This Monday we went to a town called “garbage city”. You are probably already picturing a big dump with a bunch of squatters living around it and living off other peoples trash. I know that is what I expected, and when I arrived I did see piles of trash lining the streets. However, there is a much more interesting story. In the mid-1900s a large portion of the community of Christians in Cairo were in the trade of garbage collecting. Their community was deported outside of the city where they had no access to water, schooling, etc…but over the last 50 years they have continued living off trash, not by eating old scraps, but by recycling and making goods out of scraps to sell, and created a well functioning community. They have made trash their trade and are actually better off economically than a large portion of the Cairene population. Just walking around this smelly town was so different than other places in Cairo because it is not a Muslim community and women don’t wear headcovers. They have an amazing church up the mountain that has been built in an enourmous cave in the cliff-it can fit thousands. There were actually a total of 3 churches that are built into these rock caves.
The schedule here is different than in the States. For example, the weekend is not Saturday and Sunday here. Friday and Saturday is considered the weekend here, and many people only have Friday’s off. We have Fri/Sat/Tues off of class. Tuesday’s are our service project day. I went to do my weekly service project at Camboni Father’s, which is a center for Sudanese refugees. There is a huge Sudanese community here in Cairo. Every Tuesday I will be co-teaching an advanced English class with a Sudanese teacher from 5-7, followed by another 2 hour class with another student from my program in basic English. We hope to be a big help since all the instruction there comes from people who are not native English speakers.
Class started on Wednesday. There are 7 of us who are in an accelerated Arabic class. I can already tell that I will be spending most of my freetime studying to keep up. But I am excited to learn, it will take some time. The group of students in the program are awesome and we’ve been having good times. After class the last couple days we all went down to a local field and played soccer or ultimate frizbee together. Last night was a game of Risk that went late into the night.
I have a friend from school, Collin, who has lived in Cairo his whole life and he told me where his family goes to church. So today I went on a journey to go find it. It was a taxi ride to downtown, then a metro to the right neighborhood and a bit of a walk but I could hear the contemporary worship music from the street. It is a non-denominational international church that is in English, so I felt like I was at home. But it has people from over 40 nations and 50 denominations that regularly attend. To complete my “US in Egypt” experience I went to McDonald’s after church (mainly because I was starving and nothing else is open accept Western style restaurants because it is Ramaddan right now and everyone fasts). I think in the past I might not have appreciated the church very much since everything is in English and it is all done in a Western manner. I mean, this is Egypt, why try to turn it into the US? Why do we have to segregate ourselves in their country/culture and not go to the Egyptian churches? But, I’ve defenitely softened my views on that and was really encouraged by the diversity there and the tight community. Also got to meet my friends family and will most likely reconnect with them at least one more time while I am here. Missing you all but having a good time and learning a lot.
Appreciate your prayers: health! I think everyone has been sick since being here-high probability of getting ill from food, and Cairo has pollution worse than Beijing (fact) which is a recipe for sinus infection.
