EL-MAYA EL-HAYA, Helwan: You won’t find it on any map; officials rarely acknowledge its existence. But follow the stream of pickup trucks and donkey carts piled high with garbage heading south from Helwan and you may find the unmarked turnoff onto a desert track leading to what at first glance appears to be an illegal dump site. Tucked within a shallow wadi choked with rubbish, El-Maya El-Haya is a community of 3,000 zebaleen (garbage collectors) who eke out a living on the margins of society by processing its detritus.
It is a forlorn place with the look and feel of a Mad Max set, a shanty town in the desert built of breeze blocks and corrugated iron sheets where garbage is manually broken down into its primary components – glass, paper, metal and plastic – and the organic scraps fed to the pigs.
Children in threadbare clothes play with decapitated Fulla dolls and fashion kites out of plastic bags. Flies explode into the air as a donkey carts hurtle past decaying matter. El-Maya El-Haya is a postcard for poverty, but it is also an illustration of human perseverance.
Founded by 75 zebaleen families evicted from a shantytown in Marsad Helwan in 1997, El-Maya El-Haya is now a refuge for nearly 400 destitute families.
The community has built itself from scratch. There is a church, community center, health clinic, playground and even public toilets – all built by the donations of residents.
“Everyone pitches in according to their means, says Milad Shoukry, a community spokesman. “Education is a priority. We arrange buses so the children can attend school. Our hope is that one day they will be able to leave this place.
It is a tough existence. A gas generator provides a few hours of electricity each day; water must be trucked in. Every year brings new tribulations. First there was a flood that washed away houses, then came the fire, which raced through the garbage piles and smoldered for weeks. Now there is a government decree to slaughter all 40,000 pigs in the settlement – a kneejerk reaction to a disease that is neither present in Egypt nor transmitted by swine.
Police have set up a checkpoint to prevent people from smuggling their pigs out of El-Maya El-Haya, but have not taken any action so far. Residents can only wait anxiously, knowing it’s just a matter of time before authorities move in to carry out their orders.
Boutros and his wife Mariam pray that day will never come. They have already been pushed to the brink. Unsifted garbage spills into their one-room house and carpets the floor. Mariam has a heart condition and needs an operation; the children sleep amid tattered cloth and plastic wrappers. “God will provide, Boutros says weakly.
The pigs in the stockade next to the house are not theirs. They lease them to process the garbage and earn a cut from fattening them up for sale. The family clearly needs help; instead they are about to lose their primary source of income.
Nearby, Umm Hani lives with her extended family in one of the larger compounds in El-Maya El-Haya. They own three donkeys and two pickup trucks, which they use for collecting garbage in Helwan. Trash is sorted into bins and sold by the ton to recycling plants. The family also has a few dozen hogs, which they sell to keep the two trucks running.
“The government wants to take away our pigs, and even the garbage, Umm Hani laments. “This is all we have.
She suspects swine flu is being used as a pretext for the religiously-motivated extermination of pigs, which Muslims regard as impure animals. With pig-raising and pork consumption confined almost entirely to Egypt’s minority Christian community, the fear now is that the decree could enflame sectarian tensions. Yet the existence of 150 Muslim families within this community seems to counter that fear.
Public hysteria over swine flu has mostly been manifested as discrimination against the zebaleen. Local newspapers have published maps of zebaleen neighborhoods advising citizens to avoid these areas, and by extension their inhabitants. Women from El-Maya El-Haya have reported being refused entry onto public transport, and many city residents refuse to open the door for zebaleen, throwing their rubbish into the streets instead for fear of contracting swine flu.
In El-Maya El-Haya, however, the two faiths share common interests.
Many of the Muslim families who live in the settlement are pig owners.
“It is strictly business for them, explains Bassem Rizk, a Coptic youth leader. “But it also means their livelihood is affected just as ours.
