I’m a shy man. I could spend days
happily alone, in a monk-like stupor. It’s very likely one of the reasons I’m a
writer rather than an actor or circus performer. If I had to be either
Siegfried or Roy I’d probably fail at both. No, for me a good day is hunkering
down with my keyboard to tap out words, preferably in an order that makes some
sense to others. Occasionally I succeed. But I also have this taste for novelty
and travel because, after all, arent novelty and new places two peas in a pod?
Now and then, though, my curiosity leads to more than I bargained for … like my first Hammam.
A
Brief History of Hammams
Hammams are a unique feature in
the muslim world. They go back to its very earliest days. The first of them
emerged in the palaces and desert castles of Damascus in the late 600s (AD)
thanks to Mu’awiya, a cleric who founded the Umayyad Caliphate in Syria. If you
look hard, you can still find ancient Hammam ruins in places like Qusayr 'Amra and Hammam al-Sarah. It didn’t take long for Mu’awiya’s idea to catch
on. Hammams soon became a key part of Muslim culture from Mesopotamia and India
clear across the Middle East and North Africa to Morocco and into Europe and
Iberian Andalusia.
Youssef was one of the guides who
helped us navigate Morocco and he says all sorts of variations of Hammams have
evolved, but the basic idea, whether you are in Turkey or southern Spain, goes
more or less like this: first you undress and spend some time in a cooling
area. After that comes a warming area with steam and then finally a hotter
section before being thoroughly scrubbed with a kessa glove — a stiff mitten
made of tree fiber specifically designed to thoroughly exfoliate your skin.
Next up, a special mud (usually loaded with magnesium and other minerals) is
applied before you are drenched again with warm water. As a bonus you can also
enjoy a kind of Swedish style massage and relax with some hot mint tea (if you
happen to be in Morocco).
The first Hammams emerged from
Greek and Roman baths, or thermae, which prospered during the heyday of both of
those empires. Cyndy and I visited a bath in Volubilis, Morocco, a Roman city built when Christ
was growing up. The baths weren’t working very well when we saw them, but
apparently they were when Isidris I, the founder of Moroccan Islam, later converted
it to a Hammam in the 8th century around the time he set up his first capital
city there.
Why, you may wonder, all of these
ablutions? For practicing Muslims, a Hammam serves both religious and civic
purposes. It provides for the Islamic
cleansing rituals (wadu and ghusi) required each week, while ensuring everyone
gets a serious personal scrubbing. (This was more of an issue in ancient times
than nowadays.) And it’s flat out
relaxing.
I first came across Hammams when
Cyndy and I were exploring Istanbul a few years back. But we were pressed for
time on that trip and I failed to try one out. So when Rayna, a tall dark young
woman who worked at Riad Kalaa where we were bedded down in Rabat, Morocco said
they had a Hammam right there on the premises, I wanted to know more.
“Let
me show you,” she said.
Descent
into the Hammam
I followed her through a narrow
archway and down steep stone steps into the riad’s bowels. We were way down
there. Inside I found three dark rooms, one with a tub (too small for a human),
the other two with large tables — one stone and one wooden. The whole scene
looked like a great place to hold the Spanish Inquisition. The rooms were
pristine, but I wondered if Riad Kalaa had always been a Hammam. It was built
in the 1600s. Maybe it used to serve as a medieval dungeon. Rayna chuckled and
said she didn’t know, but explained that the Hammam ritual was routine for
Moroccan muslims. Then she shot me a look as if to say, “Really, you’re gonna
like it.” I checked for chains and manacles anyway.
Despite my imaginary misgivings,
I could tell the place was the real thing, even if I didn’t know what kind of
real thing. But then, you know … novelty. I asked Rayna if she could arrange an
appointment for later that day — both the Hammam and a full massage. Why not.
We had covered a lot of ground. The old body was feeling the wear and tear.
“Yes,
of course,” said Rayna. “I’ll set it up for 4 pm.”
Back
in our room I asked Cyn if she wanted in.
“Ah
… no,” she said with military finality.
I was wary of the rituals of
Hammam because they seemed fairly elaborate. And I was clueless about how to
behave. It fell into that comfortable/uncomfortable space in the mind where
both “interesting” and abject fear reside, like bungee jumping or free
climbing. And the whole process appeared pretty damned intimate. What sort of
person would be drenching me? A large Arab from some bad movie involving Bruce
Willis? A saucy Mata Hari? Would I be alone or surrounded by other people? How
would I be clothed? How long would be Hammaming? Stop it, I said. You’re being
a wimp! Shut up and enjoy the ride! Millions upon millions of people have
partaken in these rites for 1400 years, and survived. Pretty sure you can too.
The
second descent into the Hammam. (Photo - Chip Walter)
Off
With Your Clothes
At 4 pm I headed down, down into
the dungeon’s ancient steps, the slap of my sandals echoing against the
sandstone rock. When i walked into the dressing room (or undressing room as it turned out), my
experiment immediately began to get interesting. Standing before me was a buxom
middle aged woman with short, tightly curled black hair. Her face was strong
and handsome. She smiled and showed me a row of gleaming white teeth, but said
nothing. She wore a kind of black bathing suit and longish shorts. I smiled and
gave her a hearty hello which I immediately realized was entirely out of place.
Her name, I learned later, was Najeera. She might have been Libyan or Moroccan,
Sicilian, Italian or Andalusian; maybe some combination of all of them. I only
knew that in those dark eyes lay a kind of smoldering, no-nonsense gypsy look.
She quickly disappeared into the
room next door and I heard a faucet being turned on. She moved silently and
with commanding speed, grace and calm while I stood in my pants, t-shirt and
sandals looking thoroughly like a white man from the USA entirely out of his
element. Steam soon emanated from the nearby room. After a minute or so she
returned and seemed surprised and a little annoyed to find me still standing
unmoved. With a quick sweep of her hand she motioned for me to take off my
clothes and then turned back to her duties.
Really? Weren’t we in a Muslim
country? Wasn’t scanty clothing usually looked down upon in these parts?
Especially when it involved people of the opposite sex? Was I really to
entirely disrobe in front of this woman? I swiveled my head, looking for cover
because surely there was some other scrap of clothing I was to wear, a loin
clothe maybe? Behind me I found two robes. While Najeera had her back to me, I
slipped off my pants and shirt and threw on the robe. She returned and looked at me again and rolled
her gypsy eyes. What was this guy’s problem? She stood, silent for a moment,
then held her hands and arms out with palms flat against one another, almost
prayer-like, before suddenly whipping them open like a door, clearly telling me
to get the robe off!
“Everything?”
I gulped.
A
vigorous nod, and then a gesture to enter the steaming room.
Chip
sans shirt takes a selfie in the mirror
Everything??!The appalling image
that Najeera faced once she commanded I disrobe. Took this picture later to
illustrate, more or less, what she saw … except in this case I’m wearing pants.
I dropped the robe, now nekked as
Jesus on Christmas morn, and shuffled into the room. It was me and Najeera, and
not another soul.
I was to lay down on my stomach.
Thank, God, I thought. I obediently scrambled onto one of the marble slabs
which had been topped with a neoprene mat, and waited. Water and steam had been
running into the little tub I had seen on my first visit and was rising and filling
the room. I lay, awaiting what? Then, gently Najeera began to douse me with a
large ladle filled with hot water. It was just the perfect temperature and I
felt suddenly calm.
“Ca
Va?” She asked to check if the water was too hot. Her first words.
“Ca
va.” I croaked.
Now she stroked my body with a
soft cloth, sweeping the water across my back and legs and everything in
between. I was getting a very thorough and intimate cleansing. This went on for
several minutes before my boss directed me to roll over.
What?!
Here in a blink we went all my
old Catholic upbringing out the window, all remnants of the Victorian Age not
to mention American proprieties about lying naked in front of total stranger.
What would the nuns at St. Germaine’s think? How would I control my you know …
well, you know … the part of me that often seems to have no control?
Maintaining
Control
I rolled onto my back thinking
deeply about the geometry problems that plagued me in high school while Najeera
performed the same ablutions on my front as she had on my backside. Gentle
hands, gallons of hot water, careful attention to each detail. The steam roiled
and the water, which had long ago spilled out of the nearby tub, now ran
everywhere on the floor. I closed my eyes and shifted my thoughts to chess
gambits.
This went on for several more
minutes until Najeera asked me to roll back onto my stomach and now with her
kessa, undertook to separate every inch of my epidermis from the rest of me.
Truthfully, this process isn’t as painful as it sounds. You aren’t flayed,
precisely. It only assures that the days of whatever dead skin happen to be
clinging to your epidermis are now and forever thoroughly numbered, which is,
of course, the idea behind Islamic purity of mind and body. I was feeling
simultaneously relaxed and invigorated.
I could hear Najeera breathing
hard in the steam as she worked to scrub my neck and back, my bottom, thighs,
calves, feet and toes, the whole magilla. Next I was flipped onto my back
again. By this time I had moved onto exploring prime numbers, and then I gave
up. Go with it, I thought. Let John Thomas have his way. Enjoy the moment, the
steam, the soothing douses of warm water, the invigorating scrubs. Najeera has
probably seen more naked men and their nether regions than your average nurse
in her lifetime, and could care less. She was simply doing her job. Yes, there
was something erotic about this, and parts of my body were more than … touched,
but this was not about sex. It was part of a long and ancient ritual that was different
from anything I had ever experienced before. So like the Brooklyn cabbie says,
“Fugettabaht it!”
The scrubbing took a good 15
minutes assuming I didn’t fall asleep. I may have, I was enjoying it that much.
I gave my self over entirely to Najeera.
My skin felt alive, renewed, fresh. When I was done, my epidermis would
have sung a Meghan Trainor song if it could have. Skin is the body’s largest
organ and deserves more tender loving care than at least I’ve given it in my
life. Waking it up, cleansing it, releasing the oils and detritus we and the
world slap on it could not possibly be anything but a gift. Scrub, scrub. Every
now and again I found myself mumbling a grateful, “Trés bien“ which did nothing
like justice to the pleasure I was experiencing.
Scraped clean, Najeera rinsed me
with more warm water. After that she lathered me top to bottom with a bar of
black soap. Then more ladling before commanding me to sit up cross legged to
drench me again. Imagine that image. Or maybe not. I flashed back to the days
when I was five and my mother would put me in the basement washing tub because
after a summer’s day of exploring the woods, ponds and creeks, I was filthy.
“Come here, you little raggamuffin,” she would say, lifting me into the tub.
Here I was again, a raggamuffin in a Moroccan Hammam 40 feet below ground with
a dark haired gypsy. That, I thought, is what travel is all about, the
broadening of personal experience in the most unexpected and exuberant ways.
Now came a final bathing: the
mineral rich mud which Najeera slathered on me forehead to toes. This did not
dry in the moist heat of the room, but I could feel my skin absorbing it before
I was ladled with more of the warm and relaxing water. I was now cleaner than I think I may have
ever been in my life.
But
she wasn’t done yet.
Even though I was feeling more
like a boiled pasta noodle than a human being, Najeera managed to sit me up,
wrap me in a towel and march me 10 feet to the wooden massage table around the
corner. Off came the towel with a flourish and I was laid face down for a fine
rubbing with oils unknown to me. Again, Najeera worked with thoroughness and
care, front and back. I’m sure I dozed even as I tried to enjoy the relaxing
touch of every muscle. This woman had the hands of a stevedore yet massaged me
with a strength and gentility that unknotted every muscle (except one) for a
good hour. I could hear her breathing hard and sometimes watched her wiped the
sweat from her dark brow, as she kneaded me like a bundle of bread dough. She may
have had the hands of a longshoreman, but I had begun to realize she also had a
sweetness that belied her nun-like commands.
In time we were done. I opened my
eyes. Najeera flashed her white teeth. I could only muster another lethargic,
“Tres bien. Merci beaucoup! Merci! Merci!” And a stupid grin.
I rose and it was work to pull on
my clothes. Najeera simply stood
nonchalantly by. She could care less.
I asked her name. She told me.
I gave her mine. She daintily
held out her strong right hand. “Enchanté,” she said.
“Enchante,” I replied, and
reflexively closed my hands in a prayer, bowed and sputtered out another merci.
Finally she smiled and daintily tilted her head.
When I indicated payment, she
waved a finger and said, almost crossly. “No. Upstairs.” Meaning I should pay
at the office. We will not taint this ancient ritual with something as lowly as
money. Once again, a kid being reprimanded by the nuns at St. Germaine’s.
I thanked her one last time and
ascended the steep steps. I felt like a new man. No wonder, I thought, that the
people of Morocco seem so open and warm. How could they not be if they do this
every week.
This is Dispatch XXXVI in a
series about a Vagabond’s Adventures - journalist and National Geographic
Explorer Chip Walter and his wife Cyndy’s effort to capture their experience
exploring all seven continents, all seven seas and 100+ countries, never
traveling by jet.
If you’ve enjoyed this dispatch,
please take a look at Chip’s other adventures (and misadventures) … and don’t forget to check the Vagabond Journal and our Travel Recommendations to help you plan YOUR next
adventure.
Sign up here to get our newsletters delivered to your email
along with news and special offers in the Vagabond
Adventure Store
Resource: https://vagabond-adventure.com/library/visiting-a-moroccan-hammam-in-rabat
0 comments:
Post a Comment