PVCC Movie Night: “Walking El Camino”
On Friday, Sept. 15, PVCC held a movie night in the Dickinson Theater and presented a documentary called Walking El Camino: Six Ways to Santiago. The documentary talked about traveling from France to Spain over the course of several days. The walk consists of multiple days on foot where you can arrange when you start, where you are going to sleep, and how far you are going to walk on any given day. The walk consisted of over 764 kilometers from France to Spain and 828 kilometers from the North way to Spain.
We follow six individuals, who each have different motivations on why they are going on the walk to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. We are introduced to a mom who wants to take the walk with her brother so that he can find some sense of purpose, an American woman who wants to understand the culture and why people take the walk, and two other women who are trying to find a new purpose and meaning of life. We meet two other men; one of the men is trying to get over the loss of his wife, and the other is doing the walk for fun. As we follow them, we see how they grow in a spiritual way and let go of everything that they have held on to. We also see their struggles with how it affects their physical and mental capacity. The travelers either abandon the walk when they can’t go any further, or find more to life than they expected.
After the documentary, Professor of Spanish Dr. Jorge Grajales-Diaz took part in a Q&A where he talked about his experience walking El Camino. He has been on the walk three different times, twice taking the walk from France to Spain called El Camino Francés and once taking El Camino Del Norte to Spain. He talked about how El Camino Francés has fewer paved roads and has more dirt roads which makes the walk more challenging while El Camino Del Norte is more paved and is more beginner-friendly.
Grajales-Diaz also said that even though the documentary didn’t show it, there is technology being used in El Camino, but there are mixed emotions about it. He talked about how El Camino is a very social walk and it is hard to avoid interactions with other people. It is also a time to be exposed to new languages and cultures.
He also explained that using real-life examples like El Camino is also a great way to expand his students’ vocabulary. This gives them a chance to apply their vocabulary to a real-life situation. Grahales-Diaz also talked about how there are programs for students to walk and explore El Camino.
