We took an easy morning with breakfast made by our Airbnb host. It was so good, and I LOVED the variety of healthy foods. Then we caught a taxi to the Ben Youssef University. It was a university in the 1500s and beyond. It was beautiful. It was a little hard to get to. We got turned around once and had to walk through a real neighborhood market with raw meat hanging on hooks and little breads in carts. I loved the little dorm areas in the university. We found two little closet like offices that had windows that you could open for air or to talk to your neighbor. It was fun and SO HOT. We were all pretty sweaty and made sure to drink lots of water. There was a calligrapher there that wrote our names in Arabic. Then we found a quick restaurant down a touristy street. It was good. All of us ate something cooked, except Ada, who ate a raw salad that I think caused food poisoning later. She threw up all night and into the next morning.
After the university, we headed to the markets. There were three main markets that we wanted to see. We made it thoroughly through the first one and then a quick walk through the next two. The last one was the most touristy of the three. It was interesting. Most of the little stores had themes. Every couple of stalls had clothes, some had pottery, some had wooden things, some had scarves, etc... Then you'd get into the specialty sections of the markets. One specialty was spices, one was leather goods, one was dyes, one was metal work. Ada LOVED the dyes. I love the wood working things. Jer loved the pottery ones and Evelyn liked stuff that she wanted to buy for her friends. I like the sentiment, but I really didn't want to buy and pack 5-10 items for friends. I had limited myself to 2. Ada liked the earrings, but some of the vendors are pushier than she likes. We tried to explain to the kids the idea of bartering and a poker face. Seth started that way. He found a turban that he wanted to buy. The guy wanted $10 for it.... Seth countered with $1. It was really funny. He didn't end up getting the turban, but the store owner tried to walk Ada and I through bartering without just giving us the best price. It was funny. He'd say, "This is the price, but if you buy 3, I'll give you a better price.... Now you're supposed to tell me a price...." It was fun and I've always stunk at bartering. I've always wanted to give people what they've earned. It was a very hot day, but the market is mostly shaded. My favorite booth, Uncle Seth was buying some clothes to go with the clothes he bought in Jordan. Ada wanted some pants, so we dressed up in clothes and took pictures. We did buy 3 items from him, and we were all great. Because we had waiting periods for some people waiting while others looked at what they wanted, we pulled out our portable chair and took turns on it. Some of the vendors asked how much we would sell it to them for. It was our last day. I should have bartered for something about the same size and weight. The chair was very useful though. It fits in a backpack, can hold up to 400 lbs. and is fast to collapse. I could sit on it and have a kid sit on me without being afraid of falling. One of the bartering fails that we had, we were looking at a woodworking shop. Seth and Sam both found something that they really liked. The begged and begged instead of letting Jer and I help them barter for them. We ended up spending a lot more at that shop. We should have walked to the next woodshop down and tried again, but we were tired at that time and just ready to be done.
Once we were done shopping, we stopped to go to the bathroom at a store and got some drinks too. Then we found our way through the other two markets and to the taxi stand. On the way, the sun started to set, and I started to get nervous being out that late with the kids. The taxis were always "just one more plaza" ahead.... all the vendors just motioned us to keep going. We did get to see the biggest night market they have. That was something we hadn't planned on, but it was really pretty. We could finally see the taxi stand when two "performers" with monkeys on leashes caught Ada's eye. She didn't know that if you take pictures with them, you have to pay them. So, she let one get on her shoulder and she took a picture. I knew that we'd have to pay them at that point, so I let the other kids hold the monkeys too. I'd warned the kids of pick pockets, and I've seen people use monkeys for that too.... because of that, I was watching very carefully. The one guy and his monkey did try to lift Evelyn's backpack flap, but she had it securely buckled up and they didn't keep trying. Jer and I were out of cash, so Uncle Seth offered them the last 200 that we had in exchange for the pictures. It's not very much... that's a little over $2. The guys got really mad and aggressive. Jer tried to give him the 200 Durham again saying that we didn't have any more and I watched as the guy tried grabbing at Jer's watch. It was on pretty securely and I told Jer to watch his watch and wallet. The guy started demanding 3000 for each of them (That would have been $60 for 3 pictures) and asked Uncle Seth why a good Muslim man like him would deny them food and money. Seth just laughed and said that he wasn't Muslim, that we had tried to pay them what we could and that it hadn't been accepted by them. We then tried to offer to delete the pictures and walk away, but the guy started getting aggressive with Jer. I finally grabbed the 200 and shoved it into the man's hand and told him very firmly that we were done shopping, we didn't have any more and I was taking my family home. I think he realized that we were telling the truth because he took the 200 and let us walk away. I yelled at Evelyn too though. I'm sorry about that one. My fight or flight kicked in, Seth and Jer were able to kind of corral themselves around the other 3 kids.... especially Ada because the monkey man was a little aggressive towards her (maybe because she looks like a young adult and might have been expected to have her own money apart from us). Evelyn didn't really realize what was going on and had started wandering the other way. I yelled at her to get over to us and grabbed her hand while we got out of there. I feel bad for yelling, but in my Momma mind I felt that we were in danger. We made our way to an ATM because we needed money to take the taxi and for the next morning as well. We tried 3 different ATMs and finally found one that would work. After the monkey man, I was on edge and put into practice what I'd learned in Kenya and Ecuador. I left Uncle Seth huddled with the kids (with strict instructions to the kids that they stay right with Uncle Seth) and stood next to Jer looking out behind him at the ATM so that there was no opportunity for anyone to get too close without us knowing. The taxi driver was the best one that we had in Morocco. He knew exactly the corner that we wanted, gave us the price upfront and didn't charge more for extra people or take unnecessary routes to get more money. He left us at the opening of the old town where we were staying. We grabbed a quick dinner and walked back to our Airbnb. Ada had not wanted dinner and started crying. I figured that she'd been startled and felt guilty. She kept apologizing for picking up the monkey. I told her it was definitely not her fault. Now she knows what might happen if she gets into that situation again and that we were all okay. Turns out that she had food poisoning and was up sick all night... hence the crying. My adrenaline only started to go back down when the doors were all locked and I could see all my kids' shoes all over the floor. It was harder on me than the pick pocket in Seville was. That one, no one was actually in danger.... they just tried to take things that were easy to take. This one was not like that. It felt aggressive and dangerous. Jer made the comment that he noticed that the other vendors didn't really like the monkey guys, they kept shooing them away and making rude comments to them. I knew that this would happen at least once in Morocco and I'm glad that it was just once. I'm also glad that my kids got to experience it without getting hurt. It's good for them to learn safety precautions under their parents before going off on missions or other things. In the end, I was grateful for our safety, grateful for having 3 adults, grateful that Seth speaks Arabic, and grateful that the experience was a learning experience for the kids with no damage done. (I don't know if I wrote about the Seville pick pocket. We were waiting at the bus stop. We had three bags with us, Jer's backpack, Ada's bag and my camera. We were sitting together as a group, and I saw a guy looking behind me and rubbing his face instead of looking for the bus that should be coming from the other direction... so I figured he was one of two pick pockets.... I put my bag in front of me and told Ada and Jer to watch theirs. Sure enough, my outer pocket was open, and another lady started yelling that her phone was missing. It was very obvious which woman was working with the guy. The lady with the missing phone and her husband cornered her and the man and started yelling for the police. The phone was eventually given back, and everyone got on the bus. Little do they know that my wallet and phone are kept in my bra, and I only keep pads and Kleenex in my camera bag outer pocket. Ada was often someone that I would have targeted if I had been the pickpocket... I kept having to tell her to watch her bag or to put her wallet in her zippered pocket in her pants. She was a little more careful after this instance. I kept trying to walk right behind her so that no one else could slip into her bag, but Ada's a lot faster than me.)
One of the neat things about Marrakech was the very ordinary and extraordinary faith. Faith is part of life for me, so it felt natural to see so many people with faith in God. The extraordinary part was seeing them in person walking to the mosque or closing their store every time they heard the call to prayer. There were lots of women that I saw at the 4:30 in the morning call to prayer and the next morning when we were taking a 2am taxi, there were dozens of people gathered for prayers. One of the mosques was under renovation, so there were people kneeling all around the outside of the building praying. One of the things that I need to learn from there is being more consistent and to pray more often in my own life.
