By Saada Abd Elkader With an exhausted, restless body, Omar tries to pick his head up from his pillow. He attempts to get out from under his warm blanket, which provides him with a getaway from the cold winter nights and from his day job inside the ice factory. In front of the factory’s dormitory, he and his 16 fellow workers gather bits of wood and create the small fire from which they will keep themselves warm and make their tea for the rest of the work day. Inside the ice factory, the temperature can reach four degrees Celsius on winter days, Omar says, although he adds that the factory workers have gotten used to the nature of this job. With his plastic gloves, plastic shoes and other pieces of plastic covering his body, Ibrahim Abu Shama spends long hours carrying and moving the ice blocks from their metal carriers in an attempt to avoid their melting. Abu Shama feels his “blood drying up in the veins from the cold,” he says, adding that the severity of the temperature is “paralyzing” and that even the plastic does not help much….
Life in the Freezer: An Everyday Routine for 1200 Egyptian Workers
January 17, 2016
