Just the Two of Us: Want to go to Hell-wan and Garbage City?

How would you like to live in the town called Garbage City? I know I would absolutely LOVE it! I mean doesn’t it sound just so nice and beautiful to you? I think I would jump at the opportunity to live there. Well there is such a place here in Cairo, Egypt. Now since it’s in Cairo, or even Egypt alone, you can probably guess what it’s really like.

One day, last week, while Josh was down in Helwan with his tutor Samir, he asked Josh if we wanted to go with him to Garbage City. Josh came home and asked me if we wanted to do that this coming Saturday. I told him if we didn’t have any plans then yes we can go.

Later that night, we were over at our good friend’s the Heisses and Josh asked them if they wanted to come with us. They had gone on a trip there recently but they didn’t get to see everything there is to see there. Long story short, if they weren’t going camping then they would love to come. Well on Friday, they found out they won’t be able to go camping that night. They informed us of their change in plans and still wanted to come with us. We planned on a meeting time and place for Saturday morning. But when Saturday morning rolled around, they were feeling sick and said they wouldn’t be joining us. Since they wouldn’t be joining us, we needed to borrow a camera from someone. I thought of the idea of asking our neighbor, Hannah. She is a Coptic Egyptian and is really nice. I rang her doorbell hoping she was awake and not asleep (I always feel bad when I wake her up to help translate for me). She was awake and cleaning her apartment so I didn’t feel as bad. I couldn’t remember if she had a camera but I asked anyways and she did! So thanks to her, she let us borrow her camera for the day. Thank you Hannah!

Josh and I headed out the door to Helwan to meet up with Samir. Samir was waiting right by his car when we came around the corner. He needed to check the oil before we left.

I was tired of standing up so I sat on some stairs and started taking some pictures of all the locals. I became very fond of some little girls that looked like sisters and took some pictures of them.

The one in the green sweater, kept looking and me and I kept smiling and waving at her.

I had Josh take one of the Egyptian candies we had as a snack over to them and offer it. They declined but still wanted to play with me as I kept taking pictures.

Finally they came over to me and I showed them all the pictures I took of her and her little sister. She really seemed to enjoy looking at herself on the camera. I think her father came over and was talking to Samir about me playing with his daughter which seemed to be just fine. The locals seem to love it when foreigners talk with them and play with the children.

She went back and played some more with her little sister. Later, she came back over and I offered a candy to her once more. Again she declined, but this time I had a small package of saltines. I offered those to her and she gladly accepted and ran away down the street. She came back later with what looked like her mom. It looked like she was telling her mom about me. And that was the last I saw of her.

Samir needed to buy some more oil, so Josh and I went with him to the store. I took more pictures along the way. You can’t see it with the car in the way, but this lady with the bag on her head was carrying a full feathered dead duck in her hand by the neck.

Samir’s carpentry shop.

The design for their handmade dressers that cost a whopping $71.43.

We don’t know why this horse is partially painted orange. Even Samir didn’t know.

When we got to the mechanic, and old man was smoking shisha or hookah and Samir asked him for me if I could take a picture. He was very friendly but he said no. He didn’t want to get embarrassed by me taking a picture of him. But the picture above is across the street from the mechanic.

Let’s play Where’s Waldo…or more like Where’s the Hoof? See below for answer.

A Coptic Priest walking down the street.

We went back to Samir’s place and finally left with his 11 year old nephew, Magdi.

The following pictures are from the car ride to Garbage City.

I was trying to get a picture of one of the very few stop signs in Egypt.

As we were getting on the on-ramp I saw a guy on the side of the rode selling squash and watermelons from his truck.

This one is for Josh. He told me take the picture.

We were driving fine on the freeway until we hit a little bit of traffic. Once we got through it, we figured out why there was traffic. There were a bunch of men on the side of the road arguing over who knows what.

I was trying to take a picture of something on the other side of the road. I don’t even remember what it was, but it turned out to be a great picture of what everyone does around here even on the busiest streets/freeways…walk right down the middle of them.

Here is a group of people standing in the middle of the freeway. Can you guess what they are going to do in the next picture?

Is it really a wonder or even surprise why 6, 000 die from crossing the street? They do this during rush hour. WHY?! From the previous pictures you may have noticed that it’s very foggy. Well that’s not fog nor smog, that’s sand. It was very windy that day and this picture shows you all the sand flying around.

After this picture, Josh told me not to take anymore pictures but I took a couple more when we were passing the Citadel. I mean who can’t cannot take a picture when passing it. Islamic Cairo. This is right before the Citadel.

Right across the freeway from the Citadel, is Garbage City. So the following pictures are from Garbage City and I think the pictures speak for themselves. There was no way we were getting out and walking anywhere in that mess. So some of the pictures have spots and other things like windshield wiper on them from the windows and some don’t since that window was down. Also in the middle of the garbage pictures, is the church that is at the top of the hill in Garbage City. It seats about 10, 000.

Peace be unto you

All these kids were up there to see the monkeys. I think they were torturing them though.

That was the end of Garbage City. We went with Samir down the road so he can buy some big barrels for his kitchen shop. We had fun looking around and taking pictures while we were waiting for him.