The Hammam

Ok, sorry in advance if this is gross/creepy/too much information in any way, but the hammam has made a big impression on me, so I need to post about it. The hammam is the public Moroccan bathhouse where most Moroccan women go about once a week, and I went two weeks ago for the first time.

So, we got there, paid 10 dirhams (about $1.50), and then were ushered upstairs which was basically like a super steamy sauna, and we stripped down to just our underwear. It was super awkward seeing my friends topless for the first minute, but then we all got over it and then it was normal. So we took our hammam buckets and all our bath stuff into the actual bath room, which is just a big steamy tile room with a bunch of hot and cold faucets and drains on the floor. People sit anywhere they want around the room on mats or stools, and about half of the Moroccan women are completely naked and half are just in underwear. We copped out and wore the underwear.

My host sister had given me her hammam stuff, which consisted of a big bucket to fill up with water, a stool, a smaller little bucket to use to pour water on yourself, a scrubby cloth thing that felt like a cross between a washcloth and sandpaper, and a slightly less sandpapery washcloth. My friends had been to the hammam before with their host families so they knew the whole process. We bought some henna on the way there, which you’re supposed to use to make your skin soft.

So, confronted with a lot of nudity, we filled up our buckets and found some room in a corner. First you’re supposed to mix the henna with water and this type of mud stuff to make a big gooey mix. Then you completely cover yourself in the henna/mud and leave it for a couple minutes, then wash yourself off with the bucket combo. After that, there’s a good half hour of scrubbing your entire body with the sandpapery wash cloth, which you’re supposed to do until you see layers of your skin coming off. It’s semi painful but also really gratifying and kind of horrifying to see all that skin coming off. It kind of pills off in little grey clumps.. you have no idea how many layers of skin you have until you try to scrub it all off. So anyways, after that you just generally do your whole shower routine, and you’re there for about an hour and a half total.

And afterwards you feel SUPER clean.. probably because you just lost a couple layers of skin. It was really cool though, and I went by myself a couple weeks later. When I went by myself I got a lot of stares at first, probably because all the women were wondering who I was and why I was there at their hammam, but then they got over it and didn’t pay any attention to me.

It’s also interesting that in a culture where women cover up so much on the street they have the hammam where you can be completely naked. I’ve noticed that there is no issue at all about women seeing each other naked – the only problem is when men are around, and then you’re not supposed to show too much leg or shoulders/chest area. And definitely no midriff. Unless you’re a belly dancer – then you get a free pass to wear the belly dancing costume, which is basically just a bra and underwear with some sort of meshy/see through skirt/scarf, and then it’s all about showing off the stomach and how you move your hips. Attitudes about nudity are all really interesting and more complex than I originally thought when I came here. It seems like what’s ok to wear all really depends on what role you’re playing, where you are, and who your audience is. No one cares at all and it’s completely respectable and normal to see belly dancing on TV, but then if you walk around your house or on the street in shorts showing too much leg, it’s considered shameful. There’s a huge disconnect between belly dancing/the hammam and regular everyday life. I don’t know what to make of all this. Maybe more on it later.