Although people of Kafer Bateekh in Dumyat Governorate (100 kilometers north of Cairo) are known for their high incomes— generated from the furniture and candy industries— they have a surprising additional and lucrative source of income: weddings and circumcision parties.
For decades, the city residents have been accustomed to organizing weddings where gifts take the form of cash sometimes reaching more than half a million Egyptian Pounds (US $80,000), to be later used to launch income-generating small businesses for the newlyweds, or to purchase lands and build houses.
Although people of Kafer Bateekh in Dumyat Governorate (100 kilometers north of Cairo) are known for their high incomes— generated from the furniture and candy industries— they have a surprising additional and lucrative source of income: weddings and circumcision parties.
For decades, the city residents have been accustomed to organizing weddings where gifts take the form of cash sometimes reaching more than half a million Egyptian Pounds (US $80,000), to be later used to launch income-generating small businesses for the newlyweds, or to purchase lands and build houses.
Passing through the city, one is met by a large number of textile and plastic banners that are neither promoting a certain political candidate nor declaring the opening of a new furniture showroom or a sweets stall; rather, they are wedding invitations. The mass invitations are sent to the entire city, aimed at raising the loads of money through gifts of cash.
Wedding money is later invested
Sixty-five year-old Mahmud Abdulalim, explains that banners invite people to two kinds of parties: the first is weddings where the groom’s father invites all the city residents in order to gather the largest amount of money. Banners can be seen in the streets four months prior to the weddings so that those who want to present cash money can be prepared to pay the high sums: from 500 pounds (US $72) to as high a 20,000 (US $ 2, 864) depending to the social position and financial status of the bridegroom’s family.
The second kind of invitation, according to Abdulalim, is to circumcision parties, which are often false and intend only to gather money to be used in establishing businesses or building houses. Only the word “son” written in singular with the name of the bridegroom mentioned in the phrase “invites you to the party of his son” distinguishes wedding banners from circumcision ones on which the word “son” is written in plural.
From marriage to microbus
Thirty-five year-old Muhammad Abu Zaid, who got married last March, stresses that he was thinking of travelling to Saudi Arabia to work as a private driver, but his father convinced him of staying, getting married, and buying a taxi as his source of income. Muhammad says he gathered about 150,000 pounds (US $21,500) in wedding gifts, which helped him buy the microbus he now drives along the Mansoura-Dumyat line. “Though I have to pay 2,000 pounds (US $286) per month as cash for another three years in order to settle what I owe to those who attended my wedding and helped me, I am content with the little remaining at the end of the month, as it has spared me from the burdens of travelling abroad and estrangement,” Muhammad said.
Cash money is a solidarity initiative
Affirming that cash gifts are not only a courtesy but also a solidarity initiative passed from one generation to the next one, to change the lives of many people, Muhammad says that no one is ever taken advantage of. Those who have children and need money to buy land or to establish businesses may resort to the so called ‘circumcision parties’ where the father hangs a banner that reads “so and so invites you to the party of his sons,” to let all know that he needs the money he has already given as cash money in the weddings. His neighbors, relatives and all those who previously received his cash will visit him on the specified date where he prepares a lunch banquet and collects the money. Later, he registers all the money received in a notebook devoted for this purpose, so that donors are protected.
Parties involve cases of fraud
Sometimes this solidarity initiative is misused. In 1995, one of the city residents, as Ahmad Hassan recalls, organized a circumcision party to which he invited the city. Since the host was working in the furniture trade, attendees were owners of the largest furniture showrooms and wood traders. Having gathered around (US $64,000) L.E. 450 thousand, the man surprised everyone when he, only few days later, sold his house and the showroom located in the house and left the small city, without a trace. However, this incident has never happened again.
