Life in Cairo's Garbage City

Garbage is the only thing that keeps these people alive.

So this is Garbage City.

In the outskirts of Cairo,

one of the few Christian enclaves in the entire country is

responsible for sorting and processing 2.4 billion pounds of the city's trash every year.

Working in the garbage is not a good career.

My mind is immediately flooded with questions.

Why in a predominantly Muslim country is a Christian community living inside the trash system?

How does this place actually work?

And what does life look like when your home and your work are built around everyone else's waste?

Stepping inside this man's home, the air hits me all at once.

Honestly, I wish I could handle this differently.

I'm trying to stay polite,

trying not to let my face say too much.

But I'm also breathing in short,

tiny breaths because the smell is overwhelming.

I'm trying to take everything in without making him feel like a spectacle.

Trying to maintain conversation, but I think my emotions bleed into my words.

He's letting strangers into his home,

showing us his life.

My reaction says more about the life I come from than the one I'm looking at.

Whoa, this is a whole different universe than what I'm used to.

This is one of the craziest things I've seen anywhere in my life.

So much respect for these people. Seriously.