Hammam

I love Morocco. I love the heat and the smells; I love the food and the bustle, and the glass and leather and cotton and intricate candle holders. I love the pots the food comes in, and the stone washed walls and the tiles in my hotel bathroom and the stonework around the windows. I'm not so sure about the layout of the hotel computer keyboard - my typing speed has just dropped from 60 wpm to 2.5 wpm, and my blood pressure has risen proportionately - but I love Morocco. Even when it's storming and full of dust, as it is now.

I am, however, not quite as in love with their beauty treatments.

An entire day, it took me to persuade my sister to try a famous Moroccan Hammam with me. A full day, and in the end I only managed it by letting her have the left side of the bed, furthest from the door (women are biologically programmed to sleep on the side of the bed away from the door, in case of intruders. Interesting and little known fact, which spells trouble for sisters all over the world).

"I don't like being pampered," she told me crossly. "Especially by strangers. I don't even pamper myself, let alone pay other people to do it for me."
"It'll probably be just like an Onsen," I answered knowledgeably (and smugly). "Except in a different language. It will be very relaxing."

It wasn't.

First, we were stripped off and left on our own in a confusing room. Then, when we had climbed, shrugging, into a cold pool, the lady came in and shouted at us in French for getting into the wrong pool at the wrong time, and dragged us both out again, after which she sat my sister down, covered me in green snotty stuff and threw buckets of hot water over my head. Tara laughed heartily at my plight, until the woman started unsentimentally scrubbing at bits of me that women don't normally scrub at, at which point my sister stopped sniggering and looked absolutely horrified.

When we had both been professionally molested, we were thrown into a tiny, warm, stone room, told to sit on rubber mats, and then left to our own devices. For the rest of our natural lives, apparently.

"Do you think we're being punished?" Tara asked after twenty minutes. "For getting in the wrong pool?"
"Yes. And if we do anything else wrong, they will come back and make us sit in a smaller, even hotter room. And if we do anything wrong again, it'll be another, smaller one, until we're standing up in an oven."
"But what does it do?"
"Sweats out the bad stuff, I think."
"I don't have any bad stuff. Everything I have I want to keep."

Another ten minutes passed.

"This is not fun."
"No."
"It's not relaxing either."
"No."
"It's just a warm stone room."
"Yes."
"If I wanted to have a bucket of water thrown over my head and then get shouted at, fondled and then forced to sit in a box, I'd go home and hang out with my boyfriend."

Ten more minutes.

"Do you think this is relaxing because it makes life seem beautiful again just because you're out of this bloody room?"

Another few minutes.

"This is what hell is like, isn't it."

Two more minutes.

"I am going to break that goddamn door down and kick that woman in the face."

Another one minute.

"I haven't lost my bad stuff. I've sweated out my sense of humour."

Another ten minutes passed. I started pacing and swearing. My sister started scrabbling at the door.

Fifty minutes, they left us in the box. Fifty minutes, and then they dragged us out, scrubbed us viciously with some kind of brick, poured green stuff over our heads, threw water in our faces again and handed us our clothes.

Back in the real world, my sister and I sat on the pavement outside and lit two rather cross cigarettes.

"I've just been touched up, insulted, scrubbed by a stranger and trapped in a coffin for an hour."
"Mmm."
"Holly, I don't feel pampered."
"Me neither."
"In fact, I feel quite cross and stressed."
"Me too."
"Next time you want to relax, can you just take drugs or something? If you want to be mauled by another lady, there are clubs you can go to in London for that kind of thing."

I love Morocco, but as far as relaxing and pampering go, I'm not so sure that the African way is entirely compatible with English sensibilities.

Either that, or we actually were just being punished.