In Algiers, the donkey, "garbage truck" of the Casbah for five centuries - Top Destinations in Algeria
Without its donkeys, the Casbah of Algiers, a thousand-year-old city listed by Unesco as a World Heritage Site, would be awash in rubbish, its narrow, winding streets dotted with stairs preventing access to any vehicle.
At dawn, the dozen or so garbage collectors from the Casbah put on their green overalls in the colors of Netcom – the public company responsible for cleaning up Algiers – and strap the “chouaris”, large esparto baskets ( kind of North African rush) that they make themselves. Then, they climb in procession the long stairs leading to Bab J'did, one of the gates of the old city.
After this first ascent, the teams separate and each garbage collector begins his circuit, preceded by one or two donkeys who know the way by heart. Men and animals roam the steep streets, climbing and descending the steep, endless stairs of this medina built in the 10th century under the Zirids, a dynasty of Amazigh origin which then reigned over the majority of the Maghreb.
Extending over 105 hectares, the Casbah is a tangle of houses built on a steep slope of 118 m in height. Some houses that threaten to fall into ruins are supported by imposing wooden or metal beams.
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The garbage collectors pick up the rubbish with a shovel or by hand and pack it into the “chouaris”. Once these are filled, the donkey – which can carry up to 50 kilos of garbage – brings them up to the top of the Casbah, from where they are dumped into a dump truck.
Whether it's raining, windy or scorching hot, the Casbah Cavalry Unit – its official name – works seven days a week. More than two tonnes of waste are evacuated every day by garbage collectors and their donkeys, whose use dates back to the arrival of the Ottomans in Algiers in the 16th century.
But no sooner have they passed than new waste piles up in the alleys. “Sometimes we do ten rounds” a day, says with a sigh Amer Moussa, salt-and-pepper hair and black eyes, who is impatiently awaiting his retirement.
More than by the task made exhausting by the configuration of the Casbah, this 57-year-old garbage collector with a face marked by time says he is tired of incivility: garbage thrown anywhere, anyhow and at any hour; rubble or old furniture abandoned with household waste. Small vacant lots where buildings once stood have become mini-dumpsites prized by legions of alley cats.
Kadour Hanafi, an executive at Netcom and himself a former garbage collector for the Casbah, regrets that some Casbadjis — the name of the inhabitants of the Casbah — look at the “muddy people” with contempt.
The garbage collectors say they are hurt by the bad jokes – always the same – heard as they pass: “Here, a donkey that accompanies another” and its many variations. Especially since the donkey is still very precious in many mountainous regions of Algeria.
In Europe, some towns and villages have also chosen it to collect waste, for ecological reasons because it pollutes less than a truck, such as Castelbueno in Sicily, or because of difficult access such as Faux-la-Montagne, in the center of France.
Source: websites