After some discussion with the organizer I was given a different placing in the Albergue in Ponferrada. The Albergue in Ponferrada can accommodate 160 pilgrims, so you can imagine how large it is. It is a very nice building with lovely outside space with seating areas under shade and lawns with colourful flower beds.
I was due to begin my volunteer duties on a Monday morning so it was suggested that arriving the day before would be a good idea.
I was flying from Hungary to Madrid then a train to Leon and then onto Ponferrada. Having factored all the travel, I discovered that there wasn’t a suitable train over the weekend and ended up arriving on the Friday night. I was offered a bed in a dorm for the first three nights but would transfer to my own room when the present volunteers left.
On the Saturday morning I began working with the volunteers I would be replacing.
I asked If there was a written work schedule I could look at but was told no there wasn’t one. There were certain jobs that had to be done at certain times and shifts that needed to be covered but the new volunteers would have to sort the roster out for themselves.
I worked out that one volunteer needed to be up and ready at 6am to unlock the doors and farewell the leaving pilgrims.
The other three volunteers were to be ready at 7am to go through the dorms and suggest the pilgrims start getting ready to leave. Then again at 7.30am while continuing wishing the ones leaving a Buen Camino and checking they hadn’t left clothes on the washing line or their poles behind.
So that was the work part. I decided early on that I would work anywhere and help anyone else if I had finished the jobs assigned to me as I wanted a happy cooperative environment during my stay. On my first official day I took the job of cleaning the dorms. I worked quickly and was soon able to help with jobs assigned to others. I was able to do this as I don’t speak Spanish and none of my fellow volunteers spoke English. So I wasn’t chatting and having conversations like the others. Nousa, a Brazilian volunteer who spoke Portuguese Spanish and knew some vocabulary but could not hold a conversation. The two men – Antionio and Caesar spoke only Spanish and often they couldn’t understand Nousa.
Our saving grace was Google Translate. It was a novelty at first but of course that wore off and the two men would resort to telling Nousa what they wanted Nousa to relate to me and she would then Google it. It is quite different to Spanish and the translating was often amusing. We had a lot of laughs.
I took every afternoon shift as although there were few native English speakers, most people from Asia had a English as their second language and often other nationalities who could not speak Spanish knew some English. So I made myself available throughout the day and evening to process any English speaking pilgrims as they came along. I would do the afternoon shifts with alternating volunteers then on the evening shifts I would sit outside reading or writing and make myself available when any English speakers needed to be registered.
We all worked well together and the work got done with lots of smiles and laughter. We covered shifts for one another when family members visited so they could spend the day and evening away from the Albergue.
Ponferrada is a very nice town with lots of high end shops as well as small stores. It has lots of green space and history.
The Knights Templar Castle is very interesting to visit and in the summer they hold re-enactments and the male volunteers at the Albergue get to dressed up in armour and take part in an evening performance.
I was very moved on my last day. My fellow hospitaleros had left and I had been working for three days with a new set of volunteers. We had just finished breakfast when several speeches were made all in Spanish (none of the new hospitaleros spoke English) and my name figured high in these speeches. Then all of a sudden twelve voices started singing in unison and swaying with their arms in the air and waving at me. After it was over one of them typed into Google Translate that the song was a traditional farewell song, sang to family and friends when they were leaving to go away somewhere. I received quite a few small gifts from my old and new hospitalero friends.
Would I do it again? Yes, but with the proviso that I had another volunteer whose first language was English. It was a long time to go with little to no conversations.
A few special things about the Albergue was the lovely little chapel at the end of the garden. It had the most beautiful circular ceiling with painted scenes, mostly in blue. Every night they held a pilgrims mass and acknowledged each pilgrim present and asked from which country they came from.
On the Night of st Jean there was a concert held in the church. Before it started the priest arrived and behind him several parishioners carried a statue. The statue had been paraded around the town followed by the local people. Later, I went into the church to listen to the music and beautiful singing . One-of the ladies who came in on a week day to help us clean was in the choir. Afterwards the choir and some of the towns people came into the gardens to share drinks and food with the clergy, hospitalarios and pilgrims.
After a little time some of the choir started singing traditional songs and many of us ended up dancing. It was a good night.
Because we had such good outside space and gardens, in the evening we had many sing alongs as on different nights, one or two pilgrims would get out their guitars and play and the music would be taken up and many songs sang. One night the priest got out his guitar and joined in.
Other nights an Italian or Spanish guy would cook up a storm and invite everyone to join the group and the hospitalarios to eat together.
Marina Knowles




Marina pictured with her fellow Hospis and locals. Marina seated in the middle of the front row.

