So, my wonderful house- sister, my roommate and I decided to get scrubbed down about two weeks ago. I really did not have a good idea of what public bathing entailed, but I had heard it was an unforgettable experience, so we went along with our overly enthusiastic sister. However, before heading out, she laid down a few 'rules' in her best English:
1." Do not open your mouths and utter a single word in English. I don't want to be paying extra for you guys." ( she's thoughtful)
2. "Wear this djellaba and scarf, pack a small bag of your favorite toiletries and remember to imitate what I do when we get there."
Djelleba-clad, with our baggies in tow, we headed out in this wonderfully painful July heat towards the Hammam. Our sister bartered with the lady in charge, she glanced us over, approved of our non-foreigner-looking faces and showed us to what is equivalent of a "locker room." Once inside, let me tell you...it was steamy and sauna-like. It didn't quite feel like a refuge from the outside but at least there was no sun beaming down on me in there! We opened up our baggies, left the clothes and heavier objects inside and left them with the locker-room attendee. I was now dressed only in a wife-beater and undies and I thought it'd be fine to enter the main Hammam area where the heat would intensify. I was wrong...Very, very wrong. My house-sister was standing naked as the day she was born and told us to do the same. I looked around and pretty much every single lady in the room was in her same state. "Yeah.....no," I told her. After debating the issue, we came to a compromise: goodbye, wife-beater! Then, we made our way inside to the main Hammam area. The heat wave that hit me literally stopped me from moving forward. I got to glance around in those seconds and saw huddled, naked bodies crouching over water buckets in scattered corners of the room. The thing that caught my eye however was just how freely the women were bathing themselves in front of each other and mostly everyone was minding their business without passing judgment. I was also stunned at the large amount of viejas strolling around naked with no complejos! Good for you, viejas! We finally found a suitable and empty corner of the Hammam and we unloaded our toiletries onto a large bath mat on the floor. Our Hammam 'attendee' brought about 10 buckets of water, each with a different degree of heat. It varied from the scorching water to the crisp and refreshing buckets of icy cold water :) Our sister instructed us on how to bathe:
We first crouched down and picked up a small tub-full of extremely hot water and poured it over us. Rinse and repeat! Then, she pulled out a small bag of sketchy green powder and mixed it with water in a tiny cup. It was magical! Once it had thickened in consistency she poured it over her hair and my hair. It sat in for the duration of our bathing ( almost 2 hours, I believe!) Once I rinsed it out, my hair felt like silk! It was better than any other salon-brand conditioner I had ever tried. Apparently, this green powder-earthy mixture was like mankind's first conditioner. I will definitely be bringing some of this back! In the meantime, our sister also had purchased sabon baladi, a natural soap that I scraped on first and let marinate. It felt like glycerine on my skin.I washed it off with the hot water because it was to prep/clean the skin for the next stage in our search for ultimate cleanliness. Our sister gave us each a "qiss" ...the equivalent of a very rough-pumice-like glove. We dipped it in the hot water and began to "scrape it" against our skin......this is the best part: layers and layers of dead skin began to fall off in front of my eyes. I was horrified, disgusted, amazed and proud all at the same time! I scraped as much as I could and then the Hammam attendee came in scrubbed my sister down properly. My house sister then signaled to the attendee that I was to be next and boy, did it feel like she was sending a lamb to the slaughter! I sat down on a tiny bench in front of this lady, handed her my qiss and she scraped the living life out of me. She put my scraping skills to shame, of course. I was mildly dying inside and my house sister was laughing silently in the corner at the faces of pain and wonderment I was making while this complete stranger bathed me! When I went back to my little corner, I saw the piles and piles and piles ( no exaggeration) of the dead skin that had accumulated from the scraping. I washed off with hot water, warm water, and then cold water. I soaped up again, brushed my fabulously silky, new hair and washed down one final time with scented water. I seriously felt like I had been reborn. I headed back to the locker room area and bathed again in lotion and wrapped myself up with my djellaba and a makeshift hijab. It's easy to get mildly sick from the fluctuations of the temperatures inside the hammam and then walking back home with the heat and wind so our sister wrapped us all up and we headed back home, triumphant in our new skin! It is very common for women to go to the Hammam several times a month and it's not only a social, leisurely activity, but it's an intense beauty ritual that I am very happy I participated in. I am also very fortunate that we went to a LOCAL Hammam, where everyday women go, and not a "bougey" Hammam where tourists and foreigners go and where they are usually ripped off and may not get to experience the original, communal feeling of bathing. I look forward to going once again before I head back to the States!
1." Do not open your mouths and utter a single word in English. I don't want to be paying extra for you guys." ( she's thoughtful)
2. "Wear this djellaba and scarf, pack a small bag of your favorite toiletries and remember to imitate what I do when we get there."
Djelleba-clad, with our baggies in tow, we headed out in this wonderfully painful July heat towards the Hammam. Our sister bartered with the lady in charge, she glanced us over, approved of our non-foreigner-looking faces and showed us to what is equivalent of a "locker room." Once inside, let me tell you...it was steamy and sauna-like. It didn't quite feel like a refuge from the outside but at least there was no sun beaming down on me in there! We opened up our baggies, left the clothes and heavier objects inside and left them with the locker-room attendee. I was now dressed only in a wife-beater and undies and I thought it'd be fine to enter the main Hammam area where the heat would intensify. I was wrong...Very, very wrong. My house-sister was standing naked as the day she was born and told us to do the same. I looked around and pretty much every single lady in the room was in her same state. "Yeah.....no," I told her. After debating the issue, we came to a compromise: goodbye, wife-beater! Then, we made our way inside to the main Hammam area. The heat wave that hit me literally stopped me from moving forward. I got to glance around in those seconds and saw huddled, naked bodies crouching over water buckets in scattered corners of the room. The thing that caught my eye however was just how freely the women were bathing themselves in front of each other and mostly everyone was minding their business without passing judgment. I was also stunned at the large amount of viejas strolling around naked with no complejos! Good for you, viejas! We finally found a suitable and empty corner of the Hammam and we unloaded our toiletries onto a large bath mat on the floor. Our Hammam 'attendee' brought about 10 buckets of water, each with a different degree of heat. It varied from the scorching water to the crisp and refreshing buckets of icy cold water :) Our sister instructed us on how to bathe:
We first crouched down and picked up a small tub-full of extremely hot water and poured it over us. Rinse and repeat! Then, she pulled out a small bag of sketchy green powder and mixed it with water in a tiny cup. It was magical! Once it had thickened in consistency she poured it over her hair and my hair. It sat in for the duration of our bathing ( almost 2 hours, I believe!) Once I rinsed it out, my hair felt like silk! It was better than any other salon-brand conditioner I had ever tried. Apparently, this green powder-earthy mixture was like mankind's first conditioner. I will definitely be bringing some of this back! In the meantime, our sister also had purchased sabon baladi, a natural soap that I scraped on first and let marinate. It felt like glycerine on my skin.I washed it off with the hot water because it was to prep/clean the skin for the next stage in our search for ultimate cleanliness. Our sister gave us each a "qiss" ...the equivalent of a very rough-pumice-like glove. We dipped it in the hot water and began to "scrape it" against our skin......this is the best part: layers and layers of dead skin began to fall off in front of my eyes. I was horrified, disgusted, amazed and proud all at the same time! I scraped as much as I could and then the Hammam attendee came in scrubbed my sister down properly. My house sister then signaled to the attendee that I was to be next and boy, did it feel like she was sending a lamb to the slaughter! I sat down on a tiny bench in front of this lady, handed her my qiss and she scraped the living life out of me. She put my scraping skills to shame, of course. I was mildly dying inside and my house sister was laughing silently in the corner at the faces of pain and wonderment I was making while this complete stranger bathed me! When I went back to my little corner, I saw the piles and piles and piles ( no exaggeration) of the dead skin that had accumulated from the scraping. I washed off with hot water, warm water, and then cold water. I soaped up again, brushed my fabulously silky, new hair and washed down one final time with scented water. I seriously felt like I had been reborn. I headed back to the locker room area and bathed again in lotion and wrapped myself up with my djellaba and a makeshift hijab. It's easy to get mildly sick from the fluctuations of the temperatures inside the hammam and then walking back home with the heat and wind so our sister wrapped us all up and we headed back home, triumphant in our new skin! It is very common for women to go to the Hammam several times a month and it's not only a social, leisurely activity, but it's an intense beauty ritual that I am very happy I participated in. I am also very fortunate that we went to a LOCAL Hammam, where everyday women go, and not a "bougey" Hammam where tourists and foreigners go and where they are usually ripped off and may not get to experience the original, communal feeling of bathing. I look forward to going once again before I head back to the States!
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