One Egyptian's junk is another's parish: priest converts dump into a promised land for 27,000 Cairo poor - Father Samaan Ibrahim

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 30, 1994 by Andrew Metz

CAIRO, Egypt -- Although a heavy stench of rot reaches almost every corner of his neighborhood, 27-year-old Said says he barely notices it anymore. For 10 years, he has been living in a slum known as Mokattam at the base of an eroding hill on Cairo's eastern fringe.

He is one of approximately 27,000 Coptic Christians who, inhabiting the settlement of hollow brick hovels, narrow dirt alleys and tons of rotting garbage, are using the garbage to both better their lives and spread their religious beliefs.

"This," Said explains, looking away from a sickly goat picking at a nearby mound of rubbish. "This is Egypt."

This is the Egypt that is multiplying at an explosive rate, where it is common to find women with six or seven children, where people barely earn enough piasters to feed themselves and where the population of 58 million is plagued by illiteracy.

This is the Egypt where Fr. Samaan Ibrahim navigates his sedan to get to his parish office deep inside Mokattam.

As he has done for 16 years, Ibrahim passes by women and their daughters hunched in darkened doorways, sorting through candy wrappers, filthy discarded clothes and decomposing fruit.

The 52-year old priest squeezes his car between donkey carts and dilapidated trucks laden with sacks of rubbish. He inches around smoldering piles of waste, past barefoot and bare-chested boys playing in heaps of dirty bottles and cans, shredded cardboard and paper, stinking rinds, peels and gnawed bones.

Ibrahim is a stern character, awash in black: black woven skull cap and black robe. A black leather cross hangs from his neck. He is unwavering in his commitment to Mokattam and receives kisses on his hands and reverent bows the instant he sets his black leather shoes on Mokattam's streets.

In the cool of his office, separated from the trash by a heavy iron doorway, Ibrahim describes the plight of his parish.

"This is a place of garbage. In the beginning, it was difficult [for the people], but now they are used to it," Ibrahim said. "Jesus Christ died for these people."

According to Ibrahim, the Egyptian government chose the area at the base of the hillside for use as a garbage dump in 1969. Few people lived in the dump back then, he said. But as growth has pushed people farther from Cairo's center and the Coptic church has strengthened its footing in the community, Mokattam has become crowded.

In reality, Ibrahim's parish is but a sliver of Cairo's 900 square kilometers and at least 12 million people. But, in a way, it seems the slum is both a display of Egypt's worst poverty and a sketch of devote religiosity and grassroots community development.

The garbage that blankets Mokattam's streets, roof tops, truck beds and store fronts comes from all over Cairo. It is collected each morning by the parish's army of 7,000 zabaleen, Arabic for garbage collectors.

The zabaleen haul truck- and cartloads of Cairo's refuse back to their own streets for sorting and recycling. With help from the church and a local association of garbage collectors, the zabaleen have established a community that ekes out its livelihood from trash collection and recycling.

They say they collect at least 2,000 tons of garbage a day. Most is recycled into usable plastics, glass and metals and sold to factories. Almost everybody in Mokattam takes part in the effort -- women and girls sort the garbage. Sometimes they make clothes or rugs from recycled fibers.

Men like Zakaria Zeki Mohammed and his two adolescent sons break the garbage down into base elements and make products they can sell. From a small workshop along one of the settlement's filthy alleys, Mohammed and his sons forge frames for car seats from recycled aluminum. Flames leap from a concrete pit in the back of Mohammed's small room. It is over 50 degrees centigrade in here, he said. His hands, arms, neck and face are encrusted with black soot. The cheeks and ears of his sons are covered with the daily dirt of their work.

Although the people of Mokattam diligently sort through the garbage, there is simply too much trash to absorb. The collectors bring in more than can be recycled and tons of the stinking waste end up in the streets.

Still, according to Ibrahim, his parishioners are models of the Coptic Christian faith, examples of faith giving people dignity in the most destitute circumstances.

"All the people here serve all the people of Cairo," he said. Although it is dangerous and often unhealthy in Mokatam, he admits, the zabaleen lead a dignified, devout life. They rarely complain about their service to Cairo.

What's more, through their work, residents of Mokattam are produly raising their community out of the garbage. In the squalor there are signs of growth: a new 5,000 seat amphitheater emerging from the limestone hillside, new churches, new businesses, road improvements, community health and education programs.

There is a hospital, built with $150,000 from Norwegian donors, and a school at Mokattam. The church and the association, called the Association of Garbage Collectors for Community Development, have hired nurses and physicians to staff the hospital and to vaccinate residents. And the association, which Ibrahim heads, is now working on a six-year plan to fight illiteracy in the area.