Coptic Cairo

One of our local teacher friends organized a nice day trip for us a few weekends ago. We spent the day in Cairo and visited two important places, the first one the Monastery of St. Simon in the Zabbalin village and the second the area of Coptic Cairo.

In 1969 the Governor of Cairo decided to move all the “trash collectors” to the hills of Mt. Mokattam. They build themselves little houses of tin and other scrap metal and today this village of Zabbalin has a population around 30,000 and is mostly Coptic Christians. Since the Egyptian government does not have a government run waste removal system, for over a hundred years this community has made their living by cleaning the city. Each morning the village men go out on their donkey carts to their district in Cairo and gather the trash.

Picture taken from:

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2008/10/24/cairos_trash_collectors_lose_an_advocate

Picture taken from:

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/inoursuitcase/freedom_07-08/1223650500/tpod.html

They have contracts with companies and residents to gather their waste for them. They bring it back to their home and the women and children sort though the pile. They feed the refuse to the pigs that they raise. This is the only population of pigs in the country. You might have heard that when H1N1 (Swine Flu) came to Egypt; the Present ordered that ALL of these pigs be slaughtered. This greatly

hurt this community by not have any pigs to eat or sell, but also hurt all of Cairo, since the refuse waste that was taken to be fed to the pigs, now just sits in the streets and rots! Driving through Zabbalin stirs up lots of emotions. It pains my heart to see bare foot children sitting waste deep in a pile of trash in front of their shack of a house, but at the same time, it’s impressive to see their effectiveness with sorting through so much. They are able to recycle 60% of Cairo’s trash. (Most first world countries recycle about 70%).

Picture taken from:

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/inoursuitcase/freedom_07-08/1223650500/tpod.html

As with most sights in Egypt, there are no signs and clear directions marked, but it didn’t matter to get to the Mokattam Church, driving through Zabbalin, everyone just points the way without us having to stop and ask.  It was amazing, diving through Zabbalin, where you felt like the piles of trash were caving in on you and little sunlight reached the streets, to all of a sudden you take one more turn and under a walkway, and all of a sudden the surroundings open up, a huge mountain appears, and the warmth of the sun is shining down on you and you see a huge Coptic Church in front of you with biblical carvings in the mountain all around.   This is the Monastery of St. Simon which the Cathedral of Virgin Marry and six other churches hidden in an underground network of caves in the Mokattam hills.  In the tenth century when Egypt was ruled by Caliph Al Muizz, he got into a debate with the Coptic Pope Abram where the Caliph challenged the Coptic’s to prove the bible verse stating that if you have faith strong enough you can move a mountain.  The Caliph saw this as an opportunity to move the Mountain that was spoiling his view, and if the Coptic’s were unable to, it he would be finally able to prove that the Christians were wrong and do away with them in his country.  Simon was chosen to be the one to move the mountain so after three days of fasting and prayers the mountain moved.

Next we headed to the area called Coptic Cairo. This is the oldest area of Cairo and was settled around the 6 century B.C.  Later the Romans build a fort around it called Babylon.  Within the fort walls there were twenty Coptic Christian churches, several mosques including the earliest one built in Egypt, and the Ben Ezra synagogue all living in peaceful religious harmony for thousands of years.  We visited the Mar Girgis Church, Keniset Mar Girgis, El-Mu’ Allaqa (the Hanging Church), Ben Ezra synagogue, and Abu Serga.  At the Nunnery of St. George, the sisters take care of the original chain and shackle that St. George was tortured in.  Here we watched man women come pay homage by the custom of taking the chains and wrapping them around your body and neck, saying a prayer, and kissing the chains.  Since the city is so old, the modern street level has risen several meters above the original, which means, to get to the original floors, we always had to walk down stairs to what felt like the basement.