The five thousand peasant Copts from Upper Egypt and the Faiyum Oasis who moved to Cairo together in 1960 – several large extended families in search of a livelihood – were not just poor, they were destitute. But they had not lost their resourcefulness. No one had been waiting for them in Cairo; they had to look out for themselves and learn how to get by in the jungle of the already wildly growing metropolis. They raised swine, the very embodiment of impurity according to Muslim and Jewish dietary laws, proving that the traditional ban on pork is not, as is commonly thought today, due solely to the hot Middle Eastern climate. It might not have been easy for unwelcome people to find food in Cairo, but it was easy to raise pigs on the city’s garbage.

They became zabbaleen – literally “garbage people” and, by extension, garbage collectors.