Garbage City

I have lots of stuff on my mind, so it's hard to pick a topic to write about. But I'm sure I'll get to the other stuff soon, so no worries.

Yesterday I spent time in a slum called Masheyet Nasr, which in English is translated Garbage City. It was unreal. The place gets it's name from the fact that all of the garbage in the city is brought to there daily. To say that it stinks is kind of an understatement. The streets and houses are crammed full of bags of trash. Click the above picture to get a good view of the city in detail.

Many of the people in the city spend their days recycling. Each one has a certain product that they specialize in. One guy I saw, goes through every bag of trash around him searching for scrap metal. He takes what he finds, melts it down, beats it into pots and pans and sells them.

I guess what's so surreal about this place is the fact that this is their home. This absolutely disgusting place is where people live, have families, raise their kids, work, worship and do every other facet of life. It was heartbreaking. One thing in particular that continues to stick out in my head is a little girl that couldn't have been more than two years old, crawling around in the wet dirt road underneath a parked trash truck playing with her brothers. And she was happy.

It's odd because it's mostly Christians that live in this particular slum. We had a hard time getting the taxi to believe that that was actually where we wanted to go. The Muslims around here are scared of it because of all the Christians that live there, which I find kind of funny. Realistically it's because Christians are few and far between in this country, so they don't understand them. But it could also be that darkness tends to run from light. The smell might also play a part in it.

I'll have more thoughts up later on things God's put on my heart through Garbage City and how this trip is effecting my thoughts on missions in general.