First Hammam:

Bodies of women crowded into a hazed room of steam. Body on top of body being scrubbed down. Women of all sizes, children. There was fighting and loud talking between women who were territorial over the limited sitting spaces on the ground. The floors were wet, walls cold, ceiling dripping condensation onto our heads. The walls and floor all tiled and slippery from soap. Women scrubbed each other with their hand mitts like a piece of meat. Four hours one woman can spend in a Hammam. Two hours for me was enough. I sat outside and waited for at least an hour for my host mom to come out. The time she had in there must have been very valuable to her, it was an escape from the house.
It was not like my experience in the Hammam in Rome except for the fact it was dimly lit, warm and there was water. There were so many bodies around. I was the only one in there who had short hair and was blonde. I was a spectacle, everyone watching me.

You scrub your skin and layers peel off of you. You are left with a fresh coat of flesh like the day you were born. It was dark in there. There was a warm yellow light. Haze. Children screaming and crying due to the heat. Women drinking from the faucet to keep hydrated. Older women with henna in their hair, the color melting away, running down their backs in the steamed room.
You sit in a wet space and soap up while seated in your underwear. Scrub yourself, have others scrub you, you scrub others. Rinse. Sit. Scrub again. Rinse. Sit. It is a repeated process until one feels they have cleansed themselves fully.