Wednesday, March 10, 2010

March 3, Garbage City

Today we started the day by going to Garbage City. In Cairo, a city of 18 million, the garbage is collected by 50,000 people (Coptic Christians) by hand and taken to the abandoned quarries of the pharaohs on the outskirts of the city. They essentially live and work in the garbage dump. In Garbage city all the refuse is sorted, reused and recycled. We were privilege to see an amazing group of people who have organized this work force to produce products from the garbage. They weave rugs and purses, sew quilts and make paper from what they collect. Not only are the young women are taught viable skills, they are taught to read, write, and are trained how to be entrepreneurs. They even provide child care for young babies, nursery school and primary school for any children the women have. We toured their facility, bought some purses and paper and then visited the church that has been built into the rock face there. We then met Hana, a most inspiring man. He only looked about 21, but he has begun the long struggle to revolutionize Garbage city. Hana, with help from a professor from the university (can’t remember which one), he built a solar panel from the scraps in the dump and now supplies his home with electricity. He has also built a bio-fuel generator to supply his home with methane for cooking. He uses organic waste from his home and from the dump to make it. He is now working to build more and slow switch the people of Garbage city over to the new system so that they can be independent of the government. He was so inspiring in his desire to help people in a sustainable way. (Picture of Mike doing exercises with the kids!)

After our tour of Garbage city we went into Islamic Cairo to look at a few Mosques with our great guide Sahr. She also took us to her favorite restaurant in Cairo which made Egyptian pancakes! They are like inside out pancakes filled with chicken and veggies or fruit for dessert! We had one filled with bananas that were amazing! After lunch we were whisked away to the airport for our trip to Aswan. It was a quick flight and then we were driven to a Nubian guest house where we were served a great Egyptian meal and then headed off to bed since we had to get up at 2:30 a.m. to meet the convoy to Abu Simbel.

Jane

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