Upper School Teachers Walk 500-Mile El Camino de Santiago

Three years ago at a back-to-school barbecue, history teacher Amy Sapenoff and language teacher Chantal Cassan-Moudoud discovered they both had a dream of walking El Camino de Santiago, a network of trails through France and Spain.
On August 7 they completed this dream, arriving at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela after walking nearly 500 miles together from Cahors, France.

“Starting the walk, I felt like I was still in the dream phase and I was going to wake up at some point and find myself back in Maryland,” Cassan-Moudoud said. “The sense of how real it was and the feeling of accomplishment grew very slowly. The Camino certainly made me stronger and more confident.”

Sapenoff and Cassan-Moudoud began the walk on June 20, carrying camping supplies, including a tent, on their backs. They would later shed much of their camping gear, opting to stay in simple accomodations along the trail called gîtes.

While Cassan-Moudoud and Sapenoff spent most of the journey together, they also explored on their own. Sapenoff stayed for two days at a Benedictine monastery in Rabanal del Camino, where she ate and prayed with the monks.

“It was this moment of repose in the middle of walking when I could stop and think, ‘What has my experience been so far? What have I learned?’” she said. “I think it was this precious opportunity to reflect and carry that experience with me to the end.”

Sapenoff and Cassan-Moudoud agreed that the impact of walking El Camino will reveal itself over time, but for Sapenoff, it was a transformative achievement that has already shifted her perspective as she prepares to teach her classes this fall.

“The idea of walking this road together, sharing some experience and arriving at some destination - that’s what I want the experience of my classes to be,” Sapenoff said. “A shared experience of walking this path together with a destination in mind.”
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St. Andrew’s Episcopal School is a private, coeducational college preparatory day school for students in preschool (Age 2) through grade 12, located in Potomac, Maryland.