Garbage City

When I updated my "Cities I've Visited" page on my Tripadvisor's travel map Garbage City, Egypt wasn't in the database. You won't find a tour company who will take you there. And I doubt it will ever appear in a guidebook. A city with such a name isn't exactly luring in the tourists.

I have this amazing friend Hayley. She moved from London to Cairo in January. She's fluent in Arabic and just generally a genius. She's also undeniably down to earth and very lovable. Upon touching down in Cairo Hayley hasn't wasted a second getting up close and personal with the locals. She is not a mere observer, but fully engaged in a new way of life. I admire her fearless ability to jump into a culture that is so vastly different from her own. We had so much fun meeting up with Hayley in Cairo. The first night we had a lot of laughs catching up over dinner at our hotel. On the second day we had some extra time after our visit to the Egyptian Museum, and I asked Hayley if she could take me to see some of real Cairo, something a little more raw that the average tourist wouldn't be exposed to.

Hayley's Arabic skills procured us a reliable taxi ride up to Garbage City. Frankly a lot of Cairo is rough around the edges, but what initially set Garbage City apart from the rest was the stench. As we rode in flashes of barefoot children running, rotting produce, flies, trash bags spilling out of doorways, loud chatter, laundry hanging from above, dead rats in the road and donkeys carrying cartloads all danced before my eyes while the very powerful odour of decay exasperated my sense of smell. The taxi stirred up the dusty road and in a moment I had a lungful of Garbage City dust. As I struggled to catch my breath the stench of rotting refuse quickly filled my nose. And before I knew it I was gagging, literally gagging. Had it not been for a water bottle and a bit of minty freshness provided by some Extra spearmint gum I probably would have lost it. I composed myself and began to process all that was before me.

We arrived at the top of Garbage City. We crawled through a hole cut into a chain link fence, teetered on a foot-wide stone wall high above Garbage City to take it all in.



What is this place?



Garbage City is quite literally a slum on the outskirts of Cairo where the people called the Zabbaleen live in garbage and live off garbage. The economy is entirely founded on garbage, the collecting, sorting and selling of garbage, much of it to China. You might think differently about that next "made in China" toy.


Trash on rooftops


Livestock roaming around on roofs


A rooftop chicken coop


Trash everywhere!


What plastic toys will these become?


Satellite dishes perfectly positioned. It always astounds me what priority the world places on television. No matter the poverty, always a television.


Through the haze, the Cairo Citadel overlooking Garbage City. The Citadel contains the tomb of Muhammed Ali.


A bird's eye view to the street below








I wonder what this woman is looking for?








The same woman sitting inside.


Hanging laundry to dry on a rooftop clothesline


A nicely dressed man repairs his dish.


Satellite dishes rule the skies . . . and people looking down to the streets below from many floors up.


Sorting trash . . .


What is that man taking out of the house? A cow?


These boys clearly look like they're trying to get away with something, but what has me more concerned is that they're playing about five stories up on an open rooftop!


We begin our descent down, shall we say Garbage City High Street, and come upon these men waiting for mass service.


My first glimpse inside someone's home.


With Hayley as my guide we made our way down through Garbage City. She stopped and talked to just about anyone. I think people were amazed to hear Arabic coming out of this foreigner's mouth. I was amazed at how eager people were to talk to perfect strangers. Hayley's language skills clearly made us more approachable and likewise made them more accessible. In Arabic they would ask "where are you from?" At times I felt as if we were on parade. I don't think they see Americans strolling down the street very often. Hardly any of them knew a word of English. And although they were quick to approach, I never once felt in harm's way, even with my big camera hanging off my shoulder.


What struck me on the way up was the deplorable living conditions. And while they are indeed unthinkable, this isn't what struck me walking down.


I was greeted by faces like this. How happy they are, the people in the garbage.


I felt very much like a voyeur, and only photographed people when given explicit permission via my intrepreter. I felt like I was on assignment for National Geographic.


A Garbage City side street. At one point we were welcomed into someone's home. We stepped inside. I was shocked at what I saw. No walls on some sides. Mud and garbage on the floors. They invited us upstairs. Oh how I wanted to see, but we were so short on time that we ultimately declined.


A street-side citrus stall


Hayley bargained for a good price on some oranges.




Hayley with one of the many children running up and down the street playing what looked like a game of cops and robbers


Hayley was handing out free oranges as we walked down the street. I am very intrigued by this open society. What's yours is mine is never more true than it is here.


Yum yum


Hanging in the GC


The one-legged, one-eyed man in front of his house


His face hints at stories I would like to know


Playing hide and seek


All dressed up. I loved this girl. She was so sweet. I was so glad she let me photograph her.


Playing in the street


Sometimes people would call us over and ask us to photograph them.



Bottles ready for recycling


I'd like to know more behind these smokey eyes.


This baby's mother is sitting right next to her and although she welcomed me to photograph her baby, she leaned away and covered her own face. I was amazed at how clean some of these people were.


I wonder if they found this in the trash somewhere? Or perhaps they made it out of recycled metals?


It's very difficult to photograph five jumpy girls in low light. They were so cute. Some of them followed us all the way down the street. They were eager to see themselves on my camera's LCD screen.




Nightfall over Garbage City

After leaving Garbage City I have many random conflicting thoughts swirling through my mind. Mr. Clean, 409 and Lysol, anyone? All things I feel the urge to introduce to this place oozing with waste. And then I look at their happy faces, and wonder why I obsess over spots on my stainless steel? Living conditions aside I think about the work they are doing, collecting trash that would ordinarily end up in land fills and instead making good use of it. What a brilliant way to protect the world's resources and make effective use of solid waste matter, and maybe more cities should adopt this kind of programme. Then again who wants women and children sifting through the incoming rubbish, sorting through sharp metal, shards of glass and even bio-hazards like hospital waste? But it's an industry that's providing a livelihood for some of Cairo's poorest, and by looking into their faces they aren't at all unhappy. The satellite dishes that adorn each rooftop connects them to an outside world they may never otherwise know, and sadly this is the one thing I can see that we all have in common. Why are we all so obsessed with TV? Visions of living quarters covered in trash, rooms with maybe two or three walls, mostly uncovered windows, mountains of flies, rooftop animals grazing, the gagging stench, dead rodents in the road . . . the list could go on and on! And I am still processing it all.