Cairo's Champions

Bread is the staple of many cultures around the world. Whether it comes flat, leavened, or whatever you call German rye, bread has been satisfying stomachs since the dawn of time. Whoever invented it is a genius and probably isn’t getting the royalties he/she deserves.

There is certainly no exception in Egypt. Bread is as important to the diet as sheesha and falafel. But how is bread transported? It’s not made everywhere (for the sake of the story, pretend that the socialist ways of Nasser centralized bread production in Cairo). Sometimes it’s delivered on trucks, but traffic is so bad that speed of delivery is poor.

That’s where this week’s Cairo Champion comes in. He is the man that not only carries bread on his head, but does it while riding a bike. He is the epitome of insane: riding a bike in a city that completely disregards anyone not in a vehicle with a 3 x 4 ft board covered in bread balanced on top of his head. He has one hand on the board, and one hand on the handlebars.

He may be the man I respect most in this city. I like to think that I have pretty decent bike-handling skills, but I now realize I have nothing. The guy carries bread on his head while riding a bike! I still can’t come to grips with it.

Should a piece of bread fall off, there is always a pedestrian willing to pick it up and run after the bread-carrying guy. Usually a successful transfer is made between the two, but sometimes the bread man just continues on like nothing happened.

If there is any doubt as to the importance of guys like this to the city of Cairo, just imagine what life would be like without bread.