Simo had invited us for a lunch at his family house after we met him on a tour of a carpet factory in the medina of Fez, Morocco. He had studied for a time in the states and was eager to practice his English and show us his country. I found out later he also had decided I was an angel upon meeting me and wanted to show me the life he could offer should I decide to marry and settle down with him. We arrived in his neighborhood, a modest but clean section of apartments in the newer part of the city. We entered his home and gasped our admiration. It was a large room broken up into sections by low benches, the walls were decorated in every inch with elaborately patterned tiles, all in blue and white. The benches and two tables were covered in incredibly detailed graphic designs sewn by hand on white linens. A vase of yellow flowers was the centerpiece of the room standing proudly on the back of the bench facing us. Simo encouraged us to sit down around one of the tables and began to bring out a feast. His mother came out and greeted us by taking each of our hands in our own and nodding enthusastically and smiling. His grandmother also brought out plates heaped high with various types of Moroccan delicacies, seemingly excited that she had guests to serve. We were not allowed to raise a finger and his family seemed disappointed that we were not immediately devouring what was put in front of us. The tagine, the cone shaped ceramic piece in which the food was cooked was filled with a piece of chicken on a bed of delicious cooscoos and vegetables, overflowing with flavor. We mopped up every drop on our plates with the soft, circular bread until our stomachs couldn’t take anymore. Then we were served another round of the sweet mint tea which I could not seem to get enough of, even though it went straight through me and caused me to make frequent trips to the bathroom. After Simo’s mother and grandmother cleared the entire table refusing our attempts to help, his older sister arrived. She brought her five year old son and Simo’s shy younger sister, an adorable girl with glasses which kept falling down her nose. She giggled as she met us and promptly ran into her room. The little boy began drawing proudly on everything he could with a black pen and was only distracted by a commercial jingle on the tv at which point he would loudly sing along in a mixture of gibberish and arabic. His older sister Lubna proudly brought out pictures from her wedding. She pointed out the five different outfits in various colors and mimed how much work it was to constantly change. Her hands were painted elaborately with henna and her face was painted with so much make up it looked like she was wearing a mask. In all of the photos she had a serious face, even as she sat next to her future husband. In some of the photos she sat like a queen on a chair which was held up by the men in her family as the women danced around her. It wasn’t until the end of the episode that we realized that it was an arranged marriage and that she was most glad because he was a tall man which meant her son also would be tall. This whole time was punctuated with elaborate gesticulations and lots of laughter and ooing and ahhing since we had no language in common.
Lubna only spoke French and Arabic, Renee and I only spoke English and Spanish, and Krista spoke these as well but fortunately also a smattering of French. Now that the meal was over it was time to head to the local bathhouse. We were particularly excited for this experience since we had not bathed in five days due to the unusual cold occupying Morocco which extended to the hotel rooms which had no heat and the bathrooms which ran with freezing water. Lubna was to take the girls in and Simo would take Krista’s boyfriend to the mens side. Since it was not at all a place for tourists or foriegners we were under strict instructions not to say a word. As Simo’s grandmother tied our scarves around our heads to help us blend in Simo translated that Lubna was going to arrange everything in the bathhouse and we were to just copy whatever she did. We gave her the money ahead of time, less than three dollars in their currency and headed out into the evening air. When we got within a block of the house we were hushed into silence. Renee, Krista and I fortunately were various shades of brown due to our mixed heritages and could feasibly pass as Moroccan. We were instructed to bring a change of clothes and a towel and nothing of value. I was excited as we were ushered upstairs into the concrete changing room, not sure what to anticipate but thrilled by the fact that we were entering a completely local place in disguise. We removed our tops with an awkward grin at each other, silently acknowledging that we were all about to get a lot closer as friends. We were told to strip down to our underwear and as I began to take off my pants I gasped and paused. I had completely forgotton that I was wearing a thong. I whispered in horror my dilemma to Renee, wondering if I should fake sick and run out of the bathhouse right then and there. I was so ashamed and embarassed at my revealing undergarments that I suddenly felt like an overly promiscuous American, fulfilling all of the cultural stereotypes. Renee saved me by handing over her clean change of underwear, appropriately covering boyshorts and I slipped them on over my thong with a relieved whisper of “thank you”. Fortunately Lubna had missed this near disaster as she was speaking hurriedly in Arabic to some women she knew.
We followed Lubna into the main room of the bathhouse and were overwhelmed by the hot steam in the dark room. Women of all shapes and sizes sat and stood in the three rooms of the sauna, scrubbing, laughing and rinsing. In one corner was the source of the hot spring and thick women in large white underpants hoisted buckets of steaming water and hauled them around the room. A few dim lights in the ceiling gave the steamy room a yellowish glow. From another corner came buckets of cold water and the women who worked there mixed the two until they reached a tolerable temperature. Lubna lead us into the farthest room and we tried not to gawk at the strange environment we found ourselves in. I smiled. I was thoroughly enjoying the way the women were comfortable with their bodies and with each other. I considered the irony that in this much more conservative culture, people were undisturbed by each others nakedness, wondering if this situation would ever occur in the U.S. and concluded that despite the tiny skirts and revealing tops, women would never openly walk around in front of each other in just underwear. There was a sense of comaraderie in the room and women helped each other wash their hair, pre-teen girls squatting on overturned buckets while they brushed their friends’ hair. The concrete walls absorbed the heat but bounced back all of the chatter and laughter emanating from the women around us. A jovial buzz pervaded the rooms and nods and shouts of greetings were exchanged consistently among the women.
Lubna left the three of us girls standing awkwardly in one of the rooms with a terse reminder to not say a word. I wasn’t sure what she was telling people, maybe that we were mute, or deaf and dumb to explain why it was that we couldn’t speak. We looked at each other, unsure what to do, and decided to mimic what the other women were doing. Lubna had left us a crate with brushes and various oils to hold and we sat down on the small plastic seats, barely large enough for our behinds and began to scrub ourselves like the women we had seen. The floor of the room was a constant flow of water, no doubt including dead skin and loose hair, careening among the buckets and feet towards a drain somewhere. I tried not to think about the amount of dirt and bodily waste swirling around my feet. We shared one bucket of water and alternated putting soap on our arms and legs and rinsing it off with a small plastic cup. Lubna returned and exclaimed loudly, chiding us and taking back the brushes and oils. Apparently we were not supposed to have done that. She pointed at her head and then around the room and we realized that the women in this section were all washing their hair, not their skin. We smiled nervously as she pulled Krista’s seat in front of her. Krista is of ethiopian and native american heritage and her hair is of the typical African type which she wore short and free in an afro. She tried to complain as Lubna dumped a handful of oil on her head and looked at us helplessly, and we understood that her hair required a different type of shampoo. Lubna vigourously massaged the oil into her hair, trying in vain to smooth it down but the wiry curls continued to pop up despite the water. Renee and I suppressed smiles and looked away until it was our turn to be washed. Lubna rubbed the oil into my hair, scrubbing my scalp and pulling the oil through the long strands of my smooth black hair. It felt nice, I realized no one had ever washed my hair since I was a child and my mother did it for me. When the last cup of hot water cleansed my hair she deftly tied it up in a knot on top of my head and ushered us into the next room, outfitting us with buckets, combs and brushes.
Lubna motioned for us to come sit against one of the walls and not to move or touch anything until she came back. I scratched my arm where a mild itch appeared and was shocked to see that the skin rubbed off entirely, leaving white rolls like lint on a sweater in my hand. I showed Renee who tried rubbing her arm and was disgusted yet fascinated to see a layer of skin come off as well. I barely put any pressure and the pieces of dead skin appeared on my arm and I tried to shake it off since we had no water to rinse. Lubna returned with a stout woman armed with a square brush that had a handle attached to the back and instructed Krista to lie down as the woman sat at her head. She took the brush and began scrubbing Krista’s long lean body with the brush and Renee and I gawked at the scene. She attacked Krista with the brush with the same vigor with which one beats a dirty carpet, and rolls of dead skin fell off of her. She grimaced but tolerated the washing as the woman turned her over and to the side to cover her entire body with the brush. She then poured cupfulls of the hot water over her until she was gleaming even in the dark sauna. Renee was next in line and was subjected to the same hasty yet thorough cleaning. A woman came and said something to Lubna who spoke to Krista who translated to me that Simo was done and therefore we better hurry so as not to keep him waiting. I was taken aback that we were expected to be done, the 4 of us in the same time it took Simo and Krista’s boyfriend to be bathed. I also was pretty sure Simo was not the type to mind waiting, he seemed to be a very sweet and patient man. Lubna must have told the scrubbing woman to hurry because she brushed me so intensely I thought surely I would have no skin left. The brush was rough and almost hurt but settled instead for a tickling sensation. There was barely enough water left to rinse me off and I shuddered to think of leaving with rolls ofdead skin clinging to me. I wiped my body down and poured a few final cupfuls over me as Lubna gathered her supplies and lead us out of the room.
We marveled at how clean we felt, our skin glowed in its freshness. I realized just how ineffective taking a shower and rubbing shower gel around my body was and told myself I’d get one of those scrubbing brushes when I got home. But it was impossible to recreate this experience in my apartment in the states in my private bathroom. This Moroccan bathhouse had allowed me to be part of something, to experience a tradition which had been in place for centuries, to cleanse myself fully and embrace my woman’s body and be part of a culture so unlike my own. We left the secret world of heat and naked women, one of the few places where gossip could be freely exchanged and bodies openly revealed. In this culture where women were often forced to be concerned about covering themselves and behaving in deference to men, the bathhouse was a haven for self expression. It was a space they could call entirely their own and interact without having to adhere to any social norms which constricted them in the outside world. I felt privileged to have been part of this place, and was thankful that my skin tone allowed me to blend in enough to be accepted into this feminine sanctuary.
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