The Gallery
“I found out you can't just show up. The place has been ignored by the government - they're embarrassed by its very existence. There's no water or electricity, or any semblance of law enforcement.”
It took two weeks to arrange. Jamal made contact with one of the families inside and rounded up two friends to act as bodyguards.
“We arrived in the heat of the day. It was strangely quiet, like a ghost town. The people we saw ducked out of sight as we made our way to the tomb where Alya's family lived.”
Inside the decaying crypt, Costa was introduced to Alya's mother, who runs the 'household'. Alya's sick father is bedridden and unable to pay for medical care. Her six older siblings were out on the streets, begging or scavenging for food.
Costa: “When I saw Alya, I couldn't take my eyes off her. She stared back and, while I was setting up my shot, I felt it was all down to her and me.”
Her mother had been told about Costa, that he was friendly and not there to exploit her. Concerned about her daughter's dirty feet, she'd given Alya a pair of her own shoes to wear.
As the mother withdrew, Alya held on to the Egyptian pound note that Costa had given her, and gazed into the camera with an extraordinary degree of awareness.
“It was as if she knew the difficult times she'd been born into, and that it was up to her to make the best of things.
“While her mother had been subdued, almost blank, I saw something else in Alya's eyes. I believe it was a glimmer of hope.”
All text and photographs copyright of Our Forgotten Children
Egypt
Alya, 3, lives in a cemetery. Originally built as a burial ground during the Arab conquests, Cairo's City of the Dead is now the permanent home of more than quarter of a million displaced Egyptians.
Rural migration and chronic housing shortages have forced the living to take refuge in the homes of the dead. Amidst the stench of garbage and leaking sewage, caskets are turned into kitchen tables, washing is hung between gravestones.
Costa was in Cairo to photograph the finals of an international squash tournament. “It was my first visit to Egypt, and I was overwhelmed by the heat and the traffic in the streets.”
“We make a point of hooking up with locals everywhere we go. This time, a local hooked up with me.” As Costa was crossing the street, a young man grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the way of an oncoming car.
Jamal quickly became Costa's guide. He told him about the City of the Dead and offered to take him there.