Strike of the garbage man

Ever since I've lived in Egypt, I've noticed the people's many bad habits, one of which is their method of dealing with garbage. It varies from place to place, however. For example, in Moharam Bek, a place somewhat at the bottom of the social ladder, it's nothing out of the ordinary to be standing under any given balcony, and find that someone had thrown a bag of fish guts, watermelon peelings, and chicken bones right on top of your head from the balcony! There is also the occasional spillage of buckets of dirty water, which was used for mopping dirty floors. Not to mention the all day long throwing of fingernail clippings, watermelon seeds, old cans, cartons and boxes at all hours of the day.

In the more civilized areas of Alexandria, like Roushdy, where I live. The behavior may differ, but the mentality is the same. Instead of throwing the garbage out of the balcony, they go all the way to dumpster at the entrance of the building and, from the gate, fling the bag with all their might towards the dumpster. It may fall into the dumpster, or around, or nowhere near, but in any case, the bag bursts on impact causing the garbage it contained to fly in any and every direction, leaving a mountain of filth all over the street. If you're lucky enough to have it land somewhere in one piece, then fear not, because in the late hours of the night, there is always a hungry homeless man who will open it to look for anything to eat!

Why have I chosen to talk about this subject?? I've chosen to do so because for the past two months, the garbage collecting company "ONYX" employees have been on strike due to low wages, and ever since, the garbage has been pilling in every corner. At least at first when people would throw their garbage, there was always someone to remove it from the middle of the street, but now, the garbage keeps on coming, while those who used to clean it up don't!

So now whenever I see a pile of garbage on my right while driving, I have to move to the far left to avoid it, and more often than not, there would be a car parked on the other side, so I would have to suffer the agonizing pain of having to squeeze between a car and a pile of crap, and sometimes even over the garbage itself. The stench has become intolerable, and the sight sickening, even in the most expensive areas of the city, the garbage has found its way there.

I'm sure that whatever the garbage collectors want is a small price to pay to have clean streets that smell like the trees in them, and the ability to actually see the side-walk and the borders of the metal dumpsters, which have been obscured by the mountains of garbage. I only dream of the day when I can walk in the street and not be attacked by a multitude of flies, which have made home of the ever-growing mountains of garbage which plague the city, and the country!