I'm supremely lazy. I've had this blog around for about 2 years and I've basically written shit. Only one halfway decent story up. I've got so many in my head, and I'm just so goddamn lazy to actually type them up, edit them, and post them. I'm working on it, though. I've got a fabulous story of my experiences during Eid-al-Ahda that has been my baby for almost a year. Still haven't birthed it, but when I do, it will be replete with pictures too. And that's always fun, especially when they're pictures of slaughtered sheep.
Coming soon, to a blog near you...
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The Art of Communal Bathing
I step into the cool confines of the building and, slipping the little coin number I received onto my wrist, I push open the blue door, where I find myself surrounded by a low ceilinged room, cabinets along the walls and mats placed on the floor. “Aslama!”* I greet the women. They respond back with a chorus of “Aslaama, labaass?”** I strip down to my underwear with little impunity, stow my clothes away in the cabinet, and grab my towel, soap, and kaisa, I push open the door where a wall of hot air greets me. I am in the hammam.
The myths and mystique surrounding the hammam has existed for ages – some people think of it as some enormous cesspool, completely dirty and filthy and a place not to be visited; others think of it as a place where women bathe constantly and generally lie around naked all day, touching themselves or each other. Generally speaking, it’s neither. The art of the hammam lies in the communal bathing – not the naked – part. It’s something that people from other cultures can find a little unusual and even intimidating, but it isn’t meant to be that. It’s in fact particularly humanizing, one that cannot be experienced elsewhere.
I enter the first chamber of the hammam, technically the coldest room, although saying it’s cold is like saying harissa is mild. I walk past women receiving their harza, the vigorous full-body scrub you get after having bathed, and pick up 2 buckets. Walking through a small doorway connecting me to the second room, slightly hotter than the first, I see women bathing, and finally enter the last room. The third room is the hottest, likened closest to a sauna. The heat doesn’t come from hot coals, but simply from the (almost) boiling water that passes via a small system of canalization that runs along the walls and into a pool, and finally rushes out into the buckets at the simple turn of the faucet. (Remember to respect the bucket order: if someone is in front of you, you can’t push their buckets aside. I’m quite certain that the hammam is the only place I’ve ever seen Tunisians make a line and actually respect it.) Upon filling my buckets with hot water, and getting a bucket of cold water from the second room to adjust the temperature, I sit around on the marble ledges and abandon myself to the intensity of the heat, letting it do its magic. A haze floats lazily in the air, gently scented by the eucalyptus and rosemary leaves strewn about the funnels of water zigzagging down the walls. After letting my skin sweat out the dirt and oil, I eventually get out my soap and lather up. My soapy hand grabs a dipperful of water from my bucket, pours it on my body and rinses off the soap. Again, another round of soap – the soap bubbles up in my hand and slides easily up my arms, around my breasts and stomach, down my back and legs. I feel another sense of cleanliness, a kind of washing away of all my worries, fears, angers, and anything else that has been occupying my mind. Sounds slightly cliché – I know – but it does hold true to a certain degree. Rinsing myself a second time, I watch the water trickling down the drain, the dim light softening faces and bodies passing me on their way to fill up their buckets with hot water. .
I hear my number called out. Dumping my things in one of my empty buckets, I take my already filled bucket of hot water to the first room. The marble ledge that I will be scrubbed on is pointed out to me, and once I know which one it is, I throw the entire bucket of hot water on it, effectively washing it off . I sit down on the marble ledge, give the kaisa (the black scrubbing mitt) to the harza (the woman who scrubs), and extend my right arm. She grabs it, and with a “Bismillah”*** uttered, she starts scrubbing, her slightly rough, sweeping up-and-down motions peeling my skin into little black spaghetti strings. She finishes the right arm, grabs my left hand and extends the left arm. Again, up, down, up down. The same motions, the same little black spaghetti strings coming off. She puts my arm down: time to lie flat on my back. As she scrubs up and down my body, I close my eyes and let my body melt into the marble slab, the sounds of the kaisa on my body and of the voices echoing and bouncing off the walls filling my ears. A little tap on the hip tells me to turn over onto my stomach. She gets to work on my back and shoulders and as I’m lying there, water dripping into my eyes, I continue to hear women talking, laughing, or arguing, the sounds of which reverberate and ricochet bullet-like off the walls and ceilings. In fact, the place in Tunisia I have seen the most fights in is the hammam, interestingly enough – cleanliness is apparently worth fighting for. She yanks down my underwear and scrubs my cheeks as she makes her way down my legs. I lie there, obediently letting her manipulate my body to scrub the harder-to-reach spots. A quick rinse, a tap on the ass, and I sit up again on the ledge. She makes a gesture to scrub my face, but I decline it – and with a hearty “Saha!”**** from her, I’m ready to take my final shower.
“Shower? Final shower?” you’re thinking incredulously. I know, it seems excessive, but you have to realize that historically (and even until this day) many people did not and do not shower every day. When they do finally make it to the hammam, they wash like they’ve never seen water before. Also, the body scrub leaves particles of dead skin in your hair, so washing it out at the end makes sense. After shampooing and conditioning my hair in the shower stall, and a final bucket of cold water thrown over myself, I wrap myself up in my towels, which have been hung on the door of the stall for me by the harza, and at last, I step out of the hammam and into the cool, marble room where I lie down and relax.
An integral part of the hammam experience is sitting around on the mats and cushions after the whole bathing experience – which can last anywhere from 45 minutes (if you’re “speedy” and come super early, like me) to 3 hours. No one is rushed, and bathing actually becomes a pleasurable and relaxing experience, unlike the way we bathe on a day to day basis – quick and rushed, lacking in any sensuality. By sensuality, I do not mean it in the purely sexual sense; rather it’s about the experience of the body, of letting yourself actually feel everything, of coming back to touch with your body. It’s about being touched by someone else, and letting yourself soak in the simple pleasure of the human touch. In this day and age, we don’t let ourselves be touched by people – or we associate touching as only something sexual. It doesn’t have to be, and it’s not meant to be. The hammam experience is a humanizing experience – people join together to do a basic, necessary human need and you see them in their most elemental form. Everything is stripped away from you – your clothes, your job title, your social class – and you are no longer any different from the other women standing half-naked in the room with you. We’re all one and the same, no differences between us. And it’s a beautiful thing.
Walking out of the hammam, I feel clean and new – the day ahead of me is full of possibilities and adventures – another cliché that I am fully aware of, don’t worry. But it truly does make you feel that way. Once you experience the hammam, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
*Aslama - "hello" in the Tunisian dialect
**labass - "how are you" in Tunisian
***Bismillah - "in the name of God," usually said as a kind of blessing before doing things
****Saha - literally translates to "health" but in context it means "to your health"
The myths and mystique surrounding the hammam has existed for ages – some people think of it as some enormous cesspool, completely dirty and filthy and a place not to be visited; others think of it as a place where women bathe constantly and generally lie around naked all day, touching themselves or each other. Generally speaking, it’s neither. The art of the hammam lies in the communal bathing – not the naked – part. It’s something that people from other cultures can find a little unusual and even intimidating, but it isn’t meant to be that. It’s in fact particularly humanizing, one that cannot be experienced elsewhere.
I enter the first chamber of the hammam, technically the coldest room, although saying it’s cold is like saying harissa is mild. I walk past women receiving their harza, the vigorous full-body scrub you get after having bathed, and pick up 2 buckets. Walking through a small doorway connecting me to the second room, slightly hotter than the first, I see women bathing, and finally enter the last room. The third room is the hottest, likened closest to a sauna. The heat doesn’t come from hot coals, but simply from the (almost) boiling water that passes via a small system of canalization that runs along the walls and into a pool, and finally rushes out into the buckets at the simple turn of the faucet. (Remember to respect the bucket order: if someone is in front of you, you can’t push their buckets aside. I’m quite certain that the hammam is the only place I’ve ever seen Tunisians make a line and actually respect it.) Upon filling my buckets with hot water, and getting a bucket of cold water from the second room to adjust the temperature, I sit around on the marble ledges and abandon myself to the intensity of the heat, letting it do its magic. A haze floats lazily in the air, gently scented by the eucalyptus and rosemary leaves strewn about the funnels of water zigzagging down the walls. After letting my skin sweat out the dirt and oil, I eventually get out my soap and lather up. My soapy hand grabs a dipperful of water from my bucket, pours it on my body and rinses off the soap. Again, another round of soap – the soap bubbles up in my hand and slides easily up my arms, around my breasts and stomach, down my back and legs. I feel another sense of cleanliness, a kind of washing away of all my worries, fears, angers, and anything else that has been occupying my mind. Sounds slightly cliché – I know – but it does hold true to a certain degree. Rinsing myself a second time, I watch the water trickling down the drain, the dim light softening faces and bodies passing me on their way to fill up their buckets with hot water. .
I hear my number called out. Dumping my things in one of my empty buckets, I take my already filled bucket of hot water to the first room. The marble ledge that I will be scrubbed on is pointed out to me, and once I know which one it is, I throw the entire bucket of hot water on it, effectively washing it off . I sit down on the marble ledge, give the kaisa (the black scrubbing mitt) to the harza (the woman who scrubs), and extend my right arm. She grabs it, and with a “Bismillah”*** uttered, she starts scrubbing, her slightly rough, sweeping up-and-down motions peeling my skin into little black spaghetti strings. She finishes the right arm, grabs my left hand and extends the left arm. Again, up, down, up down. The same motions, the same little black spaghetti strings coming off. She puts my arm down: time to lie flat on my back. As she scrubs up and down my body, I close my eyes and let my body melt into the marble slab, the sounds of the kaisa on my body and of the voices echoing and bouncing off the walls filling my ears. A little tap on the hip tells me to turn over onto my stomach. She gets to work on my back and shoulders and as I’m lying there, water dripping into my eyes, I continue to hear women talking, laughing, or arguing, the sounds of which reverberate and ricochet bullet-like off the walls and ceilings. In fact, the place in Tunisia I have seen the most fights in is the hammam, interestingly enough – cleanliness is apparently worth fighting for. She yanks down my underwear and scrubs my cheeks as she makes her way down my legs. I lie there, obediently letting her manipulate my body to scrub the harder-to-reach spots. A quick rinse, a tap on the ass, and I sit up again on the ledge. She makes a gesture to scrub my face, but I decline it – and with a hearty “Saha!”**** from her, I’m ready to take my final shower.
“Shower? Final shower?” you’re thinking incredulously. I know, it seems excessive, but you have to realize that historically (and even until this day) many people did not and do not shower every day. When they do finally make it to the hammam, they wash like they’ve never seen water before. Also, the body scrub leaves particles of dead skin in your hair, so washing it out at the end makes sense. After shampooing and conditioning my hair in the shower stall, and a final bucket of cold water thrown over myself, I wrap myself up in my towels, which have been hung on the door of the stall for me by the harza, and at last, I step out of the hammam and into the cool, marble room where I lie down and relax.
An integral part of the hammam experience is sitting around on the mats and cushions after the whole bathing experience – which can last anywhere from 45 minutes (if you’re “speedy” and come super early, like me) to 3 hours. No one is rushed, and bathing actually becomes a pleasurable and relaxing experience, unlike the way we bathe on a day to day basis – quick and rushed, lacking in any sensuality. By sensuality, I do not mean it in the purely sexual sense; rather it’s about the experience of the body, of letting yourself actually feel everything, of coming back to touch with your body. It’s about being touched by someone else, and letting yourself soak in the simple pleasure of the human touch. In this day and age, we don’t let ourselves be touched by people – or we associate touching as only something sexual. It doesn’t have to be, and it’s not meant to be. The hammam experience is a humanizing experience – people join together to do a basic, necessary human need and you see them in their most elemental form. Everything is stripped away from you – your clothes, your job title, your social class – and you are no longer any different from the other women standing half-naked in the room with you. We’re all one and the same, no differences between us. And it’s a beautiful thing.
Walking out of the hammam, I feel clean and new – the day ahead of me is full of possibilities and adventures – another cliché that I am fully aware of, don’t worry. But it truly does make you feel that way. Once you experience the hammam, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
*Aslama - "hello" in the Tunisian dialect
**labass - "how are you" in Tunisian
***Bismillah - "in the name of God," usually said as a kind of blessing before doing things
****Saha - literally translates to "health" but in context it means "to your health"
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Whoops...
So I was SUPPOSED to be blogging about my "fabulous" life as an expat, wandering the earth, traveling and discovering other countries and cultures, living this nomadic life and enlightening myself, etc etc. What I've mostly discovered is that I'm a lazy son of a bitch (well, I guess daughter...) and that in the year + that I've lived here (here being Tunisia) I haven't written a damn thing about my thoughts or experiences or anything I've learned about this place I live in or even about myself. I've only got a few more months left, so I'm going to try and catch up as much as possible...
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Travel and the Magic it Holds
Traveling is one of the most exciting activities to do - at any time, at any age. I've been hoping to get an around the world ticket at some point and spend a couple of years just traveling. If my plans work out, I will be teaching English somewhere and enjoying life wherever I end up. So, here goes...
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