How Coptic Christians Survive Living in garbage slum of Cairo

The Zabaleen (which in Arabic means garbage people) have informally been responsible for collecting Cairos trash for almost a century. Their battle for survival against the Egyptian government and the rest of Egyptian society as a whole are endless. In 2004 the government set a contract for corporate firms to collect the trash instead. This was in attempt to make the waste management of the city seem more professional. Before 2004 the Zabaleen were paid monthly by Cairos residents to collect the waste directly from peoples doors. However under the new government system the companies would leave large bins in the street and require residents to put the trash in their themselves which they also had to pay for. Manny members of the Zabaleen ended up knocking on doors to collect trash as they would have done before, but were paid a quarter of their previous wage. In 2014, the governed finally recognised the efficiency of the Zabaleens waste collection, and reinstated their role. This community is among one of the poorest in the whole of Egypt, and are subject to discrimination from the government and the public as they are coptic christians unlike 90% of Egypts population who are muslim. The coptic christians were originally farmers from northern Egypt, but immigrated to Cairo in the 1940s in an escape from the authorities who were trying to get rid of them because they are a minority. They all immigrated to one place, which was the Mokattam district of Cairo, and created what is now the garbage city. The resourcefulness that they brought from their farming lifestyle was not wasted in the city environment, and they soon stared to collect food waste to feed their animals. This was the beginning of the garbage city. A little about Coptic Christianity: Saint mark is said to have brought christianity to Egypt and founded the coptic church in Alexandria in 42AD. To this day, There are around 12 million coptic christians worldwide, and around 9 million of them live in Egypt. Coptics believe in the same nature of god as other christians, but what sets them apart is that they view Jesus as having one combined nature of human and divine, whereas roman christians belief human nature and the divine are two separate channels of energy. Coptic christians also follow a different calendar to other Christians. They celebrate Christmas on January 7th and practice a red meat, poultry and dairy fast in the 40 days coming up to Christmas. The Coptic christians have lived in this area of Cairo since the 1940’s and built their first local church in 1975. However a huge fire broke out just one year later which destroyed all their work. That same year, a decision was made to create a church inside a cave, which is the church that I was visiting, can old up to 20000 people and is the largest church in the whole of the Middle East. Some reference links: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/who-ar... https://www.egypttoursportal.com/blog...