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The founder of a newspaper for children will embark on a pilgrimage at Easter to raise funds for a Kensington school.


A Joburg man will walk the Santiago pilgrimage barefooted for 10 days to raise funds for his children’s school.

St James Preparatory School in Kengsington is the school that will benefit from Duncan Guy’s walk.

A daring Guy, founder and news editor of the South African Press Association’s primary school newspaper, Learn the News, will next Easter holidays walk the Portuguese leg of the famous pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

“For centuries, pilgrims have tackled the route to one of Christianity’s most holy shrines at Santiago de Compostela, in northwest Spain,” Guy said. “The biggest sinners and the biggest saints are known to do the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela barefoot.”

Even though he did not disclose how much he is hoping to raise, Guy said he is hoping to raise “enough”.

“I am going to start a campaign for people to sponsor me, for every day I walk I will get paid for it,” he said.

Talking about being prepared for the walk, Guy said, “I do not think that [the walk] is a body thing but the main thing is to prepare my feet and the logistics, with my goal being to make this trip as simple as possible and with the cheapest budget.

“There is a formula. The more uncomfortable and cheaper your way of travel is, the wealthier you will be in stories when you come home.”

To make sure that he is well prepared for the walk next year, Guy coordinates a Joburg walk that takes place every second Saturday of the month. He does the walk barefooted.

The walk starts at Euro Coffee Restaurant, Darras Centre in Kengsington. From the centre the walkers go over Langemann Kop, where they can see Joburg from the top of the hill.

Once up the hill, the group also stop near conglomerate rocks and talk about the rocks and their history.

“The rocks are the remains of a river that ran through 2 400 million years ago,” Guy explained. “There were all sorts of earth movements that changed the landscape and so the remains of the river is just in these rocks.”

Upon leaving the hill, the walkers head for Jeppe Boys High to view its “beautiful” buildings and discuss its history. The two-hour walk ends at the St James Preparatory School.

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela, Santiago de Compostela was originally founded by the Suebi in the early 400s, as part of the collapse of the Roman Empire. Then, in 584 AD the whole settlement, together with the rest of Galicia and northern Portugal, was incorporated by Leovigild into the Visigothic kingdom of Spain.

Raided from 711 to 739 by the Arabs, Santiago de Compostela was finally recaptured by the Visigothic king of Asturias in 754, about 60 years before the identification of remains as those of Saint James the Great, and their acceptance as such by the Pope and Charlemagne, during the reign of Alfonso II of Asturias.

From then on, this settlement was considered by the faithful not just a city, but a holy city, and one of the main centres of Christian pilgrimage, rivalled only by Rome itself and the Holy Land.

For more information about the walk and to find out more about sponsoring the pilgrimage, contact Guy on 083 894 4978 or send an email to trishguy@webmail.co.za

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