Bathing: Moroccan Style

The hammam in Morocco, where do I begin.  The hammam is a public bath or bathing area that is still very populat around Moroccans today.  Since I constantly see women with their buckets coming back from the hammam, I figured it was an experience I had to have.  After asking around, I found out about a nice clean one close to my house.  I asked a couple of other Americans if they wanted to come, for moral support, and off we went.

Now when you enter a hammam, there are separated doors and places for both men and woman.  The first room resembles a ladies locker room and there are women who you can leave your stuff with while you’re inside.  In this locker room you strip down to just your underwear grab your bucket and whatever other soaps or shampoos you may want and enter the hammam.  Once in the hammam there are three areas of varying degrees of heat.  We headed to the hottest first and grabbed a spot.  Luckily, Moroccans are always so generous and some women noticed we had no idea what we were doing.  They showed us how to fill our buckets with warm water and then how to scrub ourselves.  The key (and the best part) is to have the correct soap and scrubber.  The soap feels a little bit like clay and has a brownish.  It is made from henna and you smear it all over your bed.  After you’re nice and lathered you  take something that resembles a coarse glove and scrub.  Slowly but surely dead skin falls off.  You can actually pay woman to scrub you, and they do so not as a massage in mind, but to make sure you are really clean.  I elected to just try and see how well I could do my self while one of my friends opted to pay.  The amount of skin that came off of her was for lack of a better word, disgusting.  After the long scrubbing session, I washed my hair with the water from the bucket and rinsed off.  We spent some time in the warmer rooms, but after about 40 minutes we were all ready to leave. 

As we returned to the locker I couldn’t believe how clean and relaxed I felt.  It was like I had just taken the best bath of my life.  I wrapped my hair in my towel, put on my sweats and headed home.  It is not uncommon to see Moroccan woman with a towel on their head and in their sweats walking in the street.  I got home, made some tea and crawled into bed.  I had never felt so relaxed in all my life.

I am planning my next trip to the hammam ASAP, but I have been so busy with all my festivities. 

This weekend I will be attending a Moroccan wedding and a birthday party.  In preparation for the amount of food, sweets and tea I am about to consume I ran an extra 40 minutes today.  I am bringing my camera, and I will be borrowing a traditional Moroccan outfit for the affair.  Pictures to come.