A "BROment"

I visited the Hammam yesterday with my host brother. I have been to a hammam once before in my life. I went when I was in Turkey on my Foreign Study Program in college. Everybody wore red towels around there lower parts and had a private changing room. When you went into the hot room it was a large area with soap flowing all over the ground like fog rolling on the lochs of scotland. Steam rose from the ground around a beautiful, marble circular platform. Surrounding this platform stood large Turkish men who pointed to you, tossed you on your side, and then kneaded your back like the muffin man kneads bread... no wait, muffins. I expected something kind of similar here in my small Moroccan hamlet. I knew however, that the hammam would not be as large as the one in Istanbul nor as high class (they made fresh orange juice for you when you were all clean). So I was not expecting the orange juice, but I thought the set up would be similar: large Moroccan dudes who scrubbed and massaged you for a small fee.

Needless to say, I was in for a bit of a surprise as the hammam in rural Morocco was nothing like the one in Turkey. Despite the element of surprise, it was a most amazing time and an extremely close bonding experience for my host brother and I. You can say we became better acquainted at the hammam. Here’s a run down.

You pay eight dirhams when you enter which equates to about one american dollar. Then you walk up a bunch of steps and enter a changing room. Everybody baths in their underwear. I was quite happy about this as it avoided the whole awkward nudity thing. However, this is where my one cultural faux pas of the night occurred. I was unknowingly wearing my bright pick underwear with running beer cans and “Case Race” plastered all over them. Needless to say, this is definitely “haram” in a muslim country. Everybody in the hammam saw me wearing them. Hopefully they didn’t understand what it meant as they couldn’t read it. However, I still feel a bit guilty and was conscious of the debauchery my underwear stood for throughout the entire time I was bathing.

Anyway, after I stripped down to my underwear I followed my host brother into the other room. Basically, it was a medium sized tile room that was really steamy. There were guys scrubbing themselves. And yes. The floor was extremely slippery. I almost fell about four times throughout the entire experience. Each time was followed by a bit of laughter from all of the other men in the hammam. Anyway, the process goes like this. You fill up four or five buckets with with hot water, adding a bit of cold water so that you don’t burn yourself. Then you bring your buckets to an area in the room. Sit down on the floor and use a cup to pour water over your head. In between the cups of water you wash yourself with soap, do pushups (OH YEA), and shampoo your hair.

Then it started getting interesting. My host brother told me to lie face down on the ground... so I did. Then he started walking on my back. He’s probably 6 foot 5 inches tall and well-built. I had all of that weight on my back, crushing my lungs, my rib cage, and my dignity. I tried to clench my abs to make sure he didn’t crush me, but I’m pretty sure that I was ineffective as I have some purple marks on my stomach today. After he ravaged my back he sat me up, had me spread my legs as wide as I could, and then pushed my head down towards the floor as far as he could. This was a huge spine stretch. I figured this was normal, and it was... kind of. But then he mounted me. Yes. I believe mount is the right word. I was still spread eagle with my back bent and head towards the floor. I looked like some sort of naked rag doll. He straddled my back, with his legs between mine and then lubed me down with oil. After I was greased up, he started to scrub. It was an interesting combination of pain and pleasure.... and dead skin. First he did my back, then my arms, and finally my stomach. For my stomach he stretched me into an almost yoga-esque back bend position and then went to town.

After he finished I thanked him and, I must admit, with a bit of reluctance I offered to scrub him. I think I did a fairly good job at scrubbing; however, I ran into a major difficulty along the way. There was a bit of an obvious height issue. My legs are short. His torso is long. Consequently, when he was sitting spread eagle and I was straddling him from above my precious objects may or may not have grazed his head on multiple occasions. In fact, I am positive this happened. My host brother either decided to ignore this inevitably awkward situation or he is accustomed to being this close to his compadres. I want to believe the former is the case; however, it is quite possible that the latter holds the truth. Despite these moments he continually offered me words of encouragement, releasing the usual “muzyan... muzyan” (GOOD GOOD). When I finished he told me I was a first class scrubber!

When the scrubbing had ceased we did some more stretching and then soaped up. We rinsed off and then went to the outer room which, at this point, felt like an ice box. Here we changed and then went back home. Walking home my host brother put his arm around me and called me brother. That was a truly a heart-warming experience. I feel like we are really bonding... both on the obvious physical level and also on the emotional level as well. They are a great family and I am blessed to live with them for these two months. If you come visit me you will certainly meet them. On the same note, when I left to go to Azrou both of my host brothers said they were going to miss me. Then they proceeded to give me hugs: alternating hugs for about three minutes... another humorous moment.

Good times. Salaam.

P.S. My new Moroccan name is Bilal. There's a history to this, but that must wait for another time.