The Real Morocco

We were lucky enough to have yet another fantastic day in Morocco! We started off the day with Keegan, a friend from the hostal named Jack, and I walking out into the square. It wasnt more than 20 feet before I had a giant snake draped across my shoulders, I looked over to see jack as suprised as I was with a small monkey sitting on his! We had Keegan take a few pictures and then for sanitations sake moved on. As exciting as the whole "Medina" was it was not even close to the highlight of the day. At around noon we were walking around in the outskirts of town and came across a dirt soccer (futbol) field. We walked up to the kids playing and were lucky enough to find 3 that spoke SOME enlgish, although they could understand it very well. We became quick friends with Simon , Usef and Hadid. They seemed to be as interested in our cultures and customs as we were of theres! We talked to them for a while and explained to them the Africa Rally and COW. After sitting around with them and talking about everything from religon and politics to who was going to win the Africa Cup (they even let us take their motorbike for a spin) Simon invited us to his house to meet his family and watch the local soccer match. ( Marrakech lost to Casablanca 2-0 ). We quickly accepted and a short cab ride later arrived in Simon`s neighborhood. This was our first expierence of true Africa and to be honest I couldn`t of enjoyed it more. After a quick tour around his neighborhood we went to his house. His entire family are devout muslims and meeting them all was a great expierence! They were the most Hospitible people I have ever met! (maybe second behind the Gregsons :) ) His family welcomed us with tea, cookies and another treat we think were figs. We explained to his family all about COW, the Africa Rally and what we were doing and they were very supportive and interested! We were then given a fully tour of their house from their Prayer room to the bedrooms and it was really amazing! We watched the game and then called it a night, but not before exchanging numbers and making plans for him to show us around tomorrow!