I just wanted to quickly mention two newspaper clippings that were of interest/relevance to this blog and my church.


Zaballeen

 The first is a New York Times article regarding the new garbage problem in Egypt as a direct result of the slaughtering of all the pigs in the land in a highly controversial effort to thwart the swine flu. The neighborhood that is suffering is of course, the Zaballeen, who would collect the garbage and then feed them to the pigs.



I have spoken previously concerning Garbage Dreams, a documentary about the Zaballeen, but there is another documentary that was produced earlier called, Mariana of the Zabbaleen (sic), a film by Engi Wassef. This film documents the life of a little girl, Mariana in the same society. Although I unfortunately missed the opportunity to view a screening myself (surprise bridge--long story), I'm interested to see it and learn from the distinct perspective of a younger aged little girl. As a matter of fact, the DVD is now available and 10% of all gross earnings are being donated by Torch Films to help the Zaballeen community.



Church Festival

The other newspaper article was one written for the Journal News by reporter Akiko Matsuda who visited the Stony Point church during the Egyptian festival last weekend. I had the pleasure of meeting with Akiko during her visit and am gracious for the exposure to the church. Hopefully she can make it out again next year and bring along some more traffic to our festival! ;)