Gabriëlla Cleuren

It was a strange sensation, an unknown world opening up before me. Whilst I was staying in Monastir as an artist in residence, I was asked if I’d be interested in visiting their bathhouse. Curious as I was, and spurred on by the infectious enthusiasm of their mayor – who told me how he visited such a bathhouse several times a week, met his friends there and made a shared pleasure of it – it took on a relaxed, warm, human atmosphere for me. 

So I decided to give it a go, along with some other artists. First we had to go to the reception desk, where a sort of veiled businesswoman discussed the price with us, in consultation and agreement. We reached an agreement and were led by a young Muslim woman, dressed entirely in brown, to a room full of cupboards and benches and asked to get undressed – well, to take everything off. We were only allowed to keep our knickers on; after all, we were not initiated strangers. The regulars draped a towel over their genitals. After that, we headed straight for a bathhouse, around the wall of which a platform was filled with familiar visitors. I couldn’t suppress a laugh. 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 central space, across the floor. I tasted my mates’ water; nothing special. My feet were now dangling in the trickling water. 

The walls and floor were beautiful mosaics, blue and pink, sea-green, a Persian garden full of aesthetic beauty. Quite early on, we were asked to go to another room, which looked dark blue. A paradise. That incredibly refined Islamic art on the walls, floors and inlaid stone walls gave a sense of coolness. A gypsy woman, her clothes and jewellery Eastern in style, her manner somewhat masculine and firmly authoritative, asked my Polish friend to lie down on the stone bed, where she was lathered up, anointed with perfumes from jars and finally rinsed with a generous splash of water. Strangely enough, a grown woman was being washed here like a baby by her mother. Then it was my turn, and one after the other. Afterwards, we could wrap the towel around us, and our brown-clad attendant came to collect us, his face uncovered, for the return to our clothes. It was very strange that she had joined us in the bathhouse where the water flowed, in a swimsuit, yet sufficiently naked. Why then so veiled in the reception area? A ritual, in which dressing and undressing played a part – did that have any significance? All in all, an enriching experience of another world full of beauty, mystery and different customs