My Moroccan Ha-Ma-Ma-Maaamm
Dispatch XXXVI
Continent #3: Africa
A white Christian American’s hilarious journey into one of Islam’s most ancient and honored rituals.
I’m a shy man. I could spend days happily alone, in a monk-like stupor. It’s very likely one of the reasons I’m a writer rather than an actor or circus performer. If I had to be either Siegfried or Roy I’d probably fail at both. No, for me a good day is hunkering down with my keyboard to tap out words, preferably in an order that makes some sense to others. Occasionally I succeed. But I also have this taste for novelty and travel because, after all, arent novelty and new places two peas in a pod? Now and then, though, my curiosity leads to more than I bargained for … like my first Hammam.
A Brief History of Hammams
Hammams are a unique feature in the muslim world. They go back to its very earliest days. The first of them emerged in the palaces and desert castles of Damascus in the late 600s (AD) thanks to Mu’awiya, a cleric who founded the Umayyad Caliphate in Syria. If you look hard, you can still find ancient Hammam ruins in places like Qusayr 'Amra and Hammam al-Sarah. It didn’t take long for Mu’awiya’s idea to catch on. Hammams soon became a key part of Muslim culture from Mesopotamia and India clear across the Middle East and North Africa to Morocco and into Europe and Iberian Andalusia.
Youssef was one of the guides who helped us navigate Morocco and he says all sorts of variations of Hammams have evolved, but the basic idea, whether you are in Turkey or southern Spain, goes more or less like this: first you undress and spend some time in a cooling area. After that comes a warming area with steam and then finally a hotter section before being thoroughly scrubbed with a kessa glove — a stiff mitten made of tree fiber specifically designed to thoroughly exfoliate your skin. Next up, a special mud (usually loaded with magnesium and other minerals) is applied before you are drenched again with warm water. As a bonus you can also enjoy a kind of Swedish style massage and relax with some hot mint tea (if you happen to be in Morocco).
An ancient Hammam. Qusayr 'Amra Syria (Photo - Wikimedia Commons)
The first Hammams emerged from Greek and Roman baths, or thermae, which prospered during the heyday of both of those empires. Cyndy and I visited a bath in Volubilis, Morocco, a Roman city built when Christ was growing up. The baths weren’t working very well when we saw them, but apparently they were when Isidris I, the founder of Moroccan Islam, later converted it to a Hammam in the 8th century around the time he set up his first capital city there.
Why, you may wonder, all of these ablutions? For practicing Muslims, a Hammam serves both religious and civic purposes. It provides for the Islamic cleansing rituals (wadu and ghusi) required each week, while ensuring everyone gets a serious personal scrubbing. (This was more of an issue in ancient times than nowadays.) And it’s flat out relaxing.
I first came across Hammams when Cyndy and I were exploring Istanbul a few years back. But we were pressed for time on that trip and I failed to try one out. So when Rayna, a tall dark young woman who worked at Riad Kalaa where we were bedded down in Rabat, Morocco said they had a Hammam right there on the premises, I wanted to know more.
“Let me show you,” she said.
Descent into the Hammam
I followed her through a narrow archway and down steep stone steps into the riad’s bowels. We were way down there. Inside I found three dark rooms, one with a tub (too small for a human), the other two with large tables — one stone and one wooden. The whole scene looked like a great place to hold the Spanish Inquisition. The rooms were pristine, but I wondered if Riad Kalaa had always been a Hammam. It was built in the 1600s. Maybe it used to serve as a medieval dungeon. Rayna chuckled and said she didn’t know, but explained that the Hammam ritual was routine for Moroccan muslims. Then she shot me a look as if to say, “Really, you’re gonna like it.” I checked for chains and manacles anyway.
Despite my imaginary misgivings, I could tell the place was the real thing, even if I didn’t know what kind of real thing. But then, you know … novelty. I asked Rayna if she could arrange an appointment for later that day — both the Hammam and a full massage. Why not. We had covered a lot of ground. The old body was feeling the wear and tear.
“Yes, of course,” said Rayna. “I’ll set it up for 4 pm.”
Back in our room I asked Cyn if she wanted in.
“Ah … no,” she said with military finality.
The first set of stairs leading to the Hammam. (Photo - Chip Walter)
I was wary of the rituals of Hammam because they seemed fairly elaborate. And I was clueless about how to behave. It fell into that comfortable/uncomfortable space in the mind where both “interesting” and abject fear reside, like bungee jumping or free climbing. And the whole process appeared pretty damned intimate. What sort of person would be drenching me? A large Arab from some bad movie involving Bruce Willis? A saucy Mata Hari? Would I be alone or surrounded by other people? How would I be clothed? How long would be Hammaming? Stop it, I said. You’re being a wimp! Shut up and enjoy the ride! Millions upon millions of people have partaken in these rites for 1400 years, and survived. Pretty sure you can too.
The second descent into the Hammam. (Photo - Chip Walter)
Off With Your Clothes
At 4 pm I headed down, down into the dungeon’s ancient steps, the slap of my sandals echoing against the sandstone rock. When i walked into the dressing room (or undressing room as it turned out), my experiment immediately began to get interesting. Standing before me was a buxom middle aged woman with short, tightly curled black hair. Her face was strong and handsome. She smiled and showed me a row of gleaming white teeth, but said nothing. She wore a kind of black bathing suit and longish shorts. I smiled and gave her a hearty hello which I immediately realized was entirely out of place. Her name, I learned later, was Najeera. She might have been Libyan or Moroccan, Sicilian, Italian or Andalusian; maybe some combination of all of them. I only knew that in those dark eyes lay a kind of smoldering, no-nonsense gypsy look.
She quickly disappeared into the room next door and I heard a faucet being turned on. She moved silently and with commanding speed, grace and calm while I stood in my pants, t-shirt and sandals looking thoroughly like a white man from the USA entirely out of his element. Steam soon emanated from the nearby room. After a minute or so she returned and seemed surprised and a little annoyed to find me still standing unmoved. With a quick sweep of her hand she motioned for me to take off my clothes and then turned back to her duties.
Really? Weren’t we in a Muslim country? Wasn’t scanty clothing usually looked down upon in these parts? Especially when it involved people of the opposite sex? Was I really to entirely disrobe in front of this woman? I swiveled my head, looking for cover because surely there was some other scrap of clothing I was to wear, a loin clothe maybe? Behind me I found two robes. While Najeera had her back to me, I slipped off my pants and shirt and threw on the robe. She returned and looked at me again and rolled her gypsy eyes. What was this guy’s problem? She stood, silent for a moment, then held her hands and arms out with palms flat against one another, almost prayer-like, before suddenly whipping them open like a door, clearly telling me to get the robe off!
“Everything?” I gulped.
A vigorous nod, and then a gesture to enter the steaming room.
Everything??!
The appalling image that Najeera faced once she commanded I disrobe. Took this picture later to illustrate, more or less, what she saw … except in this case I’m wearing pants.
I dropped the robe, now nekked as Jesus on Christmas morn, and shuffled into the room. It was me and Najeera, and not another soul.
I was to lay down on my stomach. Thank, God, I thought. I obediently scrambled onto one of the marble slabs which had been topped with a neoprene mat, and waited. Water and steam had been running into the little tub I had seen on my first visit and was rising and filling the room. I lay, awaiting what? Then, gently Najeera began to douse me with a large ladle filled with hot water. It was just the perfect temperature and I felt suddenly calm.
“Ca Va?” She asked to check if the water was too hot. Her first words.
“Ca va.” I croaked.
Now she stroked my body with a soft cloth, sweeping the water across my back and legs and everything in between. I was getting a very thorough and intimate cleansing. This went on for several minutes before my boss directed me to roll over.
What?!
Here in a blink we went all my old Catholic upbringing out the window, all remnants of the Victorian Age not to mention American proprieties about lying naked in front of total stranger. What would the nuns at St. Germaine’s think? How would I control my you know … well, you know … the part of me that often seems to have no control?
Maintaining Control
I rolled onto my back thinking deeply about the geometry problems that plagued me in high school while Najeera performed the same ablutions on my front as she had on my backside. Gentle hands, gallons of hot water, careful attention to each detail. The steam roiled and the water, which had long ago spilled out of the nearby tub, now ran everywhere on the floor. I closed my eyes and shifted my thoughts to chess gambits.
This went on for several more minutes until Najeera asked me to roll back onto my stomach and now with her kessa, undertook to separate every inch of my epidermis from the rest of me. Truthfully, this process isn’t as painful as it sounds. You aren’t flayed, precisely. It only assures that the days of whatever dead skin happen to be clinging to your epidermis are now and forever thoroughly numbered, which is, of course, the idea behind Islamic purity of mind and body. I was feeling simultaneously relaxed and invigorated.
I could hear Najeera breathing hard in the steam as she worked to scrub my neck and back, my bottom, thighs, calves, feet and toes, the whole magilla. Next I was flipped onto my back again. By this time I had moved onto exploring prime numbers, and then I gave up. Go with it, I thought. Let John Thomas have his way. Enjoy the moment, the steam, the soothing douses of warm water, the invigorating scrubs. Najeera has probably seen more naked men and their nether regions than your average nurse in her lifetime, and could care less. She was simply doing her job. Yes, there was something erotic about this, and parts of my body were more than … touched, but this was not about sex. It was part of a long and ancient ritual that was different from anything I had ever experienced before. So like the Brooklyn cabbie says, “Fugettabaht it!”
The scrubbing took a good 15 minutes assuming I didn’t fall asleep. I may have, I was enjoying it that much. I gave my self over entirely to Najeera. My skin felt alive, renewed, fresh. When I was done, my epidermis would have sung a Meghan Trainor song if it could have. Skin is the body’s largest organ and deserves more tender loving care than at least I’ve given it in my life. Waking it up, cleansing it, releasing the oils and detritus we and the world slap on it could not possibly be anything but a gift. Scrub, scrub. Every now and again I found myself mumbling a grateful, “Trés bien“ which did nothing like justice to the pleasure I was experiencing.
Scraped clean, Najeera rinsed me with more warm water. After that she lathered me top to bottom with a bar of black soap. Then more ladling before commanding me to sit up cross legged to drench me again. Imagine that image. Or maybe not. I flashed back to the days when I was five and my mother would put me in the basement washing tub because after a summer’s day of exploring the woods, ponds and creeks, I was filthy. “Come here, you little raggamuffin,” she would say, lifting me into the tub. Here I was again, a raggamuffin in a Moroccan Hammam 40 feet below ground with a dark haired gypsy. That, I thought, is what travel is all about, the broadening of personal experience in the most unexpected and exuberant ways.
Now came a final bathing: the mineral rich mud which Najeera slathered on me forehead to toes. This did not dry in the moist heat of the room, but I could feel my skin absorbing it before I was ladled with more of the warm and relaxing water. I was now cleaner than I think I may have ever been in my life.
But she wasn’t done yet.
Even though I was feeling more like a boiled pasta noodle than a human being, Najeera managed to sit me up, wrap me in a towel and march me 10 feet to the wooden massage table around the corner. Off came the towel with a flourish and I was laid face down for a fine rubbing with oils unknown to me. Again, Najeera worked with thoroughness and care, front and back. I’m sure I dozed even as I tried to enjoy the relaxing touch of every muscle. This woman had the hands of a stevedore yet massaged me with a strength and gentility that unknotted every muscle (except one) for a good hour. I could hear her breathing hard and sometimes watched her wiped the sweat from her dark brow, as she kneaded me like a bundle of bread dough. She may have had the hands of a longshoreman, but I had begun to realize she also had a sweetness that belied her nun-like commands.
In time we were done. I opened my eyes. Najeera flashed her white teeth. I could only muster another lethargic, “Tres bien. Merci beaucoup! Merci! Merci!” And a stupid grin.
I rose and it was work to pull on my clothes. Najeera simply stood nonchalantly by. She could care less.
I asked her name. She told me.
I gave her mine. She daintily held out her strong right hand. “Enchanté,” she said.
“Enchante,” I replied, and reflexively closed my hands in a prayer, bowed and sputtered out another merci. Finally she smiled and daintily tilted her head.
When I indicated payment, she waved a finger and said, almost crossly. “No. Upstairs.” Meaning I should pay at the office. We will not taint this ancient ritual with something as lowly as money. Once again, a kid being reprimanded by the nuns at St. Germaine’s.
I thanked her one last time and ascended the steep steps. I felt like a new man. No wonder, I thought, that the people of Morocco seem so open and warm. How could they not be if they do this every week.
| Miles Travelled | 21,200 |
| Ferries | 9 |
| Transatlantic Ships | 1 |
| Trains | 14 |
| World Heritage Sites | 15 |
| States | 30 |
| National Parks and Monuments | 18 |
| Beds | 99 |
| Keys | Way more than four octaves |
This is Dispatch XXXVI in a series about a Vagabond’s Adventures - journalist and National Geographic Explorer Chip Walter and his wife Cyndy’s effort to capture their experience exploring all seven continents, all seven seas and 100+ countries, never traveling by jet.
If you’ve enjoyed this dispatch, please take a look at Chip’s other adventures (and misadventures) … and don’t forget to check the Vagabond Journal and our Travel Recommendations to help you plan YOUR next adventure.
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