The Hammam and Man Love

Let me tell you about the hammam. The “Hammam Story” is the most told by anyone – Peace Corps volunteer or otherwise – who comes to Morocco, but it is an unavoidable duty. So, what is the hammam? In short, the hammam is the public bath, and it is at once both exactly like what you think it is and completely different.

I went with one of my CBT (Community-Based Training) pals, Michael. It’s very important to go with someone else for reasons that will be explained more later. When you get there it’s a lot like the YMCA – damp, humid, disrobing men making small talk – then, you’re handed a few buckets (important) and go on in to the most memorable bathing experience of your life.

Now, not all hammams look the same – some have many rooms, some have few; some are big, some small; some have many faucets and some have only one – but the one I went to has four rooms, each for a specific purpose. And before I go any further in the story, let me clarify what I meant by the “disrobing” I mentioned previously. You do NOT get naked in the men’s hammam (I’ve heard conflicting stories about what happens in the women’s), but you do strip down to your undies or bathing suit (I opted for the former). So, the first room is called the “cold room” and it’s actually the last room you go to. The two following rooms are each significantly progressively warmer and the final room is the hottest.

The hot room is where you get your water in your buckets (still important), but also where you sit and warm up. The whole philosophy of the hammam hinges around the fact that people don’t really bathe as frequently as they do in the States, for example, and so they have different requirements for getting clean. The room is so hot that you can hardly move and no cleaning is done here. Instead, you only sit and sweat until you’re almost completely dehydrated – maybe 20 minutes – allowing the sweat to loosen the grime and filth that has collected over the last 3-4 days (if you’re Moroccan) or 6-8 days (if you’re a Peace Corps volunteer).

Now you’re ready to start cleaning yourself. For this you have to go to a medium temperature room, take a seat on the floor (after disinfecting it with a little hot water from your buckets), and get out your soap and, most importantly, your kees. The kees was originally designed by Cardinal Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition as a means of extracting conversions from non-believers (see Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I for more information). Today, Moroccans have adapted its use for deep-penetrating exfoliation and extracting conversions from non-believers. Although the kees is cloth, it is actually more closely related to the common cheese grater, and it goes a long way towards explaining the psychology of the average masochist. You see, when you don’t wash yourself that frequently, you build up layers of dead skin on top of your living skin, and you really don’t want that. Actually, after the first time I eventually took a shower in Morocco (sans kees and not in a hammam) and started to dry myself off, I began to panic when rolls of skin began coming off with my towel. These were the unexfoliated follicles, and had I used the kees, I wouldn’t have had this problem.

So, while you gouge yourself with the kees or, as in my case, emasculate yourself by using a loofa (or “American kees,” as my pathetic attempt at preserving my dignity put it), you may make a few interesting anthropological discoveries. The first is the buckets. Morocco is a very communal society. People share everything with the notable exception of hammam buckets (or “plastic gold,” as they are referred to by most lay people). The taking of another’s hammam bucket is justifiable cause for the offended to kill the offender and enslave his women, and I have heard even more harrowing tales of what goes on in the ladies’ hammam. (I should remark here, however, that these are actually second-hand stories and that in my experience the other dudes in the hammam were actually incredibly helpful in filling my buckets for me and lending me a small bucket with which to scoop the water onto me.) The same rules also apply to taking another’s designated (by being disinfected) space on the floor, and I did actually witness a brief total war between two guys on this subject.

The second, and most notable of anthropological points, actually brings us to the second half of our discussion: man love. Obviously, you’ve got as many almost naked dudes as a bad gladiator movie, but there is so much more that might offend the delicate sensibilities of your typical Westerner. For example, let’s say that you’re busy flaying yourself with your kees and you realize that you can’t quite reach all the places on your back (and you certainly don’t want to leave any skin there). What do you do? No problem; just lay down and have your sweaty, scantily-clad pal hop on your back and get busy with the kees (there’s usually a professional wandering around the hammam somewhere, though, of course, his services will set you back a few dirhams). This is totally normal, and it is not at all the only instance of man love you’re going to experience in Morocco.

When you go out of the hammam, almost everywhere you look you can see guys walking down the street holding hands and/or walking arm-in-arm. Was there a spontaneous rift in the space-time continuum and you’ve accidently stumbled into San Francisco? Is this a music video for the Village People? No, this is everyday Morocco, and it’s generally discomforting to most Americans.

But putting aside the immature yet brilliant gay jokes, I’d like to talk seriously about some very interesting culture. As I hope you are all aware by now, Morocco is a proud Islamic country, an identity that comes with certain requirements, one of which is that public interactions between men and women are not smiled upon (and private interaction is virtually non-existent - as far as people are willing to talk about - except for between husbands and wives). This leaves people with little outlet for interpersonal contact, and so, naturally, they turn to intragender relations. I think that the amazing thing, though, is seeing the power of culture in action. Western culture says that men holding hands is wrong (though we certainly need to work on that), and so it is very hard for Westerner men to hold hands with each other. Try it. Find a friend of yours – a guy, assuming you are one, too – and just hold his hand. See how long you can do it before you start to feel really uncomfortable. I’ve done it and I don’t even agree with these constructions, but I can’t hold a dude’s hand for more than about a minute before I just get weirded out. But Morocco says that it’s totally normal, and so Moroccans can scrub each other down almost completely naked and they don’t think twice. On the other hand, don’t ask a Moroccan guy for advice on how to pick up chicks because his culture has given him so little opportunity for interacting with women that he’s about as useless as

The point is that it's all just a matter of what your culture tells you is ok, and it's important to realize that there really is nothing wrong with guys expressing their affection for each other, regardless of how they choose to do it.

And so, you have these two cultures clashing in every volunteer who comes here: trying to intregrate into the culture but having these blocks from our old culture that get in the way more often than not. But if we can spend a few hours taking a bucket bath in our underpants with 25 other guys and have a great time, then there shouldn't be any problem overcoming our other difficulties.