The strange Tunisian bathhouse
It was a strange sensation, an unknown world opened up to me. When I stayed in Monastir as an artist in residence, I was asked if I would be interested in getting to know their bathhouse. Curious as I was, and because of the infectious enthusiasm of their mayor, who told how he visited such a bathhouse several times a week, meeting his friends and having a collective fun, it took on a casual, warm human feel for me.
So I decided to try it with other artists. First, we had to go to the counter, behind which a kind of veiled businesswoman discussed the price with us in consultation and agreement. We came to an agreement and were taken by a young Muslim woman, dressed all in brown, to a room full of cupboards and sofas and asked to get dressed, well, completely undressed. Only panties we were allowed to keep, after all, we were not initiated strangers. The habitués put a towel over their genitals. Then we headed straight for a bathhouse, around the wall of which a platform was filled with familiar visitors. I could not suppress laughter. They were sitting with their feet in a bucket of water, not exactly my idea of a bathhouse. A tap was turned on and the water flowed into the middle room, over the bottom. I tasted from my mates, nothing special. My feet were now dangling in the seeping water.
The walls and floor were beautiful mosaics, blue and pink, sea green, a Persian garden full of aesthetics. Quite early, we were asked to go to another room, which looked dark blue. A heaven. That incredibly sophisticated Islamic art on walls, floors and occupied stone walls gave coolness. A gypsy woman, her clothes and jewellery Oriental, her grip somewhat masculine and tightly convincing, asked my Polish friend to lie down on the stone bed, there she was lathered, embalmed with perfumes from jars and finally rinsed off with a big splash of water. Strangely, a grown woman here was washed like a baby by her mother. Then it was my turn and one after the other. Then we were able to wrap the towel around us and our brown cloak guard now came to collect us with open visors for the return to our clothes. Very strangely, she had joined us in the bathhouse where the water was flowing, in swimming costume, but suitably naked. So why so veiled in the reception area? A ritual, involving donning and doffing, did it have meaning? All in all, an enriching experience of another world full of beauty, mystery and other customs.