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Published: October 17th 2007
October 2nd, 2007
If cleanliness is next to godliness, then I am Raphael’s “Alba Madonna,” glowing with saintliness. I have just returned from our neighborhood hamam, now a weekly ritual, and can state out of experience that you’ve never been truly clean if you’ve been to a hamam to sweat out all the toxins and be scrubbed within an inch of your life.
My first time, accompanied by Mohammed’s wife Anna, I was nervous at the prospect of communal nudity. In the States, modesty in dress is nearly non-existent, with women free to wear just as little as they please. But underneath the clothes (as minimal as they may be), the naked body is scandalous, even to people of your own gender, and self-consciousness, driven by the the stick-thin mary-kate-and-ashley celebrity culture, makes girls ashamed of their figures. Hidden in the tiled chambers of the hamam, Moroccan women have no modesty. It was hard to overcome this initial shock of unabashed bare flesh that contrasted so pointedly with the carefully covered street apparel of most Moroccan women.
Hesitantly I stripped to my skivvies, and paid my ten dirhams for entrance and 25 dirhams for a scrub (roughly 5 dollars total). From the dressing room, I was led by my assigned scrubber, an ancient, near-naked Moroccan granny, through a series of chambers that steadily increased in heat. While my scrubber set about gathering pales of water from the various wells, I slowly adjusted to my environment: low light, sagging breasts, naked children, tag-team scrubbing, and tangles of hair floating towards the central drain.
My scrubber returned, positioned me across her legs, and, armed with waxy vegetable oil soap and a rough wire mitt, commenced the painful process of exfoliation. Upon seeing the rolls of dead skin (literally rolls) left in the wake of my scrubbers expert swipes, I gave out a rather loud “Wow!” that made all the women around me laugh.
At various points in the process, one of my appendages would be stuffed in my scrubber’s armpit for further aggressive exfoliation. There I could feel her boob flapping against my skin, something that seems extremely awkward to me, but not worth consideration for my scrubber. Similarly, without ceremony, my scrubber snapped back the elastic band of my underwear and without hesitation began scrubbing me vigorously below the pantyline.
Finally, scrubbed, rinsed, shampooed, and conditioned, I returned to the dressing room, no longer squeamish by the sight of a dozen lounging topless women. My scrubber, fascinated by the many moles that dot my stomach and back, circled me and poked each one with a look of satisfaction on her face. The women around me were all very concerned, in a motherly way, by the numerous bug bites, particularly the quarter-sized spider bite below my left butt cheek. So while all eyes turned on my near-naked body, scrutinizing the scars and scabs I had accumulated, a young English student translated a woman’s advice to spread a sugar, water paste over my body for one hour to alleviate the itch and swelling. Finished with the examination, the women returned to their idle chatting. Dressed and head-wrapped, I emerged from the hamam, flushed, glowing, and ready to take on another Moroccan week.
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Cole Taylor
non-member comment
I WAUUUUNTTT THAAAT
Oh my god! That sounds so amazing. I'm hoping the banya in Russia will be similar. than we can compare naked scrubbed by stranger stories. I love you and miss you!