Third Time's the Charm (A Story of a Christmas Hammam)

After going to a hammam in Morocco you feel reborn. I barely consider myself clean after a shower now just because it is nowhere near to getting you as clean as a hammam trip does. Now my first two hammam trips weren't great. There's a reason why I have only been three times in three months, but after the third try I have finally had an experience that has me planning to make going to the hammam a weekly habit. The first time going to the hammam I was shocked and couldn't quite figure out how to handle being in a steamy bath house room filled with naked women. In reality my first experience was a pretty good one, but it was slightly ruined by having to rush out early after realizing I was several minutes late for an appointment. The second time I went was unpleasant to say the least. I had several old women yell at me for laying down on a bench (that's what they're meant for) and after that trip I wasn't left with much of a desire to go back.

As it has continually gotten colder showering has also gotten quite a bit more difficult. Taking a bucket shower in 10 c weather isn't exactly an appealing idea. Since the plan for tomorrow is to go with my family to a big fancy wedding I decided it would be a good idea to pick up and go to the hammam. To make it even better my host mom surprised me with treating me to the fancy hammam next to my house. She also paid for one of the hammam ladies to scrub me. So the basics of the hammam are that there are three different rooms. A super hot room, a medium hot room, and a mildly hot room. In the fancy hammam the process was that your set up in your own personal area where you have your own sink and bench all set up in the medium hot room . You put on the beldi soap which is a blackish green oily soap that is always used in the hammam and then go and lay down in the super hot room. You're supposed to stay in the super hot room for at least five minutes in those five minutes you sweat more than you ever think you could and you just feel like a limp boiled pasta noodle. Next you move into the medium hot room and fill up your sink with hot and cold water and wash the soap off. Once you wash the soap off you get on a cot and a lady scrubs your body. Just imagine a lifetime of dead skin being completely scrubbed off your body. You honestly don't know how dirty you have been living your entire life until you go to a hammam in Morocco. Many people repeat the process a few times or you can continue on to just wash your hair and body until you are satisfied and then move onto the mildly hot room for a final rinsing. Afterwards your super clean and your whole body feels like a babies butt. Bam! A whole new person just because of a hammam trip.

Marrakesh International Film Festival

Two weeks ago Marrakesh held an international film festival. Each night I went with my friends to watch the free films at Jemma al Fna and we also got to go to the red carpet. There was also a random sword fighting event at the opera house that we saw after the red carpet. Here is a video we made for my class.

http://youtu.be/w15KIJbdAGo

Pieces Fall Together

Many times as I am walking to the bus stop each morning I see the bus coming and I realize that I need to start running or else I won't make it. This generally has a few varying results: 1. I make it on time for the bus 2. It blows right past me without stopping 3. It blows right past me, waits at the stop for a few moments, and then decides to leave right before I arrive 4. It stops right next to me (This only happened once). However, today was quite different. Today I got up around the time I usually leave, but I still managed to leave with good time. Of course today was one of those run to the bus days, but as the bus passed me I realized that there was no way I was going to make it to the bus stop on time so I started walking. I noticed that after the one person at the bus stop got on the bus wasn't moving. Wait, the bus was waiting for me? I started running again and thanked the bus driver profusely. I pulled out my bus pass to pay, but it wasn't working for some reason. On the way running to the bus my card had fallen out and I was just left with the hard plastic case for my bus card. The bus driver told me to look outside I stepped out and didn't see it anywhere near the bus so I got back on ready to pay with cash, and he told me to go back out and look farther down. I felt terrible for delaying the bus schedule and was wondering how much time I would have to find the pass, but as I was getting off a man ran up to me and handed me my bus card. The bus was still there and I managed to get where I needed to be on time.

Honestly, my morning really could not have gotten any better. Everything ended up working out in ways I never would have expected them to work, and at this moment I really couldn't be anymore satisfied with the way things are going and the things I'm experiencing. 

Second Encounters

There are some events in life that just happen to be completely and totally inexplicable and this past weekend I definitely had one of those moments. Every time I go back to it I try to figure out why it happened and how it happened. The chances of what happened were extremely slim and I just cannot understand how it did end up happening.

On our trip to Southern Morocco we spent a day in Tamgroute. While we were there we visited a library filled with historical texts and we visited where the pottery was made. Tamgroute is well known for making green tiles that are found in many mosques. I also go to make a fool of myself trying to make a vase. Considering that I had spent a reasonable amount of time at pottery camps I thought that maybe I would be able to make something simple, but apparently my pottery skills are not available right now and everyone with me got to see that as well. In addition to all of these things we had a short time addition to our group. A young boy (I'd give him up to ten years old) followed us around to see what we were up to and during this time I did to talk to him in the very little and bad Arabic I knew at the time. The encounters you make with people in cities are generally what makes a city memorable and this little boy is what made Tamgroute memorable for me.

Considering Tamgroute is about six hours away from Marrakesh I did not expect to be seeing this boy ever again, but just a few weekends ago I was sitting at a shop in Jemma el Fna drinking tea (typical Morocco, I know) and I saw a young boy that looked just like him. It couldn't be him though because he lived in Tamgroute and there was definitely no way that we would both be in the same are of  Jemma al Fna at the same time. Things like that just DON'T happen in life. It's too strange. You can barely call it a coincidence because it's just so much more than that. It's absolutely insane. However, the little look alike boy did turn around and it turned out that it was him and just for confirmation he also recognized me. He remembered me!

I still can't figure out how or why this happened. It is the single most unusual encounter in my life to date. That morning my family discouraged me from going to Jemma al Fna because I was going to be going on my own. I had tried discouraging myself from going because I had a good load of Arabic studies, as usual. For some reason though I decided that I needed to go to Jemma al Fna and I went. Look what happened. Why it happened? I have absolutely no clue. 

Sorry I'm Not a Cat or Dog

The reason I walk out on the street each day is obviously because I want to hear boys whispering sweet nothings as they walk by me. Whether I just showered or the last time I showered was a week ago, whether I'm in pajamas or nice clothes, apparently I'm somehow still a beautiful girl that must be called after, silly me for expecting to be able to walk on the street feeling like an animal. I knew coming into my time in Morocco that I was going to have a beautiful experience, but that I would also have to put up with street harassment. I told myself I would get used to it, I've been to South America before this isn't my first time dealing with cat calling, and for the most part I actually am quite used to it. Getting cat called is part of my daily routine. I've grown to expect it, but even with this I can't and I won't ever find it acceptable. The fact that men are able to make me question why I went outside, that I constantly have to be aware of my surroundings, and that even if I go out in broad daylight by myself it would be so much wiser if I brought one more person with me, completely sickens me.

What makes it all the worse it that more often than not it's not a boy my age that's calling after me, but a man that is old enough to be my father and sometimes even my grandfather. I know for a fact these men have a sister, daughter, granddaughter, a girl that  is in some way important in their life, yet on the streets Moroccan men make it seem as though I'm just an object.

I'll deal with the kissy noises, the completely unoriginal sayings, and the following on the street, but I can't deal with what happened to me Monday. At 2:00 in broad daylight I was walking to the orphanage which is only a five minute walk and the streets are generally crowded. The main street in front of the hospital and my house was extremely crowded and I crossed the street as usual. I noticed a man following me on his motorcycle so I walked as close to the hospital as I could, and that's a quite a big distance between the sidewalk next to the hospital and the sidewalk next to the street mind you. After walking across the whole hospital motorcycle man was still following me, but I finally saw him speed up and I thought that he had finally realized that maybe he had better things to do with his time. Wrong. I turned and on the final (and only the second) street I had to take to get to the orphanage and motorcycle man was sitting there waiting, and unfortunately this part of the street was empty. People constantly walk by this area though, so I hoped that maybe somebody would come walking down right at that moment, but nobody did. I crossed the street, staying as far as motorcycle man as I could, but he felt it was acceptable to cross right next to me. He drove alongside me for a moment, whatever no big deal it wasn't the first time that had happened to me before. However, when he turned and parked right in front of me completely blocking me from walking anywhere that was unacceptable and I was scared considering that there still wasn't anybody on the street. In addition he was speaking to me in French. I mean come on at least he could've guessed my nationality correctly or have been completely lazy and just spoken Arabic to me.  At that point I yelled at him " safi, hashuma!" (stop, shame!). Cue laughter from motorcycle man because white girl speaking Arabic is just too funny. I didn't stop, I just kept yelling until he finally left. I really don't know what took him so long to realize that I had absolutely no interest or understanding for that matter of what he was saying.

What's  bothersome about this incident is that it happened in broad daylight. I ended up completely unharmed and chances are that nothing would have happened, but in the moment I did actually feel concerned. There are two things called self-control and respect and it would be nice to see these put into use on the street. After having my week start off with such an incident it makes it all the more frustrating realizing that you can't reply to the constant cat calling. Replying would simply be "asking for it" and anyways what am I to do since "boys will be boys?"

Sahara Excursion

Sahara Trip

I went to the Sahara last week and my friends and I made a short "film" about our trip for class. Here is the trailer for the "film" and the full video will be up later inshallah