Morocco

Dear Faithful Reader,

Due to some extenuating circumstances (aka I was on vacation) I have not been blogging. For this, I apologize. However, as I am now back in the Kingdom please look forward to more frequent posts, including this ditty about Big Mommas in Morocco:

My trip in Morocco was wonderful. With a ten year old Lonely Planet and a clueless San Franciscan to guide me I spent three weeks avoiding being ripped off, sweating, buying things I can’t afford, hiking, haggling, sinking sail boats, riding camels and drinking mint tea looking for the authentic Moroccan experience, like every other tourist.

We ended out journey in Fez, whose media, a wobbling labyrinth of narrow alleys and aggressive shop keepers, had just been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We spent two nights here among the smell of tanning camel and goat hides and the sizzle of tagines (conical clay cooking dishes placed over a fire and filled with meat and vegetables). Nearing the end of our trip, there was still one truly Moroccan activity I had hoped to experience: the Hammam.

Hammam’s are communal steam baths that date back to Roman times and have evolved in Moroccan society and an integral part of female society. In this Muslim country where men often sit in cafes chatting and drinking coffee until three in the morning, I hardly remember encountering women at all. I was eager to go to Hammam to catch a glimpse of the hidden society of Moroccan women, but also wash three weeks of sweat out of my hair.

The Hammam is open to both men and women at different times. I waited until the afternoon, the time designated to women, and then wandered through the medina gate, past the mosaiced public drinking fountain and up to the unmarked doorway which led to a white and black checkered hallway.

I walked in tentatively, paid the $0.12 to enter and through hand gestures and two languages I don’t understand, French and Arabic, understood to rent a cockroach invested locker for $0.07 and strip down to my underwear. To avoid being as bewildered during my experience, I paid $5.50 for a “massage.”

The Hammam is set up in different chambers. The disrobing chamber in which I entered was lined with benches for relaxing on after a wash and had a high white domed ceiling for letting steam escape. The room felt warm and wisps of steam and women in different states of dressing and undressing lounged about. The next room was significantly hotter and most of the women were congregated here, in front of rows of buckets of hot and cold water, scrubbing each other and combing their hair. The next room was similar, but hotter and less crowded. The last room was unbearably hot and literally steaming. A hot water tap filled up a tiled trough and women dunked buckets into it and hauled them out of the room.

After sitting in the steam room for as long as I possible could, I was led into the first washing room and pushed by a Big Momma, with ample sagging breasts fact first onto the tiled floor. She slipped here soft hand into a Brillo pad pot scrapping mitten and went to work on my body. The harsh mitten scrapped against my skin painfully and the powerful Momma spared no inch, even giving me a “wedgie” to better access my butt checks. I was then rolled over and the process continued.

When the scrapping was over (praise God), the soaping began. Another, even bigger Momma came to help with the process. My face was stuck somewhere near her thick hairy ankle and my joints were pressed into the tile floor and the big Mommas yelled out things to various women and manhandled me on the floor. Finally I was released from the death grip and doused with water. Then, my hair was untangled and washed and I was doused again. I was practically dragged into the steam room where I sat, delirious for a few minutes before seeking refuse in the now cool disrobing room.

It surprised me how free and confident the women at the Hammam were when on the streets they only appeared as silent citizens. It surprised me how much water was available And flowing through the Hammam when at my hotel 100 yards away the shower could barely muster a cold trickle. It surprised me that I was able to be around twenty women whom I could not communicate with, yet did not feel out of place. And it surprised me how quickly, in the hot Moroccan sun, I was sweaty and dirty again.