Omar Tarshan had never visited any of Syria's famous public baths until three weeks ago, when a water shortage in his Damascus neighborhood forced him to look for an alternative place to shower.
Yesterday night, the 25-year-old accountant came with a colleague, Safwat Hariri, to the 1,000-year-old bath house in the old quarter of Damascus the Hammam al-Malik al Zahir where each was given two towels, a loofah and a piece of traditional olive oil soap. Minutes later, they stepped into the bath, enveloped by thick vapor.
The two men share the frustration of many other residents of the Syrian capital, forced to wait in long lines to fill their jerry cans after fighting with rebels in a valley northwest of Damascus cut off the main water line for the city last month.
The more affluent, pay tanker trucks to come and fill up their tanks at home.
"We have no water at home and so I discovered the public bath," said Tarshan, a terry cloth wrapped around his waist.
The bath house, like others in Syria, has its own well and doesn't rely on the public water network.
Since December 22, the fighting in Barada Valley has severely restricted the flow of water to Damascus, piling up more hardship on the city's 5 million people already suffering massive power cuts, rising food prices and general erosion in all services as Syria's brutal conflict is about to enter its seventh year.
President Bashar Assad's government forces fighting for control of the opposition-held Barada Valley say the rebels contaminated the area's Ein al-Fijeh spring with diesel.
The rebels say government airstrikes damaged the water source. As insulated as Damascus has been from the effects of the civil war that has torn much of the country apart, the recent water crisis has dominated the talk in much of the city.
Residents line up in front of public taps with containers in hand; others crowd around huge water tankers parked in residential neighborhoods. Government-owned tanker trucks ferry water around the clock to hospitals.
Prices of bottled waters have doubled, as the fighting-stricken valley Wadi Barada in Arabic is home to some of the country's most famous drinking water companies.
A driver of one of the state-owned tanker trucks filled it up yesterday morning at a public tap in western Damascus, before heading across town to one of the e city's main hospitals.
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