I Don’t Know (Emily’s First Post)

It’s amazing to me that I’ve actually moved about my life so many years this dirty. You never know just how dirty until they’re done with you at the hamam.

You begin “the program?” with some time in the dry sauna, not quite sure whether it’s up to you or them to decide when enough is enough. When enough is indeed enough, by not being able to breathe one second longer, you are whisked away by the arm to the steam room and told to sit. And so you sit, and you wait for rescue. A middle age savior in a red sarong – in both hamams we’ve been to, they wore the same red sarong- takes you by the arm and plunges you under a freezing shower. God bless. Then a little time in a jacuzzi, a catnap in a “relax-room” where the facial masks are applied. And theeeennnn, the real Stuff happens. Whoa.

You’re escorted into a giant domed marble room, with high ceilings and an enormous marble slab in the middle, where perhaps ten to fifteen people could lay comfortably and get bathed. And surrounding this are individual marble slabs to lay on. The kicker?…..they are hot, slippery and sudsy. And so you lay. And they scrub you top to bottom in a way you’ve never been scrubbed in your life. Think loofah, and take away the nonsense. They put Burke Williams to shame. It’s not about pampering, it’s not about a making you feel coddled and gooey. It’s about getting every fleck of shit off of you that you never knew you had. And it takes forrrevver. And then they flip you over and begin again. And every couple minutes they fill buckets of water and douse you shamelessly to rid the dead skin and dirt, and start anew. That’s what they call the peeling.

And then the foam bath begins. Like nothing I ever could’ve expected. A giant gauze-like pillow-case-type-thing is filled with water and emptied all over you and foam erupts everywhere. And then they massage with lathering bubbles that an american infomercial would go crazy over, and rinse and repeat several times. And you look at the the Turkish people on the slabs all around you having this done to them simultaneously and you get the sense it’s all very frequent, just a normal part of their hygienic ritual. After this is all over, as if it wasn’t enough they towel you dry as you stand there seemingly helpless, and take you away for a massage.

Later when we went to the beach at our hotel, the bartender was thrilled to practice his English. He worked at a NATO base in Izmir and loved the fact that I would try whatever concoction he wanted to experiment with. He understood, “little sugar, salt ok”. And when I asked what this delicious green drink in my hand was, with all sorts of herbs and mint, he laughed and responded in a way that reminded me of Bailey’s, “I don’t know!!!”

I don’t know either, and I’m slowly being reminded that’s half the fun of travel. At home, I have everything lined up in neat little piles. My spreadsheets all makes sense. Even though I work largely from home and as an adjunct my schedule shifts frequently, I have orderly systems and a pretty solid sense of control. I’ve made two work phone calls here already through Skype that were way more makeshift than I evvvveer would have tolerated at home. But they worked. We bargained access into a nearby guesthouse where we paid the guy for a week’s use of his Internet. I used Eric’s computer for phone access and my computer to simultaneously log into the virtual classroom of a new faculty member that I am mentoring. I was drenched with sweat by the end of the call, and had to politely yet reluctantly accept the cup of hot tea offered me by a little boy while I worked (really? Hot tea in 3,000 degree Mediterranean weather?) I sweat it out each day in the hotbox of the source of our wireless access, do the work that has to get done, and move along with the business of our honeymoon.

But it’s all worked so far. And I’m slowly learning again, that sometimes it’s OK to laugh and simply say “I don’t know”.

Sent from my iPad