Visit to Garbage City, Egypt

"Hoarders" Egyptian style.

During my trip to Egypt I stayed on a few days in Cairo and hired a driver to take me to sites off the beaten path. Two of the highlights were visits to the City of the Dead and Garbage City. Here, I am going to show you the latter.

Garbage City is the nickname of a village called Mokattam, which is located at the base of the Mokattam Mountains. It is populated by around 30,000 people known as the Zabbaleen, a minority segment of the Coptic Christians. The Zabbaleen live in seven different areas around Egypt, but Mokattam is the largest settlement.

The driver took us up to an immense gate which is one of three entrances to Mokattam. After a baksheesh (tip or bribe) to the gatesman of 5 Egyptian Pounds (approx. 82 cents at the time of this writing) we were admitted onto the narrow, curving street. The primary reason the street is so narrow is because it is clogged with garbage.

Entering Mokattam Village, aka Garbage City.

The Zabbaleen are Cairo's trash collectors. The men and children drive their donkey-drawn carts through the neighborhoods of Cairo and collect garbage from the residents. The garbage is then brought back to the Zabbaleen's homes in Mokattam where the recyclables are separated and sold. Taking their work home with them has led to incredible consequences for the Zabbaleen.

Mokattam is overflowing with garbage.

We drove past open door after open door, each revealing rooms stuffed so full of garbage that they disgorged the debris onto the street. I saw several rooms which could have served as the setting for the garbage compactor scene in Star Wars. Garbage is piled against every solid surface. It is piled haphazardly in alleys and cul-de-sacs.
 

Collecting and recycling is a family affair. When this girl is older than 10, she will join the women in picking through the garbage that the men and younger children bring into the village.

A woman in the act of recycling.

 
Huge white bags of packaged recyclables are stacked up on truck beds like bundles of hay or grain. Broken carts are left to molder where they've fallen. Pigs and chicken dance around the feet of water buffalo as they dig for food. And of course there is the stench.

The moment we passed the guard gate we were assaulted by it: the eye-watering, nostril-stinging reek of a landfill baking under the fierce Egyptian sun. It is impossible to ignore the sickly sweet smell of rotting fruits and vegetables. Thankfully the smell of expiring meat wasn't very discernible, probably because most meat is fully consumed in Egypt. But that cloying stench of vegetal rot was bad enough. The smell was sickening and I had to breathe through my mouth to bear it. I groaned just thinking about how my clothes and hair would smell once I left the place.

My fears were not shared by the residents of Garbage City. Make no mistake, the city is a city. They have power. They have cafes and shops. We drove by what appeared to be the city center, past cafes and restaurants where, just as in the rest of Cairo, men sat outside and watched the passing traffic while drinking hot tea or thick coffee. The difference, of course, was that it stank to high heaven. It was mind-boggling to me. If I had to sit there and try to drink tea I would gag. Eating would be out of the question.

On and on we drove through the winding street, marveling at the piles of garbage and the people who lived and worked around them as easily as we would bushes and trees. And then, miraculously, we emerged from the cosmopolis of trash onto a clean road that led up to the mountain. Here we passed the sheared-off side of the Mokattam Mountain where a Polish artist who had married an Egyptian woman had carved religious icons into the stone. Here we saw the other side of Mokattam.

Church of St. Tanner's, one of seven or eight hidden cave churches in the Mokattam Mountains.

After parking, our driver led the way into two of several immense church caves. These monolith churches are jaw-droppingly vast, and they are popular with the Zabbaleen who were gathering for services as we visited.

View from the bottom of the Church of St. Tanner.

 
It painted an amazing picture of who the Zabbaleen are and who they aren't: that is, dirty trash scavengers. Rather, they are a deeply religious people who have found a way to sustain themselves in a difficult economic area. I have to admire their work ethic even if I can't comprehend how they manage to do it.