S/V Aphrodite

My Tunisian hammam experience was similar to and yet completely different from my Moroccan experience.  If it weren’t for Angela’s desire to go I think I might have skipped it.  How glad I am that I did not.  The basic set-up is the same, with women and children splashing buckets of water on each other, smearing muddy paste all over themselves and each other, scrubbing with rough mitts, followed by buckets of water for rinsing and generalized social exchange.  Exfoliation is a serious part of the hammam experience in Tunisia.  Babies scream and children (even preteens) are laid across their mother’s lap while they get their ‘everything’ scrubbed and rubbed and shampooed! 

What was so different and totally fantastic was the personalized attention we got from our assistant/masseuse and our opportunity to witness a Bride’s Hammam Party.   

A Bride’s Hammam Party is an all-women affair, similar perhaps to a bridal shower in the States but without the presents.  It takes place about five days before the wedding and all of brides’ aunts, cousins, friends, etc. are invited to accompany her to the hammam where she will be ‘prepared’ for her husband.  When Angela and I first arrived, our attendant tried to tell us that the event was going on, but since we could not understand her we were at a loss as to the message.  She kept pointing to Angela’s wedding ring and then patting her mouth with her hand making what sounded like an Indian war dance call! 

We were bewildered but intrigued.  Soon it became apparent that what we were witnessing was an age old ritual characteristic for a Tunisian bride.  Our full understanding evolved over the duration of our hammam treatment, enhanced by a bit of internet research.

The bride was behind the closed doors of a very small cubby room when we arrived, having all of her bodily hair removed.  Once completed, she emerged, draped in special towels and was greeted by her entourage with candles, incenses, chanting, drumming, dancing and the Indian war cry.  She was then encircled and escorted to another room where she was dressed in beautiful Caftan.  At this point she was out of our view, but we continued to hear the Indian howling periodically.  When we hailed our cab to return to the boat our cabbie mentioned that he saw the departure, a full procession of cars driving her and her relatives back home.

The whole experience lasted over two hours and we left feeling like we had never been so clean in all of our lives, a wonderful experience, both culturally and physically.