New Videos

Here are a few videos we made relatively recently but haven't posted until now. At first, we were planning to save all our videos of construction work until the end, so it would be a surprise, but we've since decided that the surprise will be seeing a more unified video at our presentation at the College later this fall, which will show the entire process from start to finish.

In the meantime, here are the links to three new videos:

http://sharing.theflip.com/session/43f35bfdde2f8379142bfc069f139b6b/video/17408054

http://sharing.theflip.com/session/76a045a42f5815717381a0d6d0ce1f72/video/17408061

http://sharing.theflip.com/session/3d39fd84bf000bd96e3794844e41a424/video/17207613

I've realized I haven't grasped the enormity of the scale of our project until it's started to come

to a close. We've done so much reconstruction work the school has not been able to function as a school for over a month. Yesterday we bought a new projector. Today we are moving in fifty new chairs and two new tables, hand-crafted by a carpenter who owns a shop up the road across from the monastery. This week, essentially for the first time since we've been here, the school is being put back together again. This time, though, instead of looking like a decrepit warehouse it looks like a normal classroom in America--only better because it's so much less sterile, with colorful murals on all the walls. It has a freshly-tiled bathroom with a new sink, seven new ceiling fans, and new lighting throughout. Before we leave, we've contracted another carpenter to craft new doors for the entrance of the school. Hopefully the drastic nature of the changes will be readily identifiable from earlier videos compared to later videos, which we will contrast in our final presentation to the wider Caldwell-Boise community.

--Keats

Coming to a Close

When our countdown calendar to departure reached ten days, I was hit with strange combination of satisfaction and remorse.

The satisfaction is easier to explain. In our short time here, we have accomplished so much in the school that it is hard to fully realize the effect our work will have on the students and teachers. The crumbling walls have been transformed into solid structures that will sustain the building for a long time to come. The school has been brightened by paint and lighting, now matching illuminating ferocity with which the boys peruse their education. Ceilings fans have made the temperature in the school much more pleasant and facilitate the movement of air to carry away some smells from the bottles stored in back. A new sink has been installed with standard faucet, which is only too useful after sorting through some trash or making one of several pots of tea made in a day. Bathroom titles for the floors and walls made the bathroom more sufficient, hygienic and user friendly. A new door will soon be installed, providing the school with better safety and more functional use than the old wooden one it is set to replace. A projector has been purchased that will enhance the teaching tools available to staff. Computers are about to be purchased, whose usefulness for the school is invaluable. Combined, these things will make for a Recycling School that will truly meet the goals we set out in our project proposal, and leaving knowing that this has been accomplished fills me with the most sincere sense of satisfaction.

I struggled with the remorse I felt, wondering why having almost completed the project and being able to return home to family, friends, and the comfort American life would cause me grief. After some meditation on the discomfort that plagues me, I came to the following realization: in spite of having changed so much for the school, as I look around Egypt, I see so much more need. And, much to my surprise, the need is only partially for the community of Mokattam. Of course they have some negative correlations with lower incomes, like few hospitals and smaller apartments. But the need I see if for the world to know their story.

This realization came on the top of a hill overlooking all of Cairo. Like any city in the world, you see layers of buildings and streets, all of which you know are filled with constant commotion. However, here from this view, there was something different. In the picture, you can see so poignantly the same white mass of pollution that seems to haunt over the city. And this is what makes me sure that there is a need in Egypt for the Recycling School’s story to be told. The people we have been working with play an important role in the environment, recycling 80% of what they collect of the 13,000 tons of waste here everyday. This role they take with pride, contentment. However, their job is seen entirely differently by the rest of Egypt, and for the matter, much of the world.

The government of Egypt, according to the teachers at the school, wants to force them out of Mokattam. This may seem unrealistic, but considering the Egyptian Government contracted away their work to multinational corporations and forced the slaughter of their pigs, a necessary part of their waste management system, this true seems less than fictitious. And far from the government problems, the story of the zabbaleen is unknown by most locals, and if they did know, Egyptians seem not to care.

On a global scale, our project mentor Dr. Laila Iskandar notes, people see the plight of the zabbaleen and want to find ways to get the people out of this community. Instead of understanding the people’s determination to stay and continue their lives work, they see only their poverty and helplessness. This misunderstanding of the zabbaleen on a global scale needs to be corrected to show the world that in places across the globe, there are people who are dedicated to protecting the environment at lengths far greater than leaving then turning the lights off when you leave the house or recycling in your home.

I hope that over time, my remorse will subside into action, not apathy. I hope that at home, I do not forget the lessons I have learned here, and that I do not let compliance with “good enough” get the best of me.

--Casey

Project Update

For all our followers, we just wanted to give you a peak into our project. Although we are not going to post a video of the work until it is totally complete, we wanted to post a few stills of the construction that is going on at the Recycling School. These photos depict the first phase in our efforts to revamp the school, which include clearing out the school, chipping the paint of the brick walls, and applying a cement coat. This process is part of the larger picture of our project, which is to provide a facility that further enables the success of the work they are doing at the Recycling School.

We have been working hard alongside the contracted labor and have been involved in all negotiations (which is truly saying something for how Egyptians bargain)! Also, we have been shopping around to get everything else the school needs. An important aspect of all the work we have done thus far is that we are using the Davis Grant money to purchase all labor and materials in the community. This provides the benefit of pumping more money into the local economy and employing the hard working people of Garbage city. All of these things will be included in a later video, but for now, you will have to trust us that things are looking great.

Women's Association for Environmental Protection

After having worked with the boys of the Recycling School for the last few weeks, we finally got out into the community to learn about an opportunity offered to the women of Garbage City. We were given a tour of the Association for the Protection of Environment, a facility used to train women in a skill and provide them an education. The association taught two skills: cloth weaving and papermaking. Like the recycling school, the women are paid to come and create their profit from recycling waste.

The material used in weaving is all paid for and gathered from shops that have extra scraps for whatever reason. The women then separate these scraps into the different colors. They are taught to make rugs first and then go on to make bags, quilts and scarves. For papermaking, they use paper donated from all over Cairo, which they recycle to make a plethora of wonderful products. This process, seen in the video, is them wetting down the used paper, collecting it in rectangular frames and drying it out on wooden slabs. All of the products created here are sold in shops all over Egypt and a show room at the association.

While learning these skills is important, the woman in charge of the tour told us the school was originally founded focused around literacy. However, in order to get the women to come to the school instead of working to earn a wage, they incorporated the practical work aspect to motivate the women to come and commit to their education. It was great to see such innovative ways to empower women through work that is environmentally conscious.

http://sharing.theflip.com/session/ffc0a218322f1779f46a623b047e8b1b/video/16936782

--Casey

The Fish Gardens of Zamalek

Two days ago we took a taxi to the Fish Gardens on the island of Zamalek. The guidebook ranked it number four on the list of "fun things to do in Cairo with kids." What the guidebook didn't mention was that the fish were either catfish, koi fish, or bleached sickly carp-like fish, and that the rest of the exhibits were clouded water with empty conch shells, plastic alligators, or, my personal favorite, stuffed mangy seals with googley eyes that also resembled [roadkilled] Egyptian hairless cats.

The Fish Garden was 0.50 LEs for children, 1 LE for Egyptians, and 20 LEs for tourists. We agreed that it was worth it, though, if only for the colony of bats we discovered living in the upper darkness of the artificially constructed viewing caves. We stood and listened to the bats chuckling and warbling like squirrels for at least fifteen minutes.

A few of the cynical side comments you'll miss in the video due to the music: Keats: "I've seen better aquarium displays in the waiting room of my dentist's office." Casey, while video-ing walking onto one of the bridges: "Keep people watching in suspense...and...boom! No water!"

If you ever come to Egypt, you must go to the Fish Gardens.

--Keats

http://sharing.theflip.com/session/864bf92eb41af689b0c8a3836161238c/video/16890652

The Recycling Process

This follow up video documents the selling of the plastic that we helped prepare for recycling at the school. Once the boys have shredded enough shampoo bottles to fill the bags at the school, they load up a truck and head off to the weighing station. After weighing the trucks, they go to the factory that is buying the plastic from them. Adham was nice enough to ask the factory owners if we could have a look at the factory. Once inside, we saw another side of the process that really brought to fruition the cycle that trash goes through in Garbage City. http://sharing.theflip.com/session/9ac142da0a508c77741ec69500ac9043/video/16656691

In the video, you will see they start by cleaning the plastic. This is necessary because if you were to see the pieces of shampoo bottles before, you would notice a grimy filth covering it, which has to be removed before processing. After properly cleaned and dried out, they heat it and melt it down. This is done by the spinning machine with a flame, which then funnels the melted material into a larger system of machines. From here, the plastic material stretched and cooled down in the water. The whole thing ends with the cutting of the plastic into little beads. These are then put into bags, weighed, and sold to consumers of the material from various parts of the world.

The process is simple yet mesmerizing, as they have perfected the art of recycling, something the most advanced countries in the world can’t yet seem to make successful and profitable.

--Casey

Portrait of Mokhattam

Here is a compilation of excerpts from the journal I'm keeping while I'm here. Hopefully they'll give a decent image of the area we are working.

On first entering Mokhattam, the first thing you notice is that the paced road transitions to dirt. The ratio of cars to donkey carts shifts heavily in favor of the latter. The buildings are easily ten stories, all apartment-style--one window with no glass. There is garbage on the streets. Not litter--garbage. Six-foot high by ten-foot wide heaps of it, as though someone took one of the large commercial BFI bins and just emptied it right there on the side of the road. There are abundant stray cats and dogs, and, of course, there are the flies. Six-year-old boys walk with stacks of flattened cardboard boxes balanced on their backs.

Three green panels comprise the exterior of the Recycling School. Inside, crumbling brick has been painted over by the students. There is a tree with kids' names on the branches, a patch painted in a shaken kaleidoscope of white, black, yellow, and red, and behind the computer lab, a round blue world with dark green continents. Arabic-English posters of the animals, the clock, and human organs are stuck to the wall by stringy gobs of super glue.

Twenty-five boys--ages five through twenty-three--sit in blocky wood chairs around circle tables. There are children's books in Arabic, pencils and lined paper, and counting blocks--one block, tens block, hundreds block, thousand box.

It is the only school in Cairo to teach in the Montessori-style, and has received backlash from the government. What they learn must be relevant, directly applicable to their day-to-day experiences, and encourage entrepreneurship.

Dr. Laila finished her tour of the school and leaves us with Miss Laila, the principal of the school, who speaks only Arabic. The kids sit at their desks in open-toed sandals. One has a gauze bandage taped above his right eye. One is on crutches, his leg amputated midway between knee and hip.

I must confess my first instinct is to take one of the boys in my arms and run--anyone, the first one nearest me, the boy with the bandage on his forehead, who keeps pulling my arm and asking for another bouncy ball, his hair and eyes warm brown as agave nectar. It was exactly as Dr. Laila has predicted--I held the standard American view of poverty--to get them out! to get them out! I held the grave misunderstanding of poverty, ignorant, backward, and counterproductive. "People want to help them 'escape,'" she said. "At first glance, they all want to help the kids 'move up' in the world, move to an area with more development, more opportunities, a higher standard of living." But this logic is oversimplified. "Pick them up and move there where?" Laila said. "And then what? They don't want to be moved."

I didn't fully grasp Laila's philosophy until a few days into working with the school. Adham, a graduate of the school who is now working as a teacher and speaks English near-fluently, graciously volunteered to take us on a tour of the city on our way to bargaining with local carpenters to negotiate a fair price for the fifty new chairs and two new chairs to be crafted for the expanding school. There are six Coptic Christian churches in the city of Mokhatta, which has a population of 60,000 and over 750 shops. The churches are cut deep into the sandstone cliffs and stepped like colosseums. A few yards from the churches and carpenter's workshop is a cliff that overlooks the entire neighborhood. The tops of the houses are all unroofed. Instead, there are aviaries of pigeons, pens of goats, and, of course, heaps and heaps of trash, separated into various recyclables in most cases--cardboard boxes in one, plastic bottles, aluminum in another.

The city of Mokhattam is beautiful in a way I've never experienced before. When I try to describe it, the only phrases that come to mind are of seemingly ugly scenes--unlit cement stairways, the smell of molding cardboard, wooden "tin fruit" carts pulled through the dust roads by donkeys whose ribs could rake the ground like a zen garden. It is a foreign kind of beauty, and I would venture to say it's a beauty you have to learn the same way the still lives of Giorgio Morandi may at first take work to see the arresting compositions, the abstract realness.

--Keats

New video

http://sharing.theflip.com/session/f883cad8b097880b168119e7fbc774f9/video/16587152

Recycling Class

Our latest video from our very exciting day helping recycle shampoo bottles by shredding them into a saw-dust like consistency which can then be re-sold to companies around the community.

http://sharing.theflip.com/session/012b28997366e8849128934006648132/video/16490231

First Day at the Recycling School

So today was our first day visiting the Recycling School and it was AMAZING!!! Really, truly amazing.

We got to sit down and have a meeting with Ezzat and Laila, the principal of the school who only speaks Arabic, and we re-planned out our budget with more precise figures. We discussed ways of getting to and from the school every day and settled on pre-arranging a taxi cab driver to pick us up and take us home on a schedule every day. We will work every day from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a one hour lunch break every day except Friday and Sundays, when the School is only go part-time.

It seems the main thing that needs to be accomplished through the Davis Project is re-plastering the walls, which right now are only brick, making the structure unstable. There is a contractor coming in tomorrow, and we will be overseeing his progress on initiating the re-plastering, as well as assisting in whatever ways he requests of us. Ezzat and Laila are very on-board with our high participation level in the renovations; they agreed that we should be working hands-on as much as possible, and we will be accompanying them to finalize all purchases, such as the tables, chairs, computers, and a projector.

Casey brought lollipops, which were thoroughly enjoyed by all (especially the teachers!) and I brought bouncy-balls, also a big hit, although they disrupted class flow a bit.

We definitely have a ton of work to do, which is nerve-wracking, but both Casey and I feel much less stressed now that we have tangible goals to overcome, a way of getting to the school and back, a more exact budget, a more complete timetable, and a real sense of the people our work will benefit.

Also, as luck would have it, there happens to be a small group of college students working in the area on a mission project. Two were teaching English in the school today, and they offered to show us around to places we can eat lunch, etc. before they leave for the U.S. on Thursday.

So, in conclusion, today exceeded our expectations and we feel optimistic about the next five weeks.

Here is a link to a video of the day: http://sharing.theflip.com/session/af3832e116dafeae575a8e9b22d588a8/video/16443452

Crossing the Nile to the Pyramids and Sphinx

Well, today was quite an adventure. Since Laila Iskander from the Recycling School is away in Europe until Monday, we are devoting the weekend to sight-seeing. Originally, we planned to walk to the Egyptian Museum this afternoon, but that plan was modified because 1) we learned from an employee at RadioShack that the Egyptian Museum is definitely not walking distance from our hostel in El Daher and "smart person take taxi" and 2) because once we hailed a taxi, our driver informed us that the Egyptian Museum closes at 2:00 p.m. on Fridays, the Muslim equivalent of our Sundays, and it was already 1:15. So instead, we let our driver take us the one-hour drive across town to see the Sphinx and pyramids. On the way, we crossedthe Nile River, which provided Casey and I with an invaluable sense of relativity in terms of our hostel's location in El Daher compared to downtown Cairo (turns out we are quite a ways away, which also helps explain the all the stares we receive whenever we walk about our neighborhood--we are very far from where tourists generally spend time). On a side note, a word about Egyptian driving: if you've spent any time in Los Angeles, imagine the 405 at 5:30. Now subtract lanes, stop lights, speed limits, and crosswalks. Add motorbikes and donkey carts. And, of course, substitute turn signals for honking horns and you have some idea of what driving in downtown Cairo is like. Let's just say I've never been more grateful to be in the backseat.

The sphinx and pyramids were certainly a sight, but equally remarkable were the various cultures present there. We saw people from Ireland, France, Spain, and, unfortunately the most readily identifiable by booty shorts, tank tops, and lobster "tans," plenty of Americans fresh off the tour buses. Egyptian children tried to sell us papyrus bookmarks, model plastic pyramids, bottled water, postcards, and camel rides at every corner. Additionally, they were eager to point out sites for the "best picture," with the expectation that we return the favor with "baksheesh"--a tip. We managed to avoid most of the harassmentby politely saying "la! la!" and I imagine our comparatively modest attire didn't hurt, either. The only real tour advice we accepted was from a park official who gave us a backstory of the tombs--that they were 5,000 years old and that the engineer of the tomb had engraved his name beside a self-portrait on the face so as to remember himself in his second life 2,000 years later.

After an hour of wandering around in the heat to the sounds of camel hooves ca-clacking on asphalt and donkeys braying like rusting metal rocking chairs, we returned to the parking lot to find, to our relief, our taxi driver waiting for us as promised.

We requested to briefly look around the market before returning home to El Daher, but instead were ushered into a store owned by a friend of our driver. There, we were temped by rum, Egyptian mint tea, and glass bottles filled with lotus flower perfume. Thankfully, Casey can add "saying no, adamantly and repeatedly" to his skill sets, and after another 20 minutes we were back in our taxi for the hour return trip across the Nile to the Association of Upper Egypt.

Overall, it was incredibly fulfilling to have navigated ourselves so successfully to the pyramids and back with money still in our passport packs. It was a much-needed dose of self-sufficiency, which is scarce in a country where you do not speak the language even brokenly.

Tomorrow, we will attempt to tackle finding an ATM, a post office, and perhaps give the Egyptian Museum another go.

--Keats

The Beginning

After a day and a half of plane flights, we have finally made it to our hostel, the Association of Upper Egypt, home for the next six weeks. Our room here is wonderful and everyone we have encountered has shown us great hospitality--carrying our bags, making us tea, and ensuring our safety and comfort. Cairo itself is beautiful in its agedness and continuous chaos. When we took the taxi to our hotel last night at 3 a.m., the streets were still crowded with people, buses, and donkey carts. We look forward to beginning our work with the Recycling School in this city that never sleeps. The link below is a video of our travels thus far, enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i_MFu9wd1c

Our initial project proposal

Here is an abridged version of the proposal we submitted to the Kathryn Davis grant committee explaining our project:

The Recycling School: Environmental and Social Progress
Introduction
Families known as the zabbaleen have collected Cairo’s rubbish for generations in the desert cliffs west of Cairo, a region known as Mokattam. The zabbaleen are dependent on income generated from recycling rubbish. The expansion of Cairo over the last twenty years has sandwiched this settlement between new and old Cairo. The city’s rapidly growing population is producing an ever-increasing mountain of waste. The traditional system of rubbish collection is unfit to meet this rising demand, gravely threatening both the system and the zabbaleen people.

Problem
The zabbaleen children begin working at young ages, either collecting or sorting rubbish. Like many children in Egypt and other less industrialized countries, they miss out on the opportunity for a formal education, perpetuating social and economic stagnation. The zabbaleen need an educational system that incorporates basic technical and literacy skills, industrial safety and personal hygiene. So, too, they need relevant work experience and creative outlets through the arts and recreation. The major program functioning to provide for these needs in Cairo, the Plastic Recycling School, faces deficient facilities and insufficient teaching materials, rendering it incapable of providing for its students. This leaves the zabbaleen without an income, condemning them to an unending cycle of poverty.
Furthermore, the Greater Cairo Metropolitan Region currently has one of the densest populations in the world and is expected reach 14 million by 2015. This population boom has resulted in rampant environmental degradation; the city produces 13,000 tons of trash every day. Seeking to profit from this growth, multinational waste disposal companies have contracted in Cairo, dumping waste in desert landfills instead of recycling. Foreign companies in Cairo recycle only 20% of their collected waste, whereas the zabbaleen sorted through the waste and recycled 80%. The zabbaleen are left unable to compete with the foreign contractors, thus eradicating these Mokattam citizens’ income and propagating environmentally unsustainable practices.

Project Description
To address the current problems aforementioned, we plan to enhance the Plastic Recycling School’s programs by providing essential learning supplies and facility necessities. Under the auspices of the Spirit of Youth Association for Environmental Services, the Plastic Recycling School targets the children of rubbish collectors in the Mokattam neighbourhood who lack access to formal education. Ninety children now benefit from the program, which facilitates their integration into the new waste management business and provides foundational education. The School operates on the premise that globalization has put the traditional, low-tech Mokattam rubbish collectors in direct competition with affluent multinational waste management services.
We have contacted the Recycling School to identify items that would ensure future educational success of students. Based on this, we will purchase the following:
 Computers that will provide unprecedented teaching tools such as presentations, digital learning materials, and interactive computer programs for the kids. They will also supply access to technologies required to compete successfully in a global business world increasingly reliant on word processing programs.
 Data show projector to increase the effectiveness of instructional lectures and provide classroom-wide access to lecture materials and demonstrations.
 Rectangular tables on which to place computers in a lab room, which will serve as a separate area for instruction and work.
 Chairs for classrooms that will increase enrollment capabilities and allow additional events for mothers and sisters.
 Round tables for instructional activities in literacy and arts and crafts.
 Building-enhancing supplies to provide a suitable learning environment, including bathroom door and window, windows for what are currently open spaces in the wall, ceiling fans for ventilation.
 Primer and paint for the brick walls to prevent erosion of the building.
 A gate to the Recycling School premises to provide a safe learning environment.
These will all be purchased in Cairo to ensure their arrival and to support the local economy. In collaboration with Spirit of Youth workers, we will then provide all manual labor necessary to set up all supplies and carry out building improvements. We will also document the project through writing and photographs to increase awareness in Caldwell, Idaho.

Partnership
We will be partnering with the Spirit of Youth Association for Environmental Services. The Spirit of Youth Association is an Egyptian non-governmental organization founded in 2004 by a group of young women and men from the recycling community of Mokattam. The Sprit of Youth work directly with The Recycling School and will aid in the purchase of all necessary items, share in manual labor, facilitate our accommodations at the neighborhood church-hotel to avoid reliance on taxis for travel, and ensure the completion of all projects.

Project Outcomes
The project’s short-term benefit is to provide underprivileged adolescents the opportunity to receive an education while earning an income and improve their living environment, thereby empowering them to advocate for their own causes. Educating the children in the latest advances in recycling technology is necessary to ensure their ability to compete in the growing waste-disposal industry, thus alleviating the devastating effects of poverty and, ideally, closing the widening class divide. This security will afford educational opportunities for future generations of zabbaleen that are not feasible for the current generation, initiating the breakdown of the poverty cycle and raising the standard of living in Mokattam. Funding the supplies and renovations for the Recycling School will facilitate the education of a generation of conservationists ready to lead the city of Cairo in efficient waste disposal and recycling efforts, serving as a paradigm of environmental protection for the rest of the world.

Budget
The budget will cover supplies for the school and travel expenses to ensure the successful completion of the project. Labor will come from volunteering organized by our partner and ourselves. Additional fundraising will come from local sponsors and events that will go directly to the purchase of additional supplies for the Recycling School.