Listening to the Instant Karma CD, I started thinking about Darfur and how there were all kinds of Sudanese refugees all over Egypt, having been expelled from their country or left it willingly for a variety of different reasons. I remember, a friend of mine went down to help them learn English every weekend as one of her many community service projects. And then that reminded me of going down to Mokattam to see the orphanage.

Mokattam, colloquially called “Garbage City” by everyone from residents of Mokattam to tour guides, is a place past the Cairo citadel where there are literally piles of garbage in which Cairo’s poorest families can be found living amongst and rummaging through.

I include the image for clarity’s sake, to give an idea of what the area looks like. You’ll notice I wasn’t kidding when I said there are piles of garbage. But the residents of Mokattam count their blessings. For they do have a steady source of income. Most of Mokattam’s community are garbage collectors, or Zabaleen, who go around and collect trash from the bustling metropolis by morning and sort through it in the evening to see if they can find anything salvageable. Specifically, they try to find recyclables, for which they earn a few more pounds for. Cairo has a business of recycling paper into stationary, gift wrap, and notebooks. Most of those products are made possible by Mokattam’s garbage collecting population.

Now what does Mokattam have to do with human rights? Well they don’t have all the basic needs that article 25* of the link requires that they have. Living among all that garbage, Mokattam is a breeding ground for disease, and living in such close quarters with other people, it’s also a breeding ground for an epidemic. In addition to that, children are the ones who most commonly sift through the garbage, which means they are uneducated. Although one can argue that the child is obtaining an education that will help the child later in life, but it's still not a proper education, and does not give them many choices for their future.

Actually, I just thought Mokattam was a really interesting place. It’s not mentioned in a lot of the tour books, but I recommended a visit to all my friends who came to tour Cairo because it really is an eye-opener to how much poverty there is in Cairo, and the world for that matter. Many of our visiting friends had never been outside the US, and while Cairo in general was a culture shock to them, Mokattam was even more intense.





*Article 25 States:
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.