Big Beef

Saturday, 3rd July. GMT: 6:03. Cairo Time: 8:03.

$7 for a muggywuggling burger? Who’d credit it. After a solid 20 minutes of good hard sleep, I set off on my voyage to Africa this morning. Bid goodbye to my dad at the Heathrow after a macchiato and a conversation about weed and wandered through the departure gate at 7:45. First leg of the journey: Egypt.

Egypt: Disappointment. Big disappointment. Looking out of the plane window, straining to see past the demure Egyptian woman seated next to me, I was greeted by miles of sand. There were buildings, certainly, but those too were the colour of sand. Roads the colour of sand. Trees the colour of sand. Sand the colour of jimmy-to-goodness sand. Of course Cairo is slap-bang in the centre of the Sahara, but I’d always expected a nilotic oasis of greenery in the heart of the desert. Not a jungle but at least a couple of trees here and there to detract from the baron desert wasteland. No. Sand.

Oh well, I thought, maybe the people will be nice. Maybe the food will be exciting! Thirty minutes I sat, staring glumly out of the window staring at my $7 burger and wishing there wasn’t a six hour wait for my next flight.

“How much for a burger?” I’d asked.
“$7” came the earnest reply.
“$7?!”
“$7.”
“No thanks.” I winced.
“Here you go, you buy now.” He smiled.

After finishing my burger, the most exciting thing on offer in Cairo Airport’s “food village”, I struck up a conversation with a boisterous Egyptian teacher who told me she worked in Libya, though her parents were middle easter. She seemed pleased that I was going to Uganda to research chimps and proudly chirruped: “The closest relative to mankind!”.

I nodded, a budding anthropologist, and was about to continue when one of the burger king staff wandered up and whispered something serious sounding in her ear. Apparently he’d taken offense to the fact that a nice Arabic-looking lady was colluding with the enemy. The non-believer. One of those blond fellows who Allah certainly wasn’t going to let into his fountain of eternity and who should be punished for even laying eyes on anyone from middle-eastern extraction. Human nature lends itself splendidly to Xenophobia.

Deciding to take my sad, forsaken, European self away from the temptations of the cheery middle aged mother of three, I put my hat over my face, strapped my laptop to my arm and tried to get some shut-eye. No such luck. As soon as I began drifting towards dreamland, the Germany vs Venezuela quarter-final that had been going on quietly in the background started to kick-off. The departures lounge roared with impassioned football fans. I cursed their eyes. Egypt sounded better in the good old days: Amen-re was more imaginative than either contemporary religious or sporting fanaticism.

Am practically parched, but cannot decide whether or not to spend another $5 on a Fruit juice. At times like this, it seems god is anything but akbar.