Cyber Park

We've spent barely an hour wandering the streets of Marrakesh this morning and already the city's contrasts are stark but somehow coherent.

There is real, heartbreaking poverty here. On our walk to the square last night we saw beggars but it was the walk back that really underlined the situation. With the shops shut up and the streets turned over to the cats, we passed a woman sitting against the wall, asleep. At first I thought a cat lay on her lap, then I realised her two daughters were curled against her, also asleep.

Now we're sitting in a cyber park, with lush grass and free WiFi. We've passed students working through thick textbooks and young women on their mobile phones. This. Communal city resource feels like the sort of grand project that might be suggested in England, perhaps funded and built, but the ideal wouldn't match the need, not as it clearly does here.

We're having to learn to set aside English sensibilities and that paralysing, itching desire to please by buying something once you've entered a shop. In place of that, we have to accept that "no" just seems to mean "sell harder to me". It seems like an incredible contradiction of the exacting manners and respect shown by Moroccan to their guests. Out hotel manager seemed rather troubled that I didn't want coffee this morning as it meant he had to serve Lew first. He carefully pointed out that he would always serve a woman or girl first, that is the Moroccan way.

Shortly we're off to the artisan collective, apparently the ideal place to learn about reasonable prices do for things, before we venture into the souks!