Finding love in a hammam

by Benjamin Minchin (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Morocco

Walking into the white-tiled, male changing room there was the sound of children fighting on the street outside. Squeezing ourselves onto one of the small wooden benches, my partner Alexandro and I hesitated then began to undress. To our left, two young men were talking animatedly and laughing at something on one of their phones, and to the right an elderly man was listening and nodding thoughtfully. Hung over the lockers was the familiar rainbow: Arsenal red, Chelsea blue and (in this case) Morocco green. Clearly, I mused to myself we all obey the unwritten rules of masculinity, glancing down at the claret and blue on mine and Alex’s football shorts; a perennial symbol of a shared boyhood in Birmingham. The shorts caught the attention of one of the young men who, having turned away from the phone, cried “Aston Villa!” grinning and slapping me on the back. Pleased to have found an ally in unchartered territory, I forced my feet into a pair of rubber sliders, grabbed the leaking bag of African soap and hurried behind Alex, descending into the hammam. Inside we were not greeted with scent of cardamom or citrus, as we had expected, but the all too familiar odour of an adolescence in England: Lynx ‘Africa’. This unexpected voyage back to my schooldays took me by surprise, and I was left feeling slightly foolish with my little plastic bag of the ‘authentic’ sudsy brown soap. Inside the first room was a massive vat of hot water and a stack of bowls and buckets which are new found friends were demonstrating to Alex how to use before leading us into the next room. As I filled my own bucket, I made out two bodies against the opposite wall. Through the dark and the steam I noticed one of the more macho hammam workers massaging a frail, elderly man. So forcefully was he kneading into his man’s joints and under his sinews that I felt myself panic and want to intervene, to check that the man wasn’t in pain. Before I could do this, however, the elderly man let out a loud sigh of relief and whispered “Shukran habibi”, thank you my love, and the masseur obediently continued his work on his ageing body. A rare moment of tenderness and care between two men, which I had mistaken for virility and aggression. Hesitantly, I followed Alex into the next room, through the small doorway behind the vat. In this new room men and array of men were dispersed, some sat crossed legged on stools, others lay on the floor or leaned against the walls. All regarded us nonchalantly but seemed to welcome us inside nonetheless. We sat down on the two plastic stalls with the men we had met in the changing rooms and relaxed against the hot tiled wall. Suddenly, I felt a splash of warm water fall over me. Shocked and slightly affronted, I stood up in defence. There in front of me was a man, not much older than myself at the time, looking seriously at me and miming scrubbing his own arm and then gestured to Alex's back. I eventually realised that he was demonstrating how to used the African soap so, slightly confusedly I took a palmful of the brown sticky sap and applied it onto Alex. Unlike in England, public homosexuality taboo in Morocco but love between men, both romantic and platonic, is common in private spaces like the hammam. The man smiled and gave us a thumbs up. Before I knew what to expect we were lathering the soap onto each other and splashing hot and cold water to rinse it off. Muslim men are often vilified as sexist and homophobic in the West, however in this moment inside the hammam I realised that they are doing it right, we must learn that male intimacy is necessary for healthy friendships and relationships . An hour later, laughing, we remerged to the sun setting over the old medina. Alex looked at me knowingly and went to take my hand, with newfound courage and optimism about my Moroccan neighbours, I accepted.