Mum & Femke

Fun at the beach

Garbage city in East Cairo

Cairo has a major garbage problem. It has a reputation of polluted, dusty & dirty city. Ofcourse not all areas can be identified like that.
We live in Maadi, a residential area in the South of Cairo.
Garbage is picked up every day here, many streets do look clean, but then all of sudden around the corner it is messy and smelly and garbage has piled up.
Garbage City is an area in the East of Cairo, where the poorest of the poor, live. Their job is to collect garbage from all over Cairo and do the sorting of garbage in and around their houses. To quote "The Zabbaleen generally perform this service very cheaply. Waste food is fed to livestock, mainly pigs; what cannot be repaired or reused -steel, glass, textile and plastic bottles- is sorted by hand and sold as raw materials; some material is burnt as fuel. It is claimed that Zabbaleen reuse or recycle 80-90% of the waste they collect (a figure that the most modern waste management systems can only dream of), however this must be put into context of the fact that the Zabbaleen concentrate on wealthier areas.."

These blackandwhite pictures of Garbage city are amazing; they are recent pictures but could easily have been from a century ago.

Here an articile about the subject

Femke- almost 3 years old!

Only a few more weeks to go and Femke will turn 3 !
Her first 2 birthdays she cannot remember, but this one for sure. At the nursery they already celebrated birthdays of classmates so she understands the concept now.
She sings the birthday song every day and repeats that we will go to Holland, and oma (grandmother) will pick us up, there will be cake & candles & presents.

Our little baby is not a baby anymore. She speaks better English and Dutch every day, sings songs, can do the Alphabet song, does imaginary role play alone or with friends or with daddy, is potty trained, likes to jump from heights, loves to dance, smiles a lot, is sometimes very jealous and wants attention from mommy (especially when she is breastfeeding Lente!), is sometimes very naughty although her teacher say she is a good girl in school, loves the songs from Paddy Casey, remembers so many experiences she had, has a favorite boyfriend Thomas whom she met almost 1 year ago at the beach (they are still friends), loves to make Lego towers and playing with blocks (?), loves books but has no patience to listen someone reading it to her......