Of Men and Women

Today’s entry is about women and men. Therefore it’s about cafés, hammam culture, shouting matches and cake.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it would be quite nice to be a man in Tunisia.

The good old boys certainly don’t seem lonely here. Whatever their age, they are to be seen in clusters - old men sitting by the roadside discussing the ways of the world, 

groups of young men sitting on rocks smoking, louage drivers stopping the car to have a quick chat with a friend they see on the raodside, or, as in the case of my mate mr Hamadi, men playing the French card game belote every night for the past 30 years at their regular cafe and still enjoying it!

Grown men behave in very youthful ways - playing pranks on each other and always laughing, laughing, laughing together. 

I think it would be very hard in this country for a man to die at home alone so that nobody notices and his dalmatians eat him. I have also not seen any dalmatians yet.

The most sacred domain of men are the cafés. This is where men of all ages do the serious talking and sit smoking and drinking very little coffee but taking a long time over it. 

And make no mistake, the cafés here are for men. A couple of family-friendly cafés do see a scarse smattering of women (usually with their husbands, or with friends, never alone) sitting enjoying a cup of coffee in the afternoon. But in most cafés, and in the evenings in all cafés, it’s strictly boys only.

My hotel in Kairouan was on one of the main squares of the town. It was absolutely chock-a-block with streetside cafés, all of them doing a very brisk trade. Going back to the hotel at dusk was a slightly surreal experience, since I had to push my way past row upon row of chairs full of men. There were easily a hundred people on the square - and at 6pm, I was the only woman in sight.

A fresh low was achieved in the extremely untouristy town of Jendouba. Admittedly it was Sunday evening, when things tend to be closed. As I wandered along the streets in search of nourishment, I found only one restaurant that was open - they were grilling fish outside and that seemed tempting enough for me to try to penetrate the cigarrette smoke and push on into the establishment. However I was told firmly at the door, that women were not allowed. So apparently only. men need to eat on Sunday evenings? I ended up eating bananas and bisquits in my hotel room. A new culinary low on this trip.

So where are the women while all this smoking, coffee drinking and fish frying is taking place?

On market days, women can be seen shopping for household items or clothes 

Or for food any day of the week.

And occasionally working behind the counter of a store or picking olives. Or cleaning and serving breakfast in hotels. And judging by the hotel cleaning ladies that I’ve seen in action so far, Tunisian women are hard workers! But that’s about it as far as seeing women is concerned!

Probably the closest I’ve come to the secret world of women is in the local steam baths, hammams. And as many of you know, I’m a sucker for all things sauna or hammam -related. So I’ve made quite an extensive study of the local steam baths by now.

Let me walk you through the procedure of a local hammam. Hammam’s tend to be for women between noon and 5pm and for men in the evenings. But even if you know this, first you have to find the place. Not easy, since there doesn’t seem to be any rule as to how a hammam will look on the outside. 

There may be curtained doors - but then also regular house doors may have curtains. There could be a sign in French also, but usually only in Arabic, or no sign at all. The door could be red (as the guidebooks claim hammam doors are) - but usually not. 

The surest sign is if you see a little old lady carrying plastic buckets with a little plastic ladle, shampoo and flip-flops inside them slipping in through a nondescript-looking doorway. Hammam for sure.

From the road, fIrst you enter a small entry hall, they you pass through a curtain to another small entry hall and through a third curtain to the main changing room. This is a large, often domed, space with a mat-covered, elevated area round the sides. You take off your shoes before stepping up to the elevated platform to change clothes. The bottom part of a bikini or knickers are always used in the hammam - full nudity is not done here.

There is a counter when you enter the changing room, where you pay the hammam entry fee (typically 3 dinars, so just under 1 euro) and for any extra services you may require. The most common service is the washing service - called gommage (usually also 3 dinars). In a gommage, a lady, usually elderly, will use a hammam washing glove - called keisah - to flay you. Now a hammam washing glove round here is about as soft as one of those iron wool pads you use to scour the oven. Talk about exfoliating! My official reason for not being more tanned after this trip is, I think all the tan got rubbed off in the hammams. 

You can also decide to add on a massage. So far the term massage has resulted in a) having surprisingly cold mud (or some weirdly grey-green soap?) ladled onto you and getting quite a nice mud-massage (3 euros) b) a regular massage in a separate massage room with oriental muzak playing in the background (9 euro rip-off) and c) being shampooed all over very gently (90cents worth of throth and relaxation).

There are several rooms of different temperatures in a hammam. The gommages and massages usually take place in the first hall you enter after the changing rooms. This is the coolest of the warm rooms. There are tile-covered podiums on which the treatment is done. Hot and cold water come out of taps or in some cases out of great pools of hot/cold water in the steam rooms. (Well, the rooms aren’t usually all that steamy but in the best cases, the hottest room will be a bit steamed up). After treatment you can mess around adding hot and cold water to your little buckets, ladling it on yourself, rubbing down, scouring, ladling some more, soaking feet in oh-hot-hot-hot water... Good fun. Still better fun is watching the locals. From very old ladies to mothers with children, teenagers - everyone comes to a hammam. This tradition is clearly not dying out.

The first introduction to hammams at the beginning of this trip was in Tozeur. It could have been offputting for a less hardened hammamista (new term, copyright Kati). At the door Eva and I were welcomed with a barrage of extremely heated shrieking and screetching! Two or three women were going at it hammer and tongs - one of them was the lady who washes clients at the hammam. The heat and intensity of the argument was such, that in Finland you would have had to try to molest the washing woman in the showers or something to deserve this level of abuse and to raise such intense passion. But it was more likely a case of the client inadvertantly having dropped a bar of soap on the floor.

The second experience was slightly similar - this time in Houmt Souk and this time I know what the fuss was all about. The small hammam was very full and some little old ladies were hogging the seating around the side of the steam rooms with their buckets of water and having their legs up on the benches. When the washer woman asked them to lift down their buckets so that we would have space to sit down, all hell broke loose again. Ooooh, the screetching and the shouting - eyes flashing blue murder! Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. Finally justice won the day and we got seats.

I’ve been trying to work out these out of control shouting matches. Is this the pent up frustration of women put down by society? Or is this shouting a steam valve, which allows the locals to seem usually so calm and easygoing? Is this an old hammam custom - to let the steam out in a steam room?

Luckily my more recent visits to hammams have been more peaceful. A favourite, and unforgettable, moment was my second visit to the Houmt Souk hammam, which coincided with my birthday. I told the proprietress when I bought the ticket that it was my birthday. Since by this time I was a valued reapeat customer and treated like royalty, word got round. When I was being thoroughly gommaged by the washing lady, she started singing happy birthday to me. The proprietress popped in to the steam room to sing along. Soon that got the other ladies started. In the changing room the party continued. I got sung to, I got offered sandwiches and water and finally a lady walked in with a birthday cake, which was presented to me with much felicitation and joy all round! (Photo courtesy of the lady, who bought the cake)

The lady, apparently, worked in - or owned - a bakery nearby. And apparently someone called Fouzua had either not picked up her cake or refused to pay for it. So Fouzua I became. One of the more memoreable birthday surprises I’ve had!