Squashed like a skinny sardine between two expansive abaya-donned housewives, I spy a needle eyed gap, and take a swift dive towards the front of the bread queue. It is not to be, however, as a hefty hausfrau swings her way eastwards, blocking my passage to a cheap loaf.
“The Oven – it sounds like some torturous chamber straight out of a c-class horror movie.
While living in the most notorious Yarmouk camp in Syria, I often wondered what was going on these holes in the walls, where young men, dripping with sweat and clad in white vests, would hand out suspicious-looking plastic bags to our neighbors.
In fact, the latter description isn’t far off, as long as we replace those would-be Hollywood blond buxom beauties with Um Mahmoud, who despite being undeniably buxom, is neither blonde, nor beautiful.
But Um Mahmoud is a big star in our local neighborhood. When, like a huge pendulum, she swings into the “delivery room her fans scream out her name like paparazzi vying for Kate Moss’ attention on the red carpet.
It’s this part that I personally dread. The sound of Um Mahmoud’s trolley squeaking across the floor heralds my daily near-death experience. Like some Dickensian mistress, she whips up ragged notes and slaps down loaf after loaf on the counter.
If I survive the suffocating crush towards the front, I’ll have to be wary that some young nipper doesn’t make use of the space beneath the convex rear of the lady in front, and takes the last of the bread.
So why all this bother just to buy a bit of bread?
Well, the fact that I can buy five loaves for a mere 25 piasters has something to do with it. Unless you’ve been chained up to some pipe actually inside “the oven for the past year, you’ll have heard the commotion over the steep rise in bread prices, but for a khawaga used to forking out at least 60 English pence (LE 6) for a loaf, 25 piasters seems a bargain. This is especially relevant to the poor and the stingy: I, admittedly, am both.
However, standing in the bread queue has effectively ruined my social life. I apologize to friends inviting me to coffee, turning down their offer in order to take my place in the queue. It’s a just sacrifice, I tell myself. I’ve been regularly told that it’s the black market sellers who are responsible for the queues, taking it in turns to stand and buy bread before selling it off at higher prices. And although I can’t vouch for the veracity of those rumors, I’ve definitely spotted a few doppelgangers loitering.
If you do choose to take the plunge and join the rest of Egypt in the wait for eish, I ought to issue a caveat. There have been complaints circulating in the press that powers above have allowed a drop in the quality of flour to cut expenses; having somewhat dull taste buds, I can’t claim to have noticed.
I have, however, regularly found what I like to call delightful natural gifts tucked between the layers of stodgy loaf. Occasionally, it might be stone, a bit of grit, and once I even discovered a thread of hay – but there’s definitely something to be said for natural bacteria boosting the immune system.
Cairo’s got a lot going for it; reportages in every travel magazine tell us that. Unfortunately, Egyptian balady bread never seems to get a mention, despite being the very essence of life here. In the last few days people have tragically died trying to buy bread, and it’s no wonder, judging by the scrum that follows the arrival of the trolley.
If you decide to venture into the bread queues, I suggest wearing body armor, or even better carrying a bronze shield and riding a trusty steed. Taking on “the Ovens of Cairo, is sadly only for the stingy, needy and desperate.
