Egypt’s “City of Garbage”
(Photo courtesy of Caters News Agency)
When I travelled Egypt in May 2011, I spent the afternoon traversing the City of Garbage, or Manshiyat naser, and visited with the Zabbaleen people in this deplorable community of Cairo. I stumbled upon this article, which spoke about this community of people and thought I’d share it. I find it interesting that this author mentioned that “…the people there are happy. They have never known anything different than living among the rubbish.” I can relate to those sentiments that these people did indeed appear to be happy. These children, while clasping helpings of unsanitary bread in their hands and playing kick ball amongst mounds of garbage, appeared to be the most carefree and happy they could have ever been. Personally, it was quite an eye-opening experience for me, and it made me realize at that point how I have taken many things for granted, even the simplest of all, such as having clean drinking water.