Instead they go from home to home picking up garbage. They clean out dumpsters by hand. They gather the garbage and bring it to Mokattam, where they live among it.
The families who live there filter the garbage into different categories of recyclable materials: plastic, cloth, paper, aluminum, glass, etc. and make new products from Cairo's garbage. The women of the community make beautiful quilts, bags, and other crafts to sell.You can go to Mokattam and tour the village and see the recycling center there. It's one of the few things I didn't get to do this year that I would've like to have done. I have a few of their handmade crafts, however, and the ladies do beautiful work. Here are some of the ladies in the recycling center and some of their quilts, pillow covers, and bags on the walls. You can see the bins behind them where they sort scraps and material.
A friend of mine told me they make gorgeous quilts from ties people donate. I haven't seen one of these quilts yet, but I can just imagine the neat patterns on them, can't you? My friend collects ties when she goes home and brings them back to Cairo to donate to the recycling center. I would love to do the same thing. So tell your Sunday School classes, your friends, neighbors, and family to clean out their old ties and gather them for me to collect. I will bring them back to Cairo and donate them in August. It's an easy project, won't cost you anything, and you'll be helping some families on the other side of the world.
If you decide to help, please let me know and I'll figure out how to get the ties from you before I come back in August.
To read more about Mokkatam and the people who live there, check out this article: http://www.outreachworld.org/Files/cmes_harvard/the_garbage_villages.pdf
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