Sixteen days away, I wonder why am I going to spend sixteen days walking about 15 miles a day when it can be so painful?
Granted, I will not have two newly broken toes as I did last year (hence the white tape on the side of my left foot in the accompanying photograph), but the blisters and heat rash from the wool socks are a given. No matter what, it seems that one's feet suffer.
It's time to start coating them with tincture of benzoin, this brown, sticky and smelly stuff that turns your skin into leather and prevents blisters.
Unlike other years, I am going to stop walking from here on so as to save my feet. It's alternative forms of exercise.
Why do we do this?
In part, to use the words that CROP walkers say: 'We walk because they walk.'
So much of the world has to walk to get its water. It doesn't nicely flow from the tap whenever you want. And for multitudes, it doesn't even flow from a tap; it flows from a well down the road.
Think of how much time the population of the world, mostly women, spends going to get water.
And think of how much time school children spend walking to get to school. There are some communities in El Salvador that the Anglican Episcopal Church of El Salvador accompanies that get separated from the main road during the rainy season. It's a 5km walk to and from the main road and the children walk that so they can get to school.
So we walk because they walk.
