Struggling country where bread means life (Egypt)

[jpak]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/12/egypt.food

It is an overcast morning in the Bulaq neighbourhood of Cairo, three hours after the muezzin's call to prayer. The streets are choked with honking cars, while goats - and a few ragged-looking people - pick at piles of stinking rubbish overflowing from metal wheelie bins.

Tempers flare outside a government bakery as the smell of hot baladi (country) bread wafts out from the ovens. There is pushing and shoving as a worker appears at the window to hand out plastic bags of the rough, round flat loaves - each weighing a standard 160 grams (5.5oz)- to customers.

"I've been here since before six and this is what I get," grumbles Umm Islam, her face contorted in fury. "My husband is retired and I have five children and it's not enough."

Others complain of their pitifully small incomes and shortages. In the last two months 11 people have died in bread queues, either from exhaustion, heart attacks, brawls or accidents.

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