Research on Cairo

The Internet is such an important tool. For this trip I went online, purchased my airline ticket and booked my hotel. Now I'm researching on the major sights of Cairo so as to maximize my time there. Of course there is the museum of antiquities and the pyramids of Giza. It is all so exciting. I went on http://gettyimages to look for pictures of the sights to see in Cairo. What I found was not just incredible images of an ancient kingdom but also a very modern one, one with impressive and also paradoxical development. I know, like most of us, the struggles of the Coptic Christians, they make up 10% of the population of Egypt, like all Christians living in a repressive Muslim society. I have colleagues who are Coptic Christians and who have left Egypt and I can only imagine their struggles. Nothing prepared me about the plight of the Coptic Christians living in the Zabaleen district of Cairo. 'Zabaleen' in Arabic means trash collectors. Here the people live among the trash of Cairo, they pick through every single item and recycle about 85% of it. They have been dubbed the most efficient trash recyclers. People have trash everywhere in the homes, their yards and their whole livelihood is trash. From the cradle to the grave, their lives and business is trash. The Egyptian government have contracted foreign waste management companies to tackle the trash in Cairo but these companies could only handle a fraction of the city's trash. besides these companies threaten the livelihood of the people in the Zabaleen district. The Zabaleen population are still the most efficient but aside from that Egypt's history dates back 5000 years and was the most advanced in the days of the Pharaohs. It's hard to imagine it would be so backward now.
There are other places in the world where major population lives next to dump sites and eek out their existence from the city trash.

A primitive tattoo equipment. Coptic Christians are known for wearing a crucifix around their necks or have one tattooed on the inside right wrist. One of my colleagues have a 'Maltese' cross tattooed on the inside of her right wrist. When she told me she was from Egypt, I knew she is Coptic.

I hope to be able to visit Zabaleen when I'm in Cairo.