katie in cairo, egypt

You'd think that after living in a place for eight months you'd start to figure things out a little more, understand the people, the society, the way things work, but when you're floating about in a place as big and enormously stuffed with people as Cairo, the more you delve into the city, the more strange and utterly paradoxical it becomes. Not only is the city swarming with all kinds of people from black "ninja" like dressed women with stern husbands at their sides to one legged midgets and dirty children putting their hands to their mouths for food handouts, to wanna be American rich snots (like many of those attending my university)...but all of this rests upon an ancient city with seemingly hundreds of layers of civilization, achievement, foreign intrusion, domination, all mixed together to become what we call the modernity of today.

As I've been going on my little weekend excursions into the unknown, I've uncovered at least a sliver of the pie. And my, the thick really just keeps getting thicker.

I first became aware of the "zaballin" in my Environmental Issues in Development class when we were discussing solid waste management in Cairo specifically. Apparently Egypt, like so many developing countries, does not have an efficient (or even existant?) garbage collection mechanism. So, with 20 some million people living in the city alone, where then does it all go? That's a complicated question that I really can't answer even after studying the situation, but years ago it was managed by people known as the "wahis," Muslim people from Upper Egypt, who used to commute to Cairo on a several month shift. Basically people who live in flats pay the "boab," doorman," about 10 L.E. a month (a little less than USD $2), who would then combine the money with that of the other boabs' collections on the whole block, and all of it eventually would go to the wahi who would then collect the trash. However, the wahis didn't stay in business. At some point, the government decided that the wahi's donkey carts on the streets were a "bad image" for modern Cairo, and they wanted to pursue a more efficient system of garbage collection to clean up the city (which is very, very, very dirty!). For a while they experimented with hiring foreign companies (why? I don't know, seems stupid to me...) to collect the trash, but then of course ran into the problem of paying for it. For a while they thought it would be rather trixy if they simply upped people's electricity bills to absorb the extra cost, but a court eventually ruled that this was illegal, and the scheme was abruptly halted.

So, it was back to a local issue. By now, the wahis had just about moved on from their trash collection business, except they still in a way "owned" the rights to collect the garbage--that is, they were still getting paid to do so. However, they had outsourced the work to the Christian people known as the "zaballin." The zaballin are in the business of recycling. Basically they collect the trash, take it to their locale, sort it out, and companies pay them to return parts of their products, like bottles for instance, and they recycle the rest of it and sell it to make some profits. For a while, the wahis continued to pay the zaballin to do their work for them, but as people began to take notice of what was going on, it broke out as being something of a social justice issue, sort of like the "Muslims" taking advantage of the "Christian" minority. After what all went down I don't know, but I do know that the zaballin have the full rights to my garbage bin today.

Well I decided that I might go check out this zaballin town, which is located in the Muqattam Mountain, near the Citadel. As you 're driving into the depths of the mountain, you immediately know when you're "there." Rather the smell informs you before you actually arrive. I convinced a cab driver to take me there with the intention of visiting some churches on top of the mountain, knowing that we would at least have to go through the garbage town to get there. And I certainly wasn't disappointed. Their business is garbage, and that is blatantly obvious. Although their houses are modest but not crumbling and located off to the site of the work area, I'm sure that anyone born there has the fate of never being able to remove the smell of garbage from themselves after taking in their first breath of air. Driving up the main road, I was able to peer into some of the small warehouse-like buildings--each is stuffed full with a mountain of blue or green or clear bottles. And on the streets men in Chevrolet diesel trucks load and unload what appears to be large hay bales, but is actually huge rolls of cardboard boxes rolled up ready for recycling. (Though I'd be cautious to associate the word "recycling" with any type of environmentally sound action...)

Anyways, I thought I had seen it all, but by the time I finally reached the churches I was supposed to visit, I was able to get out (the air was clear by this point) and peer over the ledge of the mountain to the town below. What I saw was amazing. Anyone who lives in a predominantly Muslim country knows how people feel about pork, and anything to do with it. Well, the Christian zaballin don't seem to mind. Looking down, I was able to see the large garbage sorting pits where men threw pieces into different sections to separate them for recycling. And with the men were big fat "khanzeer," pigs, helping out. I'm curious whether this has become an issue with the Muslim people nearby, who despise such dirty beasts.

Just as things seemed bizarre enough, I walked around the top of the mountain in search of these "churches" I'd heard about. Well, I'm not exactly sure who or what has funded this little project, but somebody with lots of money decided that it would be a good idea to build humongous auditorium like 700 Hundred Club sized preaching halls equipped with stadium seating, a stage, and even spotlights. As I walked from one cave to another, on the upper rocks were carved almost cartoon-like biblical scenes, complete with both Arabic and English quotes from the Bible. Intermittently dispersed on some of the walls were rock star posters of the Coptic Pope Shenuda, who sort of looks like a cross between a wizard and Moses. Making my way to the last "church," I thought there couldn't be anything left to see, when suddenly I realized that the little screeching noises I heard around the corner, were not those of the children visitors who were also there on a little tour. Nope, they were...monkeys! Placed in cages, for all to see. Totally confused, I decided I needed to find out why. Apparently, Pope Shenuda had been bothered by the fact that everytime he went to meet the women in the last cave, their children were always pestering them. So what better way to distract small children than by putting monkeys in cages for them to see!

Bizarre isn't enough to describe everything. I know there is some sort of order to all of the disorder, I suppose I just haven't discovered exactly what it is yet. But it certainly does fit into the paradox of it all.

posted by Katie Warren @ 2:25 PM