The Things Traveling Teaches (T)us

I hear laughter, laughter and brash debate; the gurgles of a baby; the sound of sardines –hamzi - being sucked off their bones; the scraping of a plastic chair. In a hamam, sounds sail through the air much like the mist that drapes the steamy bathhouse. A woman in her late 60’s with soft movements and stern eyes is explaining some formalities of which I do not understand a word. My unsynchronised nodding fails me, and she sighs deeply as she realises that our dialogue is in fact a mere monologue. We move back to the basics, and the woman says, “gel” – come.

We hunch under a low stone passage and I let my fingers run over the walls that have been letting women through for centuries. We reach a white door, and as the woman in front of me puts a hand on the door handle, she loosens her hamam towel. I take a firmer grip of mine.

As my eyes get used to the fog, their silhouettes turn to flesh. Some rest on hot stones between the bronzed taps, some pour steaming water over themselves from pastel coloured plastic bowls. Their stomachs divide into two, or sometimes more when they sit down. Their breasts rest on their knees as they lean forward to wash their feet. A lifetime of propaganda on how women’s bodies look washes off of me - I will never forget the first time I saw a woman’s body serving just her.

I feel a gentle hand on my back giving me a firm push down on a moist marble slab. I slide over the slippery surface feeling as gracious as a stranded whale, but the same hand glides me back to position. It feels like if a giant kitten is slurping milk off of my back, or like if a fluffy little cloud is repeatedly crash-landing on top me, or like if a woman of Istanbul is lathering me up using a floor mop – either way, you should try at least one of these.

A while later, when the violent scrub succeeding the soapy wash is over (you leave with a new set of skin, literally being a new person), I sit closed-eyed between two bronzed taps. I feel light splashes of water from the woman washing herself next to me, and the sound of running taps and soft conversation mixes in with the mist. Thinking about the others in the room, I no longer think how we are of different nationality, or different age, or how we speak different languages. In the hamam, we are all simply women.