Moroccan Delight!

There is a point every week or so when I realize that I’ve fallen behind schedule on my personal grooming. It’s mostly when I glance at my chipped nail paint, or unruly hair. I can be really lazy when it comes to applying those mud masks, trimming those nails and painting them. (I am a complete disaster when it comes to doing my nails, but then I have my wonderful sister who is ever ready to help me make my hands look presentable!!) In order to keep myself on track I have devised these biweekly visits to the parlor to stay in good presentable shape!

And what more would one need, if one has a really dear friend who is obsessed with grooming and keeping herself prim and proper at all times, like I do? Well, then you will be well on track! My dear friend Pooja, is a delight when it comes to grooming and knowing what to do and WHERE. So when a couple of weeks back she pinged me saying I found this really cool place to get a Moroccan Bath (We had planned to get one done a really long time back)! I was like what are we waiting for and jumped at the offer! Little did we know what was in store for us!!

For those of you who like me are not aware of what exactly the Moroccan bath is, here is a little information thanks to the Google Gods!! The Moroccan Bath is a steam bath with certain gravitational soap made from Olive oil and washcloth that is originated in Morocco and found its way throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Just like the Bathhouses in ancient Italy, the Bath has beauty, cultural and social functions. It became a tradition for women, where they gather to relax after days of work and house chores. It also became a social event where women come together to chat and enjoy the company of each other away from all the hassle of the outside world.

So we, that my sister, Pooja and I along with Mamma. (Yup, My mum as well, not for a Moroccan bath, mind you, but because she was getting increasingly paranoid that We were going to place that we hadn’t been to before and THAT too for a Moroccan bath, what if there are hidden cameras, she said... Lol!! But you can't really blame her, there are many a sick bunch of psychos who might be doing exactly that in some places for all you know!) We all head down to this salon in Al Nahda, at the allocated time and are greeted by not one, not two but THREE brusque ARAB women!! LOL… Just seeing them, made me want to turn around and RUN! But then we were there and WE just had to get it DONE!! So once Mum was given all the briefing and soon as she had completed her little investigation, she left us there! And we wait, in a frenzy of rapid giggles, and a bundle of nerves with Peppermint tea set in front of us, simple and minimalist interiors in all its glory and a vigorous Arabic song in the background.

A few minutes later, we were summoned or rather told abruptly “Two, Two, Come!” Only once we stopped laughing did we realize she was asking us to go in for our session in groups of two!! Since in our case it was three of us, so naturally it meant One and two… I thought now if I have to shower with someone, that will have to be with my sister, because, a) she is my sister and b) Why scandalize Pooja… right??

But alas, My respite was short lived, Our Arab friend soon asked, in broken English, for all of us to get in together!!! LOL!! In the shock of this information, me and my sister, LAUGHED LAUGHED and LAUGHED so more, Pooja looks appalled and the 4 foot Arab lady glares!!!!

So I tell Pooj, you go first and we will join you later as a ploy to delay the session, but within few minutes, the before mentioned midget insists we join as well!!

I will have to say right now that, it was a life changing experience because never in my life did I imagine that I would let someone see me in that state, forget being in that state with my sister and my best friend, and two Arab women!!!! LOL

Once we are ushered into the steam room, wherein I was soon surrounded by billowing white clouds, which rendered it impossible to see anything more than a few feet away. After a while, I noticed that, close to me Pooja was sitting and a little further close to an indistinguishable bed, I could descry a dark shape. In a moment, it had materialized in the form of the very large and nearly naked Arab woman, who beckoned to me ominously. Summoning all my courage, I followed her; she sat me down on the floor in front of her, lathered me up, washed then began the scrubbing!!! As you lie there on a table with an older Arabic woman scrubbing your skin raw with the most coarse-sandpaper like exfoliating glove you will feel a lot many things! The foremost emotion was that of FEAR, fear that she might kill me if I dared to laugh but that was completely a figment of my imagination.

The environment inside the sauna, with visibly embarrassed Pooja, and us crazy sisters, was very much uhmmm, social, the ladies insisted on having a good gossip session whilst they giving us the ritual bath! They laughed (albeit like witches, Oh I seem have company!! :P) and sang, made faces (I am guessing to ease out our very visible tension on having to lay like that, while they went about doing OUR business! LOL) but on the whole they were really very wonderful ladies! :P

If you have never been given a very rough spa treatment by a female version of Hercules, you have never lived. By the time she decided I was clean, I was also thoroughly weird- ed out. She then proceeded to and lathered up my hair, shampoo and condition it as well! When I emerged a couple of hours later (or so it seemed), pink with the scrubbing, I was glad that I had been able to have the Moroccan Bath experience.

Anyway, it has been three days since and I still feel squeaky clean as I sit here and write this. Refresh. Light. Rejuvenated. NEW. Reborn. If you need a quick pick-me-up, run off to a Moroccan bath near you. It’s amazing what pampering yourself does for your state of mind not to mention your state of Body!