Sunday, August 28, 2005

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!

Saturday, August 20, 2005

"The Mystery Item"

During our week of new staff orientation we had a "mystery item" everyday. These were very odd looking (or smelling) items for which we created a variety of invented uses before our host gave away the truth (we think). It was a little like playing boulderdash with an object rather than a word. Maybe someday I'll steal some of Bethany's pictures and post a few of the contraptions. Bethany is quickly racking up points for the most pictures in our rookie group.

In the meantime, here's a mystery fruit for you... I kept noticing this little fruit on fruitstands as I passed them and wondered what it was. I never noticed it at my fruit guy's stand, so I never had a chance to ask about it until today. I went to Acima (they sell Auchan products - so I'm guessing they're related) and the lady next to me in the fruit section was picking some out, so I asked her what kind of fruit it was. She told me I really should try it to see and held one up. I was feeling a little hestitation since I've been told to bleach all my fresh produce to keep from getting sick. So I stuck to asking questions - "does it taste like a pear?" I asked. She looked up again, "No, it's really it's own taste, here try one and you'll see." At this point she took one and rubbed it shiny on her shirtsleeve. She smiled as she held it out, "try it". I looked at it and looked at her and decided to ignore all the thoughts about Kim's yucky food sickness experience here. I took a bite. She was right, it doesn't taste like any other fruit.



I picked out a few to bring home to have my roommates try. I took the bag over to the scales to have the weigh-er stamp a price on for me and I looked at the sticker "JUJUPE". So now I can say I have eaten Jujupes. That sounds like something from a Dr. Seuss book! The fruit is dry and not very sweet. I wonder if they cook it or marinate it in something. It doesn't seem like the kind of fruit you'd want to pop into your mouth for dessert.

Friday, August 19, 2005

New Roommates & Temporary Apt # 2


On Saturday I moved from Temporary Apartment # 1 to Temporary Apartment # 2, and FINALLY got my suitcases unpacked. I considered leaving them packed until August 22 so that I could say I had been living out of a suitcase for 2 months, but just couldn't do it! My new roommates arrived on Sunday. Kristi and Heather are from California and Sarah is from Alaska. For a while we'll all share an apartment in the city. Eventually when the on campus housing is ready we'll move out there and split up 2 and 2, but that won't be until October. Hopefully we'll get moved before the rainy season starts!

These are the views from my bedroom window. We are living in an area filled with apartment buildings. On our block they all back up to each other and our apt is on the back side of our building. The view isn't too interesting, but a very interesting mix of smells and sounds come floating through the windows. Every night around 10pm one of the families sits under that green tent on the patio in the first picture to eat a big family meal. I've heard that a lot of families have relatives visiting from France for the month of August, so there are a lot more family get togethers around this time of year. It sounds like there are a lot of kids enjoying their late summertime bedtimes. The food always smells delish (except for last night - all I could smell was the propane - they must have been grilling something). Somebody else plays really loud music, but usually turns it off around midnight.

I'm getting paged by my roommates to come make dinner.

A bientot!

My First Tour Guide!


I stayed with Kathleen for a couple of weeks when I first arrived. We found we have a lot in common - we're both (Northern!) East Coast girls and have the same personality type (INFJ - go to www.humanmetrics.com to take the Myers Briggs personality test, and then let me know what you are - it's so fascinating!). We share the same love of languages (we spoke French in our apt for 2 weeks - it was so good to get back into that) and enjoyed cooking together. Kathleen inspired me to have the courage to take a taxi (after all the crazy stories I've heard about taxi drivers here) and invited me to tag along and meet her local friends - that was fun! I told her friends that I really wanted to learn Arabic and so I had started studying with a CD program b/f I left the States. They asked me what words I had learned, so I started telling them... coffee, thank you, you're welcome... The one girl started laughing and told me to repeat them for her sister. They both started laughing and telling me I have an Egyptian accent. Ha! I think that's better than an American accent, so I'll go with that :)

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

One Week!

Wow! The time is passing quickly here. I have now been here for over a week. I am surprised by how non-strange it all seems. I know that some of that feeling is due to the fact that it seems like I have just flown back to the Quartier Arabe in Bordeaux (or any other large French or Belgium city). The ability to speak French has been invaluable. I have come in contact with very few people who do not speak French.

At my training in NY they encouraged us to make some goals for our first week and first month in our new country of residence. Those I had for my first week were almost accomplished. I wanted to know the neighborhood where I am living enough to be able to go out and get groceries by myself. I also wanted to learn how to greet someone in the local Arab dialect (which is quite different from modern standard Arabic). My third goal is the one that gave me some trouble. I had planned to use the few days here before I started work in the school office as unpacking days. Those of you who know me well know that I HATE packing and unpacking. So, I thought if I got it done right away, I wouldn’t have that nagging feeling of it hanging over my head and I would feel much better about my new “home”. Well, I arrived only to discover that the housing planners here decided that it would be better for me to temporarily stay with one of the Americans who’s been here a while so I could have help getting around and then be able to be that helpful person when the rest of my team arrives on August 15th. That was a VERY GOOD plan, but it did push that goal back to my list of first month goals (which I don’t really remember anyway…).

This week has been full of trying new things… I tried pistachio yogurt – which is delicious. I tried some coffee offered to me by a new local friend – it had some kind of spice in it (we think cardamom – she only knew the Arabic name). It tasted kind of like chai tea, only made with coffee. I also tried getting to school by myself in a taxi this morning. That went pretty well since all the taxi drivers speak French. I was a little nervous by the story one of my co-workers told me yesterday about one new teacher a few years ago that had a nervous breakdown after his insane taxi driver got them into a head-on collision with a semi-truck and although the teacher didn’t have major injuries, the taxi driver died. Please remember my safety when you think of me!

(By the way – I finally found an office where I don’t have to wear a million layers! I think it is about 80 F in here! You Hanover friends would die!)