Recycling and Religion

Our first destination today, was to Garbage city. This is where the garbage collectors of upper Egypt were moved by Nasser, & currently live AND work today. They collect the rubbish, sort & recycle it right in the area they live! Thankfully it is winter here & although there was an odour it was bearable. Apparently in summer, it is quite another story. These people are all Coptic Christians, & they manage to recycle 80% of the rubbish they collect, selling plastics & paper products back to big recycling factories. Even though they have this income, it is obvious that they live very poor lives. Through these piles of unsorted rubbish, bags of plastic bottles & bundles of cardboard we came out at the base of the rocky cliffs, to something quite special...a Coptic Church in a cave! This Church has its own miracle story & with tableaus from the bible adorning the cliff face it nestles under the sky & the rock! The main church seats 20,000 & is used only in summer. They have another cave church used in winter which seats 5,000. One of the deacons was very enthusiastic to give us the whole tsory of the church, & it was a delight to feel his passion, even though we understood very little of his english! It was an honour to see this seldom visited part of cairo life, & we were glad mel had put it on our day's grand plan!