WHO WILL CLEAN CAIRO?

The morning news paper is full of news of Giza – (Remember the governorate with unplastered houses?) I believe the whole place has got deluged under garbage in the last few weeks.
Mercy them! The serpentine alleys had little space to move around. Now they are festering with foul smelling rubbish.

So where are the ‘Zabaleens’ - the traditional garbage collectors of Cairo? - They live in Manshiyet Nasser, in the largest slum dwellings in Egypt. Since the late 1950’s when they moved into Cairo in their donkey driven wooden carts they have been collecting, sorting and recycling rubbish as the means of their livelihood. 50,000 of them still live in their ghettos, some apparently quite rich among them.

It seems Zabaleens have been more or less out of job ever since the govt invested on an Italian company for their garbage disposal. Due to some financial disputes work in certain areas had recently been stalled. But it is now over two weeks and nothing seems to have been resolved. Stalemate or not, stale and fusty rubbish have meanwhile piled up making life miserable in Giza.

Zabaleens who survived over the years cleaning up the mess left by others must have found it increasing difficult to adapt to the rapid modernisation of towns. (We had their counterparts in India too. They vanished over a period of time as did their shanty towns).

Glitches in the modern system remind us how dependable our traditional systems were. But change is a must. So are transitional hiccups. Traditions and lifestyle that get wiped out will survive is the pages of history...The people will have to learn other survival skills.

Meanwhile in a “Cleanup Giza” campaign Dana Moussa a 25 year old Egyptian managed to get a band of 100 Mohandiseen residents to clean up their local streets. Fantastic isn’t it? What is till great is the fact that she engineered it over the networking website Facebook. Now that’s cool.

It is so heartening to see citizen journalism taking such a meaningful turn on the social networking websites. It is so wonderful to discover Dana Moussa a face of modern Cairo.

Spreading the idea of community service in these parts of the world where we are still unaccustomed to becoming the change we wish to see, Dana you are my young hero for the day.