The BCC (Big Cairo Cold)

What is it about Cairo and sickness? Things are simple in Britain. You get sick, you wait it out a couple of days, you get well. here in Cairo it doesn’t work like that. Firstly, you get sick, you get SICK. Like you really get sick. Your bones get sick, not just your flesh. You feel like you can’t function. And instead of just getting better it lingers……

The chills and shaking go. At least now you can act like a normal human being infront of others again. But inside the battle continues. “No,” you tell yourself, “I’m not going back on anti-biotics.” (Which, by the way are dished out like school dinners here in Cairo.) In Britain healthcare is free and medicines are free for kids and the elderly. Anti-biotics are not prescribed unless you are dying – so the temptation to jump on them when you get sick here is all too great.

A week later you can still feel it. Your chest is heavy. Your nose has a big number 1074 on it as it continues to ‘run’ the NY City Marathon. Your nostrils burn from the constant use of tissue. (I can’t find the one with balm in it) and you still cough like a jackal.

Yet another week passes and everyone around you is bored of listening to you moan about how you feel “unwell”. What you keep failing to realise is that they too are nursing the remnants of their own BCC.

Just as the phlegm and bogeys go from black, to green and then white, you realise that it’s been a month. A MONTH. Since you felt “normal.” Then it starts over.

I’ve got the BCC right now. Again.