Aish baladi, like the Nile River, is a source of life. The handmade bread is an Egyptian staple, which at one point existed in 82 varieties. In Cairo, its ubiquity is made possible by the network of agalati—bread carriers—who deliver the bread to the restaurants, ful (fava bean) carts, and street stands of the metropolis. The coarseness of the bran and wheat turns the bread into a magnet for dust and the city’s airborne toxic elements, but that doesn’t stop anyone from eating it. The art of the agalati is in carrying large trays of bread on their heads as they maneuver through the manic streets of Cairo on a bicycle, like lunatics sailing into the tempest on a rowboat.
At Regala, a Downtown Cairo bakery illuminated only by a few fluorescent bulbs and the flame of the oven, the floor is covered in bran, which is almost indistinguishable from sawdust. Some of the eight men who work there choose to work barefoot, teasing each other and only turning to me once they have mustered the boldness brought on by their camaraderie. Others, like Mahmoud, try to follow the conversation over the shaabi music blasting from their headphones.
The outside of Regala bakery in Downtown Cairo.
Inside the bakery, the dough is tended to with delicacy, but with the swiftness of a fast food joint. Regala bakery produces 24,000 loaves a day, equivalent to 1.5 tons of flour. Ali, a 24-year-old man who holds a technical degree, dreams of quitting the job. His long eyelashes are fringed with flour, as if he himself had recently come out of the oven. “I don’t like standing all the time and taking no breaks,” he complains, as one of the guys prostrates next to him for a rushed, two-minute prayer.
“The subsidized bread is not enough for everyone,” says Ahmed, the owner of Regala. Egypt is the world’s biggest consumer of bread and importer of wheat, with Cairo spending $3 billion a year on imports. The government’s costly subsidy system has been in place since the 1960s to keep bread prices low. Today, a loaf of subsidized aish baladi is 5 piastres (less than one US cent) and reaches roughly 50 million Egyptians. Recently, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi implemented a smart card system to hold bakeries accountable and eliminate graft at the ground level.
The dough before going into the oven, covered in bran
Cheap bread is considered a human right for more than 80 million Egyptians. “Bread, freedom, and justice” has been both a rallying cry and the yeast fermenting social unrest in Egypt for the last half a century—from President Anwar Sadat’s attempt to lift the bread subsidies in 1977, to the inflation of food prices in 2007 to 2008 and the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak. If people can’t have their bread, they take to the streets.
In Egypt, aish is the word for bread, but it is also the word for life. When Egyptians are under stress, people say akl el aish murr—“eating bread is bitter”—a proverb that more accurately tries to say: Unemployment is high, economic opportunities are scarce, corruption is ripe, marriage and food are expensive, traffic is unbearable, etc. But Egyptians are not ones to complain.
Trays of dough are stacked up, waiting to be thrown in the oven.
For Ahmed, who sells bread at market price, bread tastes bitter. “I make about 10 percent profit,” he says about his bakery. “The price of gas and flour are too expensive.” A subsidized, 50-kilogram sack of flour costs eight Egyptian pounds, but 162 pounds for Ahmed. A tank of gas—taller than Ahmed’s youngest worker, 13-year-old Mustafa—is between 80 and 90 pounds.
Faran, a baker, handing the trays of dough to Mahmoud before they go into the oven.
At 7 PM, the men are swarmed with work. The time is just after the Maghreb prayer, and the demand for bread is running high with many Cairenes hunting for dinner. Customers materialize in front of the bakery, extending one pound and leaving shortly after with four loaves of bread. A taxi driver parks in front, pays 25 piasters and sets off with his loaf; the engine never stopped running.
Mahmoud, 22, places the dough in the oven.
“You are riding in a sea of death,” said 22-year-old Mahmoud, one of the agalati responsible for satisfying Cairo’s vital bread demand. The bread delivery boys transport the loaves through the city’s infamous traffic, mass of pedestrians, and narrow back-streets of downtown Cairo on trays up to 2.5 meters long and weighing between 30 to 35 kilos. They do so by balancing the trays on their heads, with one arm stabilizing the tray and the other maneuvering the bicycle.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl8Iti0iNCY%C2%A0
Mustafa, 13, is in charge of placing the freshly baked bread in trays and taking them to the front of the bakery.
The job of the agalati is extensive and crucial. Without them, bread would not be available on every corner and forsaken fast-food stand. The men must fight to keep their balance and hold their ground among the sea of vehicles. “There is no respect from the cars,” says Ahmed, who at 39 still does bread deliveries. The risk of the agalati never reaching his destination is always present, but death is the least of his worries. Ahmed is confident that drivers try to be careful “because they know the bread is all we have,” he said with a tinge of complacency.
Ali is in charge of selling the bread to customers.
“We learn how to bike by watching others,” explained Ahmed, an approach that applies to every worker at the bakery regardless of his task. “It’s up to your eyes and your mind,” he said.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OrWUAyijXQg&feature=youtu.be
Ultimately, bread deliveries are a daring game of dexterity. When asked how long it takes to gain the skills of the agalati, Ahmed shot the question back at me with disdain: “Well, how long do you think it takes?” The agalati’s journey to the double-decker, 30-kilo tray is gradual. It may take a lanky Egyptian teen up to a year to reach such mastery—and countless falls, after which he brushes the dust off the bread and places it back on his tray.
Ramadan must wear a rolled-up scarf to balance the tray and protect his head.
The agalati have specific routes and average between 50 to 80 bread deliveries a day. The journeys can take anywhere between ten to 30 minutes, back to back. “Carrying the bread is painful,” said Ahmed, pointing to the back of a worker named Ramadan to illustrate the pain that travels down to the middle of his spine. But someone has to do it.
Ramadan places the double-decker tray of bread over his head with the help of Ali.
For Ahmed and the agalati , little has changed since the Revolution. “People who steal still steal. People who take bribes still take bribes. Everything is still the same,” said Ahmed.
“Bread is still the basis of Egyptian life,” he continued. “Even when you don’t have money, you eat bread.”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged Egypt to maintain a tight monetary policy as a new round of subsidy cuts rekindled inflation worries.
The Washington-based lender praised Egypt’s implementation of economic reforms as “instrumental in achieving macroeconomic stabilization, with external and fiscal deficits narrowing, inflation and unemployment declining, and growth accelerating.”
我的人性正在我的心中运转. 💞
七个社会罪是：
Qī gè shèhuì zuì shì:
1.没有工作的财富。
1. Méiyǒu gōngzuò de cáifù.
2.没有良心的快乐。
2. Méiyǒu liángxīn de kuàilè.
3.没有品格的知识。
3. Méiyǒu pǐngé de zhīshì.
4.没有道德的商业。
4. Méiyǒu dàodé de shāngyè.
5.没有人类的科
学。
5. Méiyǒu rénlèi de kēxué.
6.敬拜而不牺牲。
6. Jìng bài ér bù xīshēng.
7.没有原则的政治。
7. Méiyǒu yuánzé de zhèngzhì.
The Seven Social Sins are:
1. Wealth without work.
2. Pleasure without conscience.
3. Knowledge without character.
4. Commerce without morality.
5. Science without humanity.
6. Worship without sacrifice.
7. Politics without principle.
The Bread cyclists of Cairo
Gallery: The Bread cyclists of Cairo
Photo: http://irishvillagemarkets.ie/work-for-the-markets/
Cairo is a city known for its traffic congestions, multi-overpasses and noise and air pollution. But despite the fact that cars fill the space and smog fills the air in Cairo, a traditional cargo cycling scene still thrives in the inner-city streets. If you an early bird, you can start watching the bread cyclists of Cairo at 6:00 AM roaming the streets skilfully on old bicycles with a big board (or more) loaded with Eish Balady (Egyptian bread).
Those are the bread heroes who keep the bread accessible, cheap and hot. Subsidised bread is a big issue in Egypt be it the backbone of every Egyptian food table. It’s only sold through specific outlets during the working hours. So the bread delivery cyclists have a big market of employees who can’t go shopping during these hours or those who wouldn’t stand in a long line before they can buy their, 5 piasters worth, loaf (0.01 € can buy 5 loaves of subsidized bread). So these delivery men work on tip-based daily wage keeping the costs of their commute at the minimum level and transporting as many loaves as they can per trip.
Photo: http://www.bicyclefilmfestival.com/film/bike-bread/
photo: https://edfoc.org.uk/events/event/bike-for-bread/
To a fresh eye, the bread cyclists are very photogenic. They have attracted many photographers and filmmakers to document their story. The short film bike for bread by Dir. Claude MARTHALER and Raphael JOCHAUD were screened in bike film festival 2016. Here is a clip from the short film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl8Iti0iNCY
and another documentation of a French filmmaker follows a bread cyclist through the streets of Cairo
a photo featured in everyday Egypt by Aly Hazzaa
volks.jpg
photo: https://egyptianstreets.com/2014/05/30/the-mystery-of-cairos-abandoned-cars/
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