Rising costs spell doom for Egypt’s village traditions

Rising costs spell doom for Egypt’s village traditions

Multi-day weddings, feeding the bereaved and homemade bread are all becoming things of the past in rural Egypt, as centuries-old traditions are steadily squeezed by a punishing economic crisis.

From the south to the north of their country, more and more Egyptians -- crushed under the weight of 33.9 percent annual inflation, as of March -- are having to abandon once-cherished rituals of celebration and mourning.

In the Nile Delta, grooms once threw elaborate bachelor parties before their weddings, erecting large traditional tents, hiring bands and butchering cattle to feed guests from far and wide.

"Hardly anyone does it anymore," 33-year-old engineer Mohamed Shedid told AFP from his home town of Quweisna in Menoufia, 70 kilometres (43 miles) north of Cairo.

"We used to blame it on Covid, but then immediately afterwards everyone was hit by the economic crisis," which has pushed the price of meat beyond the reach of most families.

Even before the current crisis -- worsened by Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, which destabilised crucial food imports -- 30 percent of Egyptians were living under the poverty line and the same number were vulnerable to doing so, according to the World Bank.

- Not in a party mood -

At the other end