05:21 PM
Monday, April 10, 2023
Report: Marina Milad:
For days, Israa Hisham (21 years old) searched for a Ramadan tent that she could go to with her family during the current month of Ramadan. But she was not successful in choosing any of them, because of their prices, which she deems “crazy” this year.
Dozens of advertisements for the Ramadan tents in front of “Israa” poured in on “Facebook” and “Instagram”. She says, flipping between them: “The least sahur in a good-quality tent will cost us more than a thousand pounds per person, almost!”
For the “Israa” family and others, these outings are no longer an easy thing since last year, when the value of the Egyptian pound declined against foreign currencies, and the prices of all food commodities increased consecutively, and the inflation rate exceeded 30%, the highest in nearly six years.
Israa (a student at the Faculty of Arts) narrows the scope of her search to middle and above-average Ramadan tents, as she moved away from the tents of major hotels or areas known for their high prices, such as the Fifth Settlement and Sheikh Zayed. Her plan was also limited to the pre-dawn meal, not breakfast.
Most of the tents I contacted, however, told them there was a minimum per capita order. A recent tent in the Citadel of Salah al-Din imposed a minimum for the Suhoor meal of 350 pounds, excluding tax.
While another tent in Heliopolis set a minimum of 480 pounds, which also does not include service fees and tax, and that is only on weekends.
But even if Israa avoided those days, the matter would not change much, as the average price of a regular Suhoor meal per person reaches 380 pounds. This means that her family of four will spend about one and a half thousand pounds in one night.
“Israa” says in a sarcastic tone: “We try to get away from the daily pressures a little with these evenings, especially since they are special for the month of Ramadan, but we discovered that they will put more pressure on us!”
Israa’s parents are surprised at the prices they tell them, especially since their pension did not exceed eight thousand pounds after it was increased this month by 15%.
Hisham Jalal (Esraa’s father) says: “We can’t keep up with the prices in any way, and it seems that these tents are for the rich only… They are no longer for the likes of us.”
Israa continued to search on social media, and her inquiries extended to other tents. The minimum per capita ranged between 700 and 1,200 pounds, in exchange for the Suhoor meal with its usual items: (Falafel, Beans, Eggs, and Yoghurt).
Since last Ramadan, food and beverage prices have increased by 61.5%. The ingredients of the suhoor meal, such as bread, milk and eggs alone, increased their price by more than 70%. At a time when the government approved 3,500 pounds as one of the minimum wages.
These tents entice their followers with video clips that fill social media sites, showing their Ramadan atmosphere, their tent-decorated decorations, and their artistic performances, which vary between oriental takhts, folk arts, and the presence of a popular singer, and perhaps the latter is the most important in their marketing process.
The picture of the Ramadan tents was not like this when it started.
The tents that were known during the Fatimid period were called “House of Poetry” and included competitions, religious circles and religious incantations. Then it turned to the entertainment side in the last decades of the twentieth century, when great singers such as Muhammad Abdul Muttalib or Shafiq Jalal participated in it.
Rouhiya Ali (Esraa’s mother) remembers the tents that she used to attend with her family in the past, when pavilions were built in popular areas and were reserved for sheikhs or singers who specialized in singing folklore. She says, “We enjoyed it a lot, and it was within everyone’s reach… It did not burden us with any burden.”
That was before the Ramadan tents were dominated by festival singers, most notably Omar Kamal, Hassan Shakoush, and Hamo Beka, and sometimes dancers were hired.
This is in line with the general mood of the public these days, according to Ashraf Mounir (director of a Ramadan tent in New Cairo), who has been working in the field for 15 years. “The tents change according to the prevailing taste,” he says. So I moved from the pavilions to the big clubs, and from there to the hotels and “cafes”, because the customers began to prefer these places as they prefer the festival singers.
Munir grabs a list full of reservations. He realizes that these names have become his “audience,” the audience that is different from what it used to be. He says, “We had to raise prices, because this is the season that we wait for every year, and we know that this will certainly not suit everyone.”
Israa’s family was not among Mounir’s target audience. Consequently, I discarded his tent and eventually found another tent in one of the parks in Heliopolis, which canceled the minimum per capita request after the first days of Ramadan.
By a simple calculation, I discovered that the price of a person’s meal would not be less than two hundred pounds, in addition to the price of entering the garden of 20 pounds.. So the family settled on that night, which was dominated by many calculations, by walking around and sitting in the garden only, then eating the suhoor outside it at a bean restaurant .
Read also:
Al-Maeda.. The journey to secure the Ramadan breakfast amid the increase in prices and numbers
