The Scrub of my Life

On Friday evening I had a truly North African experience. I visited a Hammam. The hammam is the local bath house. I had read about these bath houses in the Lonely Planet guide before I arrived, so I kind of knew what to expect. I knew there would be three rooms in which the temperature got progressively hotter, there would be lots of hot water, and there would be a scrubbing. What I wasn't prepared for was the lack of ability to communicate. So far, everywhere I've been in the city I have been able to use my French and get along without any communication difficulties. My friend that organized the Hammam visit lives in a more traditional neighborhood however and nobody at the Hammam seemed to speak anything but Arabic (my limited knowledge of Arabic - how to ask for coffee and say "my name is..." didn't seem to help us out too much!). Now the organizer of this trip was one of the guy teachers, and as there are separate Hammams for men and women, he wasn't much help once we got inside. So Mary and I (an american teacher from my school) braved the hammam toutes seules. We got inside and found a spot in the third (hottest) room, and then realized we needed to rent a bucket (to get water with). So we traipsed back out to the reception area where they had our clothes & towels in cubbies and asked them for our bag so we could get some more money out to rent the buckets and soap. The soap looked like mud mixed with oil. We traipsed back to our spot in the third room and went through the ritual of pouring water over the floor to wash our intended spot. Then we poured water over oursleves and took the oily soap and rubbed it all over. This is a special kind of soap that gets your skin ready to peel off during the scrubbing. So we rinsed off and then looked for a scrubbing lady. There are ladies that work at the hammam as scrubbers. You pay them an extra fee and they make sure that you don't leave the hammam with any possible extra skin cells, ANYWHERE. That was the beginning of our troubles! We found a scrubber, but she spoke only arabic. finally after trying in vain to communicate, she went and got someone who worked as a cubby guard to come translate into French. I felt like the woman translating wasn't really telling us every thing they were discussing, and I wasn't sure her French was good enough to really understand me either. We asked what the price was for a scrub and after conferring (and a surprised look on her face when the scrubber named the price in arabic) she turned and quoted us about twice what the price should have been for a full body scrub. So I told her that I had been told a much lower price and she said that was only for a back scrub. That sounded suspicious to us, but I decided I really did want a genuine hammam experience, so I'd pay that and at least get my back scrubbed. So after agreeing, both the scrubber and the cubby guard left. We couldn't ask the scrubber where she was going, so we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, Mary told me she would scrub my back and take me next week to a hammam near her house where we can communicate. Of course as soon as she started scrubbing, the scrubber showed up and shooed her away from my back. She started scrubbing my back, and then kept going until all of me was completely and entirely scrubbed free of dead skin cells. It was pretty gross to see all these grey rolls of dead skin coming off. I was a little baffled since I told her I only wanted my back done, but I couldn't communicate to her and the cubby lady was three rooms away, so I was stuck. Then the scrubber started asking me questions. there was no way I could figure out her questions, much less answer until she started using hand motions. Then I knew she was asking something about shampooing my hair. By this time I was HOT and had to get out of that third room. I was trying to tell her that I wanted to shampoo my hair in the middle room since it was cooler, but I really couldn't get that across. Finally I tried to tell her OK, i am done (since i knew how to say that in Arabic). then she tried leading me out all three rooms to the exit, but I really wasn't done and my shampoo and stuff were still in the hot room. So, I tried to go back to get the shampoo and figure out how to show her I wanted to use the middle room, but she was getting frusterated at that point. By this time a lot of the other ladies were watching us play musical rooms with sympathy or amusement - I'm not sure which. Finally, one of the ladies offered to translate. This time it was someone who spoke French really well, and we were able to find out what the scrubber wanted us to do. Aaahhh... So in the end I got my hair washed and we got a good rinsing, the floor got its ceremonial re-washing, and we exited the hammam with a few less skin cells, and a greater incentive to learn Arabic!