Travel Ganas

The “Heart of the City” sign is on the Stadtheater

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:04:06 -0800

The “Heart of the City” sign is on the Stadtheater

einszeit: Old School.

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:22:06 -0800

einszeit:

Old School.

crepe!

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:20:43 -0800

crepe!

a cool artsy door in dublin

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:08:21 -0800

a cool artsy door in dublin

nothing-on-you: unbenannt by .ultraviolett on Flickr.

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:00:05 -0800

nothing-on-you:

unbenannt by .ultraviolett on Flickr.

This photo is dedicated to Pelada! Click here to see a trailer...

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 12:05:05 -0800

This photo is dedicated to Pelada!

Click here to see a trailer for Pelada: http://www.pelada-movie.com/trailers/index.html

Marseille (Latin: Massilia) [1] is the second most populated...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 12:06:05 -0800

Marseille (Latin: Massilia) [1] is the second most populated city of France (and third urban area) the biggest mediterranean port and the economic center of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region.

We love beaches! - a list of the best

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:34:58 -0800

We love beaches! - a list of the best

Photo

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 04:15:44 -0700

laughingsquid: Steve Jobs Tribute Created Using 4001 Post-It...

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 04:15:27 -0700

laughingsquid:

Steve Jobs Tribute Created Using 4001 Post-It Notes

Feria de Sevilla Sevilla, Spain Wikipedia: “The fair...

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:08:00 -0700

Feria de Sevilla

Sevilla, Spain

Wikipedia: “The fair generally begins two weeks after the Semana Santa, or Easter Holy Week. —- pass dates: 20 April - 25 April in 2010 and 2 May - 8 May in 2011

A Feria is accompanied by men and women dressed up in their finery, ideally the traditional “traje corto” (short jacket, tight trousers and boots) for men and the “faralaes” or “trajes de flamenca” (flamenco style dress, see flamenco) for women. The men traditionally wear hats called “cordobés”.

mmarche: THE PANTONE HOTEL

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 23:46:26 -0700

mmarche:

THE PANTONE HOTEL

simplypi: schmidt hammer lassen architects: the crystal

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 23:45:44 -0700

simplypi:

schmidt hammer lassen architects: the crystal

laughingsquid: The City, A Beautiful Time-Lapse Video of San...

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 23:12:28 -0700

laughingsquid:

The City, A Beautiful Time-Lapse Video of San Francisco

MUST EAT: fresh ripe avocado in...

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 11:34:47 -0700

MUST EAT: fresh ripe avocado in California

http://www.californiaavocados.com/

laughingsquid: The World Trade Center As It Was, A NY Times...

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 11:31:19 -0700

laughingsquid:

The World Trade Center As It Was, A NY Times Interactive Feature

laughingsquid: Nine Hours, An Ultra Micro Japanese Capsule...

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 22:57:06 -0700

laughingsquid:

Nine Hours, An Ultra Micro Japanese Capsule Hotel

laughingsquid: Ray: A Life Underwater, Short Documentary About...

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 22:55:12 -0700

laughingsquid:

Ray: A Life Underwater, Short Documentary About a Deep-Sea Diver

The Zabbaleen الزبالين

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:15:45 -0700

The Zabbaleen الزبالين:

sobleshred:

The Zabbaleen (Egyptian Arabic: زبالين) are a minority religious community of Coptic Christians who have served as Cairo’s informal garbage collectors for approximately the past 70 to 80 years. Zabbaleen means “Garbage people” in Egyptian Arabic. The Zabbaleen (singular: Zabbal) are also known as Zarraba (singular: Zarrab), which means “pig-pen operators.” Spread out among seven different settlements scattered in the Greater Cairo Urban Region, the Zabbaleen population is between 60,000 and 70,000.

The largest settlement is Moqattam Village, more widely known as “Garbage City,” which is situated at the foot of the Moqattam Mountains, next toManshiyat Naser, a Muslim squatter settlement. The Zabbaleen community in Moqattam Village has a population of around 20,000 to 30,000, over 90 percent of which are Coptic Christians. For several generations, the Zabbaleen supported themselves by collecting trash door-to-door from the residents of Cairo for nearly no charge.

Notably, the Zabbaleen recycle up to 80 percent of the waste that they collect, whereas most Western garbage collecting companies can only recycle 20 to 25 percent of the waste that they collect. The Zabbaleen use donkey-pulled carts and pick-up trucks to transport the garbage that they collect from the residents of Cairo, transport the garbage to their homes in Moqattam Village, sort the garbage there, and then sell the sorted garbage to middlemen or create new materials from their recycled garbage.

The living situation for the Zabbaleen is poor, especially since they live amongst the trash that they sort in their village and with the pigs to which they feed their organic waste. Nevertheless, the Zabbaleen have formed a strong and tight-knit community. However, their existence and way of life has come under threat after the Cairo municipal authorities’ decision in 2003 to award annual contracts of $50 million to three multinational garbage disposal companies. The government authorities do not compensate the Zabbaleen for these changes, and as a result, the privatization of waste collection threatens the socio-economic sustainability of the Zabbaleen community. More recently, the Zabbaleen have faced another challenge when the Egyptian Agricultural Ministry ordered the culling of all pigs in April 2009, in response to national fears over the possible spread of H1N1 influenza. This governmental decision poses a major setback to the Zabbaleen because pigs are an essential component to their recycling and sorting system, in which the pigs eat all of the organic waste. Immediately after the culling of pigs, observers have noticed a visible increase of trash piles and piles of rotting food on the streets of Cairo.

There are also worries that the Egyptian government is seeking to remove the Moqattam Village, also known as “Garbage City” entirely and relocate the Zabbalean further outside of Cairo 25 km away to a 50-feddan plot (1 feddan = 1.038 acres), in Cairo’s eastern desert settlement of Katameya.

This will be of particular academic interest to me while in Cairo, and I hope to take a trip to “Garbage City” at least once. It is extremely interesting that, while most of these Copts live in abject poverty, many of them would not leave their Christian community even if they could—namely because they would not feel at home in Islamic Cairo.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:12:59 -0700

banana