Garbage City

8/31/09

Hey again from Egypt! So we have officially finished our first orientation week and start into our normal schedule tomorrow. It is our first day of service projects tomorrow and I am heading down to an orphanage in Garbage City with four other people. We visited the orphanage today and it was really cool. They house any where from 1 day old to five years old as well as physically and mentally handicapped kids. There is also a type of nursing home for the elderly on the ground floor.

When we were at Garbage City, I was absolutely blown away. It is a city built into the dump, as the name says, but it wasn’t as heart wrenching as I thought. The people there have created a livelihood from recycling the trash and they are able to scrape by. They are not eating the trash or going through it for clothes, but rather for things to recycle. I was very impressed.

One thing that is really cool is the dynamic of the group that I have come to call my family over here. We have known each other less than a week, and it is like we have been together for years. We all realize that we are in this together and that is a common ground that we pull from. We just came out of a commitment night where we committed to each other and we shared strengths and weaknesses that we bring to the group. It was really cool to see how God was able to bring together complimenting strengths and weaknesses of different people.

Class start on Wednesday so keep that in your prayers. Until next time!