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"I´ve now been hospitalera more times than I´ve been a pilgrim, but I try to keep both sides in mind. I think the big decider is Money.
>The hospitalero who is doing this as "just a job" (like some in Galicia, on government payroll) eventually cuts corners on cleanliness, and minimizes his exposure to real pilgrims. He´s more a janitor than anything else, as he gets paid the same no matter what kind of job he does. Some private albergue owners get this way -- a pilgrim is not a pilgrim anymore, he´s a Revenue Source.
>The one who´s there on a rota, the "Tuesday volunteer" for the local confraternity, she´s probably nice some days and tough others. She´s living her life, with all its frictions, in addition to attending to pilgrims for the sake of her social standing or out of fellow-feeling. Her family and community get the best of her energies, and the pilgrims get what´s left over, seeing as they are strangers she will never again encounter.
>There´s the Old Hand, who´s been a hospitalero voluntario since 1950 and knows it all and is gonna keep every "so-called pilgrim" in LINE with what he considers "Pilgrim." He thinks everyone´s got to be the same Pilgrim he was. (No one is more self-absorbed than a pilgrim. Hospitaleros know that, and smart ones know not to share too much of their own camino experience.. . it´s not about them anymore. It´s the pilgrim´s pilgrimage!)
>There´s the burned-out hospitalero, who´s been at this for so long without a good break that each pilgrim looks identical to the next. They get a smile and a bandaid and a meal, but little more, because the hospitalero just is out of fuel.
>The other 80% are heartfelt volunteers who are sane people doing an amazing thing for no apparent recompense. Some are moms and dads in search of needy "children," others are martyrs, mystics, saints-in-training, neo-Templars, and neurotics of several types. Many more are just decent, upstanding people. You are often greeted by folks operating in a second language, who have not had enough sleep, dealing with worn-out pilgrims in extraordinary places.
Friction is inevitable. Wacko people are no fun in the present, but once they´re in your past they make for much more memorable and exciting stories to tell your friends back in the predictable old Holiday Inn universe.
Be kind of all hospitaleros. Even the wackos. That may be you someday!"
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