Bath and Beyond: The Hammam Story

Tired, like first explorers of the East, after spending couple of days in Erg Chebbi, part of the Moroccan desert, my local guide Khalid and I decided to overnight in Quarzazate. We drove for five straight hours in the heat finally pulling over at the beautiful hotel Les Jardin. While Khalid was checking his phone messages, I listened quietly as our faithful four-by-four Toyota idled in the parking lot. The vehicle was trying to catch its breath after running the distance thru the desert land. You could feel and hear the hot breath steaming under the melting hood of the modern stallion; its iron lungs filled with sahara sand begged for the cool relief in the evening breeze. As we waited for the engine oil to return back to its reservoir, I looked up at the hanging visor mirror above me. A familiar, yet extremely well done, tired set of eyes stared back at me. My directionally challenged dirty hair crunched up on top in a small retired bun like the pinnacle of all the struggles, completed the picture of desperation. As if reading my slow melted thoughts, Khalid said in English, one of seven languages he mastered on his own living in Morocco:

"Would you like to go to Hammam now or after dinner?" "I think now would be the perfect time!" I said as I scratched my burnt dirty flesh peeling away a

layer of dead skin on the back of my arm.

"Ok" he said. "Why don't you get changed at the hotel while I wait for you in the car."

In no time, as fast as Daytona Five Hundred pit stop car changes its tires, I dropped off my bags at the hotel, exchanged my heavy boots for light sandals, grabbed some clean underwear, a towel, some cash and my water proof GoPro. ( Boy, did I laugh at the last one later!)

In spite off all the reading I did and random googled photos, the idea remained foreign and I felt like a virgin on a first night, lost, and unsure what to expect. Few minutes past nine, I was back in the car with my survival bag excited for Khalid to take me to this magical place of surrender. The Moroccan Public Bath, or simply, Hammam.

We got back on the main road, drove for a bit, ending up on the outskirts of the city. Khalid turned into a newly built neighborhood and we circled couple of times looking for the address. It was getting dark and for a tourist like me, finding directions seemed like a mission impossible. The streets didn't seem to have clear posted names or obvious house identification. Sending me on my own would be as affective as sending me to the moon to look for life with one flashlight. This all seemed too confusing for my linear western mind, so I just set back and enjoyed the ride as my trusted pilot/driver beautifully navigated in the dark ancient streets by instruments of his memory.

At some point, after randomly zigzagging around the neighborhood! Khalid suddenly put on the brakes and we came to a complete halt. We were alone, surrended by total darkness and in the middle of a narrow alley. Besides our car, there was barely any lighting. I glued myself like a

suction cup to the windshield, and with frightened eyes I tried to make out the outlines of the

Promised Land.

Over to my left, I noticed a ghostly shadow detached itself from a brick wall. It walked over to Khalid's side and leaned against his rolled down window. I felt relieved when under dim cabin lights, I saw Moroccan woman and not Jack the Ripper. Her strong voice and tall statute complemented her warm soft features. She had no makeup, which was a bit unusual for a woman of her age. Her hair was neatly tucked under a black scarf, called hijab, a symbol of modesty and privacy of Islamic faith.

After a brief hello, how are you out of the way, my driver and Fatima started passionately discussing a subject at hand. And by passionately discussing, I noticed, the woman, did all the talking. Was this about me attending the bath? I wasn't sure but mesmerized and still frozen in my seat, I watched as the two spoke in foreign language; a mixture of Berber, French and Arabic. Once in a while, they pointed at me as some reference in their conversation.

From a distance we probably looked like gangsters trying to get some fix for the night; the car, the dark alley and a dealer, but in reality, I just wanted to get to a Spa.

My negation team continued to debate. I tried to understand the language but their dialogue was completely foreign to me so I just made up my own.

Fatima: 'Was-sap?

Khalid: Yo!

Fatima: Nice lady in the car! She is what?

Khalid: American!

Fatima: That's what I thought.. How much?

Khalid: One camel per pound!

Fatima: What? That's outrageous!

Khalid: Look, she is quiet, nice and smiles a lot, great for decor.

Fatima: Ok.. Give you five camels!

Khalid: Twenty! My last offer. She is a bit sour but deep down is sweet and tender, will taste delicious on barbecue, in sandwich or tajin.

Forget about prostitution or slavery! Somehow, my biggest fear was to end up in somebody's stew!

My thoughts got interrupted when I started to pick up an outline of a building next to me on the right.

I thought, my God, is this the holy bath? As if the the gates of heaven opened up in front of me with the accompanied magical sound of

'Awwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhh', I found myself staring right at the entrance to Hammam.

It looked very simple; just a small Hobbit arched entry in a three story old building with green fluorescent light emitting from the inside. Like in some witchy's lab, an occasional steam would escape from a small cracked window above and a loud woman's voice announced something like That one is done! Next!? And another carefully selected victim would be thrown in the boiling pot. By then my imagination run way too wild and like a train I arrived at my final station of complete fear and paralysis.

I looked up and a barely visible sign for 'Women Bath' in French confirmed we were, at least, in the right place. By the entrance and a bit to the side, a ghostly shadow of a large woman slowly became visible in the dark. I noticed she was sitting high and strong on a small stool and looked manly with her skirt all bunched up in front. Like a bull on a rodeo night, she had it strapped hard between her thighs. She slowly raised off the floor and approached the car.

"Salam" terrified, I quietly mumbled from my seat.

"Salam" she smiled in return but her strong features and loud voice somehow sent a small healthy wave of fear down my spine. Without further delay, she quickly vegged herself into the ongoing negotiations with Khalid and Fatima. I laughed thinking maybe she had more camels to offer. But this was no laughing matter. If she wins the Moroccan eBay, I thought, this could be the end of me. Judging by the size of her hands and a polar bear statute this woman was a heavy weight champion in her category and definitely would snap my spine like a celery stick.

As I watched three of them; my guide, the nice lady on the right and the Moroccan Helga played a game of ping-pong and argued who gets my white dirty body, I secretly hoped it would be Fatima. The grizzly bear made me a bit uncomfortable. The suspense was unbearable. Not to mention my impatience grew. Two rounds of the boxing later and the referee finally announced in Arabic:

Ladies and gentleman, and the American goes to Heeeellllggggaaaaaa!!!

The crowd cheered!

Oh no! I deeply exhaled. Noooo!

Ohhhhh yyyyyeeeeeesssssss! She probably replied. You are all mine!

She winked at me with that devilfishes crooked smile, then stretched her manly arms towards me, and cracking her fingers she pried me out of the car.

This is it, I thought. The time has come to face my Moroccan Inquisition.

I turned around to look at my driver Khalid, just one last time before I was taken away by the Yeti-Betty. My big eyes of a small caged animal, filled with fear of unknown, were sending a major SOS. Like me, Khalid looked defeated and afraid.

"Follow her", he said, pointing at Helga. "She will rock your world" oh maybe that's what I though he said.

Either way, I climbed out of the nested comfortable car and like a pet on a leash, followed her without any further questions.

"I will be right here, waiting for you." They were the last comforting words I heard from Khalid.

We made couple of steps over to the booth, to purchase a ticket. Naked And Afraid that's the show I was about to see, thinking of the irony of the situation.

The booth was a small one-by-one foot crate, enough to fit a baby, less alone an adult. My new friend Helga pushed a small coupon under cashier window with heavy iron divider which purpose remained unknown. It's not like this was a Bank or an Embassy and would require a heavy duty armory to keep wild, armed, and dangerous customers. These were simply dirty women of Morocco, not criminals!

My dear Helga said something in Berber to a young man who looked uncomfortably folded in half behind the counter and then turned to me with a question:

"Parle France?"

"Not really. English" I said, realizing that from now on, we are going to use some hand gestures.

I knew universal signs for peace, enough, and give me more, which I thought would be sufficient for the occasion. Annoyed, she said something back in French, at which point I clearly understood she just wanted me to pay for the entrance.

"Two way ticket, please." I joked as I handed the man one hundred dirham, or ten US dollars.

With the most serious face, under the dim light of a bare bulb, the man pushed back something dark wrapped in a plastic bag. I couldn't see it but I felt as if we were exchanging an illegal contraband in a maximum security prison. I quickly imagined, a SWAT Team of five, young, muscular and possibly single guys, pretty much a cast of Magic Mike, to jump out of a helicopter, surrender us at any minute and confiscate whatever was wrapped in that bag. Under a bright interrogation light somewhere in a baseman of a safe House and with employment of (hopefully) minimally invasive torture device, I would crack and tell them everything they needed to know. Next day papers would buzz with headlines:

After fifteen years of undercover intelligence a Russian born American was finally caught during drug bust at Moroccan Hammam. The search of her California home revealed twelve pounds of Dark Chocolate and one black cat named Jax. Whether the cat was part of the conspiracy, is still under the investigation.

Then my FaceBook friends of course would comment on the matter:

All those frequent overseas trips..that's explains it!! Her house even called "KGB Lodge!!! ? Dha!

Then some guy from Hollywood would write a script for an upcoming action movie titled "The Hunt For Red July" or "Salt and Pepper" based on the true story. As we know, the Russians are still bad and terrifying opponents who die way too prematurely. If not a grenade, vodka usually kills them early in a movie. My only wish for cast would be Angelina Jolie as Salt of course, and Sean Connery because I love his Russian accent.

Anyway..

Less than five US dollars for a spa? What? I was pleasantly surprised with the entrance fee but more like a guard on California-Mexico border, I was on high alert and wondered where was the catch.

Once we got all the formalities out of the way, like signing a waiver and legal contract, after reading ten pages instruction booklet, and notarizing the will where I addressed my last wishes, kidding, I then followed my professional bather through a dark narrow hallway into her dungeon.

We turned around the corner, and first I heard were women voices loudly echoed all around us. Then, was the visual. There were large quantities of naked women randomly running with plastic buckets in and out of a green tiled steam room. In my whole life of travels, accidental Internet search and work related experience as a nurse I could say with certainty that I had never seen so much exposure. After all, I was in a Muslim country.

In large changing room or the Reception Hall which consisted of one huge square tiled space with benches built around its perimeter with one small open window on top, there were lots of women like burritos wrapped in blankets resting after bath. Their regular chirping briefly paused and everyone had to look at the new girl. Awkward!

Yes, a new playmate in the sandbox. Look all you want ladies!

I walked proudly over to an empty bench and slowly started to undress. My pal Helga set next to me, breathing heavily, like a figure skater on a Kissing Cry Area of an ice rink after an Olympic performance. I was concerned for her health. Not looking all that enthusiastic, she started to peel her clothes off like leaves on a cabbage.

There was something intimate and deep down earthy, standing completely naked, feeling unnecessary exposed in a foreign country. In a country, where woman's body was a big taboo, and especially on Ramadan, observed by all Muslims as a month of fasting to commemorate first revaluation of Quran to Muhammad, it was covered ultra conservatively. It was wrapped with more cotton than an Egyptian mummy and like a precious artifact in Paris Louvre, placed behind a glass, locked and surround with lasers for forty long days.

Left with only underwear as my last defense and security blanket, I stuffed my bag with the rest of my clothing and we marched over to the receptionist. She gladly stored my prized possessions in a small cabby hole, without extra charge. After double checking my ticket, she handed us three large and one small plastic buckets. Why three? No idea. But intriguing. One thing I knew for sure, we didn't come here to pick up berries.

My Helga signaled me to follow her into the steam room. Under the piercing eyes of a naked crowd, we finally walked into the heart of the Moroccan bath. Well, actually Helga walked in first and I simply hid behind her big girl's body hoping she would shield me from the embarrassment.

The bath itself consisted of two connected rooms and a small hallway with three toilets. It was foggy, hot and crowded. Without any furniture, women were sitting right on the floor, some in lotus position on yoga mats, surrounded by large buckets of water. They all seemed to be naturally happy and comfortable, as if this was a nudist community on a family picnic. It looked so idillic and innocent, and beautiful, and not trying to be sarcastic but I thought it was missing a canvas, acrylic paint, rainbow and unicorns.

My friend Helga stopped me in the middle of the room, then pointed to a corner floor mat with her bear claw.

Sit she said silently.

I kneeled down and found myself a bit uncomfortable, next to a very large naked woman who was vigorously scrabbling her multiple folds, the spring rolls as I call them. I thought how differ our cultures were when it came to woman's size. Here, she was considered a model, in US she would be representing epidemic of obesity and victim of binge eating at McDonalds. On the other side from me, there were more women of different age. Some were bathing with small children.

Hi, how y'all doing!

I looked at my neighbor and smiled awkwardly. She paused her black mitten under the arm pit, gave me the look and then resumed her usual grooming activity without waisting anymore more time. I was glad the ice was broken between us.

Sitting naked on the floor in a another country and waiting for my turn to play with water buckets felt like being back in a kindergarden. So mature but strangely exciting! Almost dangerous! This should be a cover shot for a sports magazine, I though, titled "Living on The Edge".

Few minutes later, which seemed like an eternity to me, my Helga, dragged two huge buckets of water from a far. She looked like a Cave Man bringing the kill back to her starving family. She looked strong and fearless like Joan Of Arc in a battle, but had this matter-of-fact kind of swing when she walked. She was wearing nothing but her big-girl panties, as if this was a normal office business operation. All she was missing was a pager, name tag and a clipboard and I would think we were in a business center of downtown NYC.

I almost clapped my hands in excitement. It was nice to see her frown familiar face. Only few minutes past since our first dark alley not-so-pleasant encounter, but I was feeling already connected with Helga, and most of all, I trusted her completely. I realized that we were sharing a great level of intimacy and we were almost friends. And now, with that glove on her hand something was telling me we were about to become a family.

Somewhat dissatisfied with long hours at the office she planted the buckets on the floor and then slid them forward on the wet tiled surface. Here she said in silence again and handed me

the small empty grey bucket. Pure it all over yourself. Her hand suggested. Like this as she dumped a whole bucket full of refreshing cold water on my head. Got it? I tried to catch my breath from a shock of my first Moroccan baptizing initiation. It was like getting a membership at Cosco, joining a sorority or a club and I thought this moment should have been commemorated by a photo, a military standard issued jacket with pins like "I heart Hammam", "Badass girls go to Hammam" and "I survived 49 minutes in Hammam", a box of long range rifle bullets or a tattoo on left butt cheek that said "Mother, I am sorry but I joined Hammam". As much as these thoughts were amusing, I tried hard not to laugh because I heard bad, very bad things about Turkish massage and Turkish prison. Well, ok, granted this was not Turkey but still...

Shortly after the awakening ceremony and aimless five minutes of self-help water splashing on my part, my Helga became a bit impatient. The arms folded across her chest was telling me to hurry up. Since I didn't receive clear instructions, and was a bit unsure wether I should use all the water from the bucket or not, I looked up at my slave master hoping for some guidance. She reached over for the bucket and with some words in Arabic dumped the rest of it on me. Now it was clear. Then she grabbed my hand and with her amazing super woman power pulled me off the floor in one quick motion. With good intentions to look like a ballerina but in reality appeared to be more like a cow on ice, I tried to gain my balance on the wet floor in my rental rubber flip flops without drawing too much attention, and mainly, hoping not to break bones or spill my blood.

Let's go she probably said as she dragged me over to adjoining room. Without goodbyes to my newly acquired ladies friends, we promptly left. Helga meant business, even when she communicated silently with me. I understood that there was a bathing schedule and we couldn't ruin it. I liked that about her. She was here not to please but to do what she was hired for and finish it on time with German punctuality.

"What about the buckets?" I asked pointing on the precious rental equipment.

Don't worry I think she said and then pulled me by my hand as if we were late to the White

House dinner.

In about five steps we made it to the second room. Once we arrived, like a mother hawk with her sharp eye my Helga quickly spotted an empty corner where she protectively dropped me off, like her baby chick who didn't know yet how to fly. She then slowly wobbled back to get the buckets. From my place, I watched her with great pleasure as she cut through the crowd and filled three buckets with water from the knee-high facets installed on a divider wall upfront. While I was busy socializing with my new neighbors: a mother with an infant baby who was still breastfeeding and another woman with her four year old son who was misbehaving and not at the age of maturity to appreciate all the nakedness around, my Helga returned from her hunt for more water.

What I liked about her, that she didn't try to impress me. I understood she was the kind of person who followed rules, procedures, traditions and some unspoken order of this establishment, and there was no cutting corners or adding extra steps with her. The King of Morocco, me or I regular Joe would be getting the same treatment. Everyone was equal in perfect idealistic mind of hers. She was tough, strict and disciplined, a bit rough around the edges, but once I got to known her, I saw that she was filled with soft sweat chewy caramel from the inside. She was a teddy bear with a wrinkled frown face.

I looked at her to see if she would smile, but she was busy with the task at hand of rearranging the buckets on the floor. That took all her concentration. After she moved them around a few times, as if she was reaching for her best personal score in interior decorating and the highest level of perfection, she finally settled next to me, pleased with her nesting arrangements. When the stars and the moon of Moroccan sky finally aligned, she reached over for Sabon Beldi, traditional Moroccan black soap and the mitten which we bought earlier in the dark, and with all the seriousness, dipped it in a bucket and started scrubbing my leg.

"Wow!" I quietly mumbled with excitement.

The mitten, or El Kiss, a funny name taking in consideration that it was made out of grainy plastic material that felt more like a rough sand paper on my skin than a kiss. It was definitely more of a drunk bearded sailor's kiss, (my apologies to all drunk bearded sailors out there in advance) than Prince Charming. The kiss felt as if I dipped my leg into a pool of pirañas and then scrapped it with a hedgehog. The feeling was intense but not to forget effective. This was a fire-star cleaning especially if extra help needed to remove that stubborn blood stain on a living room carpet, before a CSI team arrived.

CSI Giselle, tall, beautiful, and smart. Her Beretta gun and red lipstick are concealed around her tiny waist. She is standing comfortably in her 3 inch "Sex and the City" high healed shoes, slightly bent over a dead body, adjusting glasses and brushing her long blond hair revealing a twenty plus hours of good sleep, endless vacation and Hawaii beech tan. She is addressing to CSI 2 (same but brunette):

"Oh No! Look at this, Victoria, they used El Kiss and bleach here! There is no way we'd be able to lift any fingerprints of the murder weapon!"

My Helga went down my leg pressing hard but steady and in one swift motion, like a Craftsman Belt Sender on a piece of log, she stripped a layer of dirty old skin. I picked it up, placed on the palm of my hand to took a closer look at the evidence. If this was a real crime scene, one sample of this shredded DNA would give the court enough material to put me behind bars for the rest of my life. I am guilty judge, on all counts! I apparently never took a good shower! Helga looked at me with her crooked smile which didn't say much but something more like I know. She was proud of her work.

With a corner of my eye, I could not help but to notice a couple of women on the other side of the room. One of which, rather large, a size of a medium whale stretched completely naked on the floor while the other, a rather petit girl was washing her entire body. Once in a while, without any resistance from the whale, she would lift her huge arm or a leg and scrub under as if she was a Christmas turkey in a sink. The scene reminded me of Friday night car wash in California where kids would try to clean an oversized truck on a parking lot of a grocery store with couple small buckets to raise money for a school project. From a far, they looked like ants crawling on elephant body with messy soapsud and bubbles, leaving pile of dirty rugs behind. And in this case, the woman seemed to outweigh the efforts of her little hard working ant. Watching this rather delicate cleaning scene where the legs were going up in the air like a couple on ice making a pirouette, made me think of lots of things, but mainly, if this woman was Victoria there would be no more secrets left.

When I was done watching Stars On Ice, I looked down to see how far my Helga had progressed. By then she had already finished cleaning one leg and moved on to another. Carefully supporting it with one hand and sending it with her tool, she looked like a real craftsman sculpting a piece of art in her garage. Like a Michelangelo painting ceiling in Sistine Chapel, she was sweating profusely. Granted, this was not an easy task. Bathing in hot and humid environment was demanding and hard work.

The cling of buckets, boiling water and heat started to remind me of an episode on Hell's Kitchen. My Helga, a newly discovered chef, was busy with task at hand to prepare a Moroccan dish with two ingredients provided and I was her potato she needed to peel in just under five minutes before she finished me in a hot boiling bucket of water.

Server: Todays special we have fresh caught Red Russian, slightly beaten, cleaned, skinned and seasoned to perfection, drizzled with dark chocolate and served with shot of vodka.

Guest: No, thank you, I' think I'll have your fish instead.

Once I got my hands and legs scrubbed, Helga kindly asked me to lay face down. They were more like hand gesture of General Helga's orders. You. Floor. Down. Was the order of her words. What? Like this? I spelled out with my body stretched out on a floor like an accidental Road Kill on a mountain road. Should I lay down and pretend I was getting a suntan in Miami, a massage, or a free colonoscopy? Or should I look like an outline of a body of evidence? I didn't know. I faced the tile awkwardly trying to find a comfort in the situation. In one swift motion, she pulled me by my legs, like a fish by its tail, and slid me across her lap. It felt like I was about to be spanked by my mother for something terrible. Like one time my friend and I, back in kindergarden, secretly cut each other's bangs and then punched a guy for pulling my hair a day before class photo ending with a bad haircut and a bruised eye. We both looked gorgeous and shone like lights on Christmas float in a front row.

While my Helga was working on my rear-end, sanding and scrabbling it thoroughly, slightly embarrassed I couldn't help but to think of some car wash and oil change analogy.

Mechanic : Rear differentials - checked. Pressure in back tires- added. One quart of engine oil added. Ma'am your car has been fully inspected, washed and waxed.

She gave me a quick back rub which was out of this world. I felt a combination of euphoria and painful death at the same time. Helga's soapy kiss flew up and down my back like she was sanding a new table top. I was loosing my epidermis as fast as Merino's wool at a Golden Shears New Zealand Championship. All I thought was if Organ Donor Network could use my dead skin like Locks of Love, there would be no need for skin grafts any more. A pound of my sheered pelt could save many lives, and, not to mention, patch many holes on zombies during an apocalypse. I imagined a new kind of business for Moroccan Hammam: direct supply to hospitals and international shipment of freshly sheered Locks of Dove.

After she leathered me with soap many times, I looked like oily sardine on Teflon pan. She scrubbed me deep, hard and steady. When she was done with my back she tapped me so lightly on the shoulder and signaled me to turn. To big amusement of the crowd, I flipped but looked like a sea-lion in marine park, awkwardly sliding on the wet floor. Even my Helga,

couldn't help but to force one tiny smile as she watched me struggle. It might have looked like a stroke victim's drool, then a Mona Lisa's smile, but it was natural and sincere. I was amused.

After couple of attempts to turn, I finally settled on my back. While my Helga held me tight by my tail so I wouldn't accidentally get washed into a drain, I could not help but to think here I was, naked, laying on the floor somewhere in the middle of Morocco like a dirty peeled potato and nobody had a clue what I was doing. This possibly could look like an opening scene to Fifty Shades of Grey but honestly this was nothing but a serious exfoliation.

I did not think it was possible to feel more naked, but I did. After Helga shaved few inches of my dead skin, I felt like leading actors about to film a sex scene, completely nude. With all her extended courtesy, she then dumped a whole bucket of water right on my head. I sat on the floor contracted in icy waters of Antarctica, like a shedding snake, exposed and a vulnerable. The water felt good and refreshing and with my newly discovered amphibian gills I could breath incredibly better.

From a sitting position, Helga got around the back to brush my hair. Her hands felt cleansing and therapeutic and like a butter on a warm toast, and I melted completely. It looked fuzzy and cuddly, like a mamma bear grooming her bear cub to bed.

But then, an element of surprise! Like Kungfu Panda, my Helga grabbed my arms, twisted them around me from behind and then snapped it in half. Or at least that's what I thought she did. I heard a crack, a deep familiar Chiropracter adjustment sound, with thunder and lightning, and two hundred volt electricity went down my spine. The feeling of immediate release of body tension was tightly wrapped with pain somewhere inside. My brain was trying to process the information it was receiving from down below.

Brain: What is going on over there guys? (Speaking thru Walkie Talkie)

Body: Not sure yet.. Cannot decide if it's a massage or hostage situation...Over.

Brain: You are breaking up ..Are you in any danger? I repeat. Is there a danger?

Body: We believe we had been attacked. I am just receiving a signal from bones... Hold on.. They are giving me a signal.. They are ... Ok. I repeat. They are ok!

Brain: What about muscles?

Body: Believe they are relaxed, Sir!

Brain: Face?

Body: It's smiling!

Brain: Oh thank God! Cancel "Flight or Fight Response"! I repeat. Cancel code "Destruct" is no go!

Helga massaged my back the way I had never experienced it before. Rough, deep, and quick with her hands. She attacked my body as if she was trying to break into a locked safe. This was a massage you get in airports between long overseas flights. Fast and down to the point, addressing major knots and kinks in the neck while you are awkwardly bent over a metal dance pole like the one in a strip-joint, shamelessly repeating "Right there baby! You got it! Just a bit to the left and harder! Oh yes!" All that but better.

Her hands quickly located my spastic muscles without a map to foreign topography and magically started to dissolve them with all her loving force. My spine, now more like a rubber band than a solid supportive structure gave in and stretched like a traitor across her elbow beyond this universe. I thought it would snap like a twig under the exerted pressure. But it contracted and seized instead releasing a small squeak of an injured animal.

Ugggghhhh, awwwhhh, wow, eahhh!

Excuse me?!

She got a hold of my neck and pulled it straight up in the air. I could swear, despite all laws of physics she added at least ten inches to my anatomy. Thanks to Helga's miracle hand job, now like a Giraffe, I could eat fruits right off a tree.

But that wasn't all. She locked her oily hands around me with a grip of death and squeezed my spine like a tube of tooth paste. The sweat came over me poring on the floor in large pearls of monsoon drowning me in my own secretions. This was now a flood zone of high proportions.

Paging (overhead) Noah. Noah, please come to the front office. We need your tools, building permit and sketch for an Arch. ASAP!

I really wanted to scream but it was not an option for taught Russian woman like me, so I sat and quietly endured my painful Moroccan pleasure for which I willingly paid whooping ten US dollars. For better or for worse, but Helga and I were now in a committed relationship.

When the storm passed and intense feeling of being skillfully skinned and squeezed, Helga pored the left overs from the buckets, washing my pain and dead carcass away with refreshing Moroccan water. It felt like rebirth. A new me. New start. New beginning. Euphoria and hallelujah! I was cleansed and purified.

Yet some melancholic sadness started to slowly sip through my veins. I sensed the ending was near and we were about to depart. In forty nine minutes together, Helga and I created Band Of Brothers, A Sisterhood Of Traveling Pants. I endured fear, joy, happiness, pain and pleasure. We bonded over old traditions and customs and I was lucky to be accepted in her circle of trust! The high level of intimacy I surrendered myself, was like I never experienced it before. It was beautiful and pure like a mothers bond with her newborn child. We did not say much but there was some unspoken silver thread that connected us together. This was an experience I never forget.

As if by the bell of an intrinsic biological timer, my Helga, now completely exhausted, helped me up on my feet. She then folded her buckets inside one another like Russian Matreyshka and with animated sounds of Ai, Ai, Ai which probably meant Go! Go! Go! she asked me impatiently to head for the exit. She picked up the buckets and soap, wiping the beaded sweat of her forehead then slowly started to shuffle behind me, thus ending her long corporate day.

We made it back to the reception where I claimed my belongings. We both walked over to the benches and I plumped myself heavy on a seat under strong gravitational force. I was tired.

"Thank you!"

I said to Helga and gave her a good smooch on a chick. First she startled by the outburst of my European unexpected affection. Then, her face and eyes lit up with appreciation and she gave me her biggest smile. A bit shy and obviously not good at taking complements, she flashed and shrug her shoulders.

"Goot?" She asked with an accent.

"Very good!" I said and gave her a thumb up.

My timid Helga, by now a color of a bright red turnip, turned away and started to fumble with her clothes. I smiled and we sat side by side getting dressed in total silence. I watched as she put her large Moroccan Qmiss covering her baggy pants seroual, and slipped into her comfy shoes babouche and then she proudly walked me outside.

We stepped into the night. The crisp air and night breeze felt refreshing. I could smell my own hair in the wind which gave out that pleasant herbal and earthy aroma of cleanliness. By then, the night had completely took over the city and everything around became few shades darker. The stars, on the other hand were brighter and more visible as the sky had less light to compete on the ground. Most residents closed their shops and gone home where they settled down after a good dinner. The city noise quieted and the wind and crickets were singing now the evening serenade. It was perfect.

Helga pointed to couple of small stools outside. We took a seat and without saying a word to each other contemplated on life while waiting for my ride. I wondered if she was thinking about anything in particular. Love? Problems? Sorrows? Pain? Perhaps her family? Life in general? She was a deep thinker, like me. Whatever was on her mind she was at peace, reserved, and content. It was a beautiful site to see. My thoughts slowly drifted off and I asked myself same questions. Why do we meet certain people in life and what is the purpose?

We sat in silence for few minutes, listening to the wind. We said nothing and yet everything. I was glad we spoke no common language as we had no chance of ruining this perfect evening by telling each other lies. Strangely, there was more sincerity, truth and comfort in this tranquility.

When my guide Khalid came back to pick me up, like a last kid on the steps of kindergarden, Helga stood up and gave me her bear hug. She protectively stayed until she was sure I get a ride back home. It was a very touchy gesture. I rolled up some money and put it in her pocket. She looked frazzled by the tip. Without any further sentiment I climbed into the car and we slowly drove away. But for just a bit longer from my rear view mirror I watched her ghostly silhouette being dissolved in the night. I smiled thanking the chance for my Helga, my random Moroccan character, without whom I could not laugh and tell this story.

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