Marrakech u L8R

Damn Africa, What happened?

But in all seriousness, I fell in love with this place, and its people.

Story time:

So Mauricio and I were walking back to our souk (kind of like a b&b) in the Medina (the old city, it's surrounded by a wall), and I slipped a patch of slippery cobblestones. I didn't think much of it at the time, but we walked for a few more minutes and I noticed my foot was slipping on my sandal. I looked down and saw that my sandal was pooling with blood. It was late on Saturday night and all the pharmacies were closed. I knew we were only a few minutes away from our souk, so we decided to head towards it.

Moments later, the blood in my shoe started pooling over the sides, and we knew that the problem was more serious than we thought. We walked towards an ice cream stand on the side of the road to ask for napkins, and when seeing my foot, the shop owner immediately sprung into action. He made me sit down on a stool and took off shoes for me. He bandaged my feet and put herbs on it to stop the bleeding. With what little supplies he had, he wrapped my foot and kept it from the many infections all over the dirty roads. He then cleaned my shoes for me of blood, and when I tried to pay him for his services, he just shook his head at me and sent me on my way.

While he was taking care of me, children were coming up to his stand and being sent away. When someone's livelihood depends on what little they sell during the day, it really said a lot to me that helping a stranger meant more to him than the money he would have made that night, even though it was money to feed his family and buy food for the coming day.

We are really lucky, having what we have in the world.

Sometimes it's good to take a step back and appreciate it.