tmi thursday: the dirtiest clean.
It’s time for TMI Thursday, brought to you by LiLu. As she always says, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week??” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s!
If you remember, I spent last fall studying abroad in Madrid. I traveled a ton, and one of my favorite trips was the five days I spent in Morocco.
Whenever I travel, I like taking advantage of being in a different culture with a different language and totally different customs. I like eating the food and experiencing the non-touristy parts of places. So when the opportunity arose in Morocco to take part in a hamam, or Turkish bath.
Here’s how it was explained to me by my delusional professor: It’s like a spa, similar to a steam room. It’s very relaxing and warm and there are women that work there that will offer to wash you and scrub you down with sea salts to exfoliate your skin.
This is how we had imagined it:
Or even like this:
Here’s what it was like in reality: NOTHING LIKE THAT. Imagine an old YMCA locker room, sans lockers. Just a flat tile floor, covered in water. Now imagine 200 women crammed into that locker room. Now imagine them naked. Then imagine that these women were old Moroccan women who had clearly indulged in a little too much couscous back in the day and had never seen the likes of a razor.
ALL OF THAT CAME TRUE.
This is what it was actually like, except with naked women, no men, and a whole lot dirtier. (Making it MUCH WORSE.)
A group of 8 of us girls somehow managed to undress (bottoms on, thankyouverymuch) and armed with our soap and shampoo, we worked our way back to the hottest room in the joint. The people running the place gave us buckets to use to get water, and we all regretted not bringing shower shoes with us. Our modesty of being naked in front of each other was the least of our concerns.
What was the most of our concerns, you ask? Staying clean. No, not GETTING clean, STAYING clean. Because in this kind of bath, you’re not in a bathTUB. You sit on the floor, and the water drains down a slight slope towards the walls. If you think about the physics of it all, you’re essentially sitting on the floor surrounded by all the dirt and grime that the fat, old naked women all around you just washed off their bodies. Not to mention all the hair – OHHH THE HAIR.
Needless to say, when you’re sitting on the floor of a Turkish bath and you look around you and see dirty soap suds and long dark hairs floating past, you speed up your bathing ritual a little bit.
So there we were – 8 American girls surrounded by other people’s filth as we tried to rid ourselves of our own filth while simultaneously trying to respect the Moroccan culture and not appear as horrified as we actually were.
As we walked out of there, dried and dressed and in shock, I actually felt kind of good. Yeah, I was dirtier than I had been when I entered, but I did feel relaxed. (Or maybe it was relief for escaping without contracting any obvious disease…)
Since then, I’ve heard that a lot of people actually do enjoy this group bathing ritual and that I was likely not at one of the nicer, private facilities that most places have. (Think old smelly YMCA versus the shiny health club with a juice bar and TVs on all the cardio machines.)
If anyone has the chance to go to a bath in Morocco or in Turkey or anywhere else they have them, I would absolutely recommend it. But just remember your shower shoes, extra soap, and a little stool to sit on. Oh, and definitely DON’T look down.
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Ewwww mine was similar to that–very YMCA-ish and gross and just a tile floor that we had to sit on. Luckily there were only 6 other women in the whole place otherwise it could have been a lot worse. Except I had a VERY overweight, busty woman washing me. No, washing wasn’t the right word. MANHANDLING. But yeah I just wrote about that haha. If I had seen hair floating past me, I would have flipped.
Ashley´s last blog ..Best of ‘09: The One Where I Get Naked and Learn a Lesson
Ha, I like you more every single day.
The end.
nicoleantoinette´s last blog ..insomnia, crackers, and one of many potential explanations for my crazy
I’d have totally booked it out of there once I saw the little hairs floating around. NASTY.
Zandria´s last blog ..TMI Thursday: Belly Bloopers
oh yikes i can’t even imagine doing that without laughing, wow.
katelin´s last blog ..Send in a doctor.
ha, i had a similar experience in morocco, except our joint wasn’t even tiled. it was just a concrete floor with some spigots coming out of the wall, and 2 naked moroccan women dumped buckets of water over our shivering heads. it was… uh, cultural.
Alice´s last blog ..why don’t you suggest weekly root canals while you’re at it?
You are a better person than I… I SO would have booked it out of there. I’d rather be dirty for a month.
Hmmm… WYR Wednesday…
LiLu´s last blog ..TMI Thursday: Straight From the Control Room
I was mid-bit into some yogurt when I read, dirty soap suds and long dark hairs floating past. Needless to say the yogurt is now in the trash.
Gross.
Jeney´s last blog ..I’m Just Sayin’ — Self Checkout
I feel like I would have walked in, saw it, and then turned around and walked right back out!
Cassie´s last blog ..TMI Thursday: A Puking Story
I say we seek out that spa with the juice bar and such to remedy that you had to ever experience that. I’m willing to do that with you, I’m THAT good of a friend.
Doni´s last blog ..Milk & Cookies
Not to mock other people’s cultures but that’s a bit way too challenging…even for me..kudos for you and your friends to try though!:)
An ex told me a story about going to one of those.
But there were people (employees hopefully) there scrubbing you down.
Peter´s last blog ..are you working on your drabble?