One of the more interesting sites I saw, while wondering the back streets of Cairo, was outside a butcher shop. As I passed by I noticed a young guy holding a black goat by the roadside while, on the sidewalk, another goat was being slaughtered. I wanted to walk on and pretend not to notice but that seemed ignorant and somewhat cowardly. What I saw, over the next hour, was tough to watch.
The white ram was already dead when I arrived, its head severed and the torso lying on the sidewalk. The second goat was pulled, rather reluctantly, onto the same spot, near an open drain. It was terrified - it knew what was coming. Three guys held it down while one took a large knife to its throat. Cutting the arteries in its neck, blood spewed forth, coating the pavement and spilling down a nearby drain. With the neck partially severed, the butcher wrenched back the goat's head and broke its neck. As bright red blood continued to stream out, the goat's body twitched and spasmed, legs fluttering in the air.
The head was then cut off and one of the team got to work skinning the animal. A long metal stake was inserted behind the skin of the hind leg and pushed down the length of the leg and into the abdomen. The rod was removed and the worker started to blow air into this opening. Within half a minute, the whole belly was bloated with air, allowing the goat to be skinned much more easily. After about 15 minutes, with the hide removed, one of the team cut off the hooves and hung the carcass on a hook. A long slit was made down the centre of its underside and the guts and entrails removed.
One of the butchers then started slicing large pieces off and passing them inside where another butcher was hard at work. With massive blows, he cleavered the pieces into smaller portions, ready for the main display case. Meanwhile, outside, the other workers, washed the remaining blood down the drain and onto the street. The entrails were separated, the intestine pulled and drained into a long sinewy ball and the stomach and all the rest was bagged for later use.
It was a shocking experience: within an hour, a living, breathing animal is turned into meat, ready for sale for the evening dinner table. I talked to the young owner of the goats, Mahmoud. His family raises them and, every month or two, sells a few for extra money. A 50kg goat fetches just under $200. It was surprising how little meat came from such a relatively large animal; most is skin, hair and entrails. When I asked Mahmoud where he learned such good English, he told me that he was an accountant with KPMG.
