Post 12: Morocco Part 4

Today we went to the Medina to do some shopping and I was able to get a few gifts for people and try some more juice. I kept it imperative to keep dosing myself with large amounts of vitamin C. This meant a lot of orange juice and lemonade to keep my immune system on point and ready for anything. I needed to be ready for anything because I could accidentally drink tap water or eat something that would not sit right. It is important to remember that gut microbiomes are different around the world with different strains of bacteria. It takes time for a gut to get used to the new strains of bacteria. Prebiotics, probiotics, and Vitamin C all aid in the help of the transfer to the new culture of bacteria. Later that night I went to the invitation only training session. It was located in Agdal and in a very posh gym and by entering it I was already super excited. The class was small, but we learned a series of moves that I was not very familiar with. The series was saddle entries. Saddle is when you are in a position for submission to break the ankle, knee, or your ligaments in your knee. I was able to train with one of the best grapplers of North Africa who is ranked number one in his weight class. Training and sparring with him was very interesting. We had a lot of exchanges that would lead us both into advantageous for us. In the end it was one intense sparring session with him, and I was absolutely exhausted. I was surprised I could keep up with him after spending the last week traveling and walking nonstop. When we got back home, we went to another homestay and had dinner there. We ate a style of noodle with goat meat that tasted extremely fresh. On our way and back to the dinner I got a glimpse of what it was like deep inside the medina. Many parts of the old city are nice but on our way to dinner it was very narrow, dark and shady but, it felt safe somehow. I realized without my homestay mom I would have been easily lost with the amounts of lefts and rights we took. The Labyrinth of the medina will always seem to amaze me and it would take me a lifetime to understand the ins and outs of the old city.