The morning market in Marrakech starts before the sun thinks about rising. By 5 AM, voices already ricochet off the medina walls—Arabic mixed with Berber, French sliding into the spaces between. I follow the scent of mint and charcoal smoke, weaving through vendors setting up towers of oranges that glow like lanterns in the half-light.

An old woman waves me over to her stall. Her hands, dark and creased like aged leather, arrange bundles of herbs I don't recognize. She speaks no French, I speak no Arabic, but she presses fresh sage to my nose and grins when I close my eyes and inhale. The smell is sharp, almost medicinal, cutting through the heavy sweetness of overripe fruit rotting in the gutters.

I buy a handful for what amounts to pocket change, and she folds them into yesterday's newspaper with the care of wrapping a gift. Then she touches my arm—the universal gesture that means wait—and disappears behind a curtain of hanging lanterns. She returns with a small glass of tea, already sweet, steam curling up in the cool morning air.

We sit on upturned crates as the market comes alive around us. She doesn't speak, just watches the flow of people with the contentment of someone who has witnessed this same scene for forty years. A boy leads a donkey loaded with mint through the narrow aisle. Two men argue loudly over the price of lemons, their voices theatrical but their faces friendly. A cat picks its way across stacks of cardboard boxes, pausing to lick its paw in a shaft of new sunlight.

The tea is almost too sweet, but I drink it slowly. This moment isn't in any guidebook. It won't appear on my Instagram feed with a clever caption. It's just a stranger's kindness, a glass of tea, and the realization that travel isn't really about the places at all—it's about these small, unexpected doorways into someone else's ordinary morning. When I leave, she waves from her herbs, already turning to greet the next customer. I walk back into the labyrinth of the medina, the sage leaves pressed into my palm, still warm from her hands.

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