Here is Cairo, Tuesday.
And the spring heat is here. It was 41 degrees in the shade last Sunday and when I took a walk to the swimming pool I realized that the invasion had already begun. The invasion of Arabs from the Gulf who think it is too hot in, for example, Saudi Arabia in the summer when the temperature can be around 50 degrees – so they flee to Cairo. Some money-loving Saudis have a reputation for renting entire floors of luxury hotels during the summer months, and it is not uncommon for Saudi men to take a temporary Egyptian wife during the summer, young women whose parents marry off their daughter for a sum of money, and then take it back. her when the summer is over.
It is not difficult to understand Egyptians who hate Saudis who come here and behave with Mohamed Bin Salman’s arrogance, but most despair that they and their nation are being forced into depravity because they are so dependent on Saudi Arabia economically.
In the swimming pool this weekend bathed a Saudi man with his two children. The daughter, about 8 years old, looked after her 4-year-old little brother and as soon as little brother snorted, she cleverly jumped out of the water to get something to wipe his nose with.
But then Dad came into the water and showed the son how to cheat on his hand and rinse off the string in the pool water.
I was both shocked and angry and when the father loudly sniffed himself in the water I stepped forward busy and said: that is really quite disgusting. Dad was surprised and said: what do you want me to do, get out of the water just to cheat on me? No I can not.
Well, I said, you can and you should.
But he did not hear what I said because he had started shouting: You do not address me, go to the board if you want something.
Do not talk to me, go.
I went. To the head of the lifeguards. And even though he had a mouth guard, I thought I could see how he gaped in astonishment. In covidtider, moreover, I said. The lifeguard promised to take care of it all.
But then I saw how he came tripping with a box of paper handkerchiefs and gently whispering something to the Saudi father. But the father in the pool was still furious, he screamed and pointed in my direction, whereupon I went to the edge of the pool again and repeated that I thought he was disgusting who sniffed in the pool. The poor lifeguard tried to calm us both down, but then I said in a loud voice, so that everyone around the pool could hear: so you mean that just because he is Saudi, he can behave the way he wants?
All the Egyptians around the pool looked away, embarrassed that a mad foreigner imagined she could reprimand a Saudi.
Cecilia Uddén, for P1 morning in Cairo
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