How do you get to Garbage City? I must have asked 5 people before the 6th finally responded with something other than an "I don't know." The person looked at me with a look I am still unable to identify and said, "Why would you ever want to go there?" He tried everything to dissuade me from making my journey. He said it was far, that the people were not to be trusted, that there was nothing there. He even suggested someplace else for me to go. I called the person I was supposed to meet and asked if there was some other name I could call the area. It is called Mansheyit Nasser. Okay. I asked a cab to take me to Mansheyit Nasser.
The plastic area, the metal area, the shampoo cap area, the wires from phones area, the bumper from cars area...every shop had a specialty for recycling. Every shop had a market to sell their recycled goods. Every shop had a supply of discarded items to fuel the business and every shop was full of backbreaking work to be done in conditions that were rough on the body and dangerous for the health.
The gentleman who showed us the wonders of the garbage city sat with us in cafe on the outskirts of the city. He insisted on buying the 3 of us a soda. This is the Egyptian way, he said. We accepted his kind offer and his boundless hospitality. The sense of hope that exploded from the garbage city stuck with me. It was not a sad place as some might think. It was a place of imagination, ingenuity, and promise. It is the kind of place that reminds you that people are good and brilliant. It is a place that inspires you to do more with the gifts you are given. It reminds you that everything can be more. Don't give up or throw something away...adapt and make it useful again!
Jasmine Buttolph, MPH
