Having houseguests in Saudi Arabia is always an experience and for the uninitiated non-Saudi it may be a traumatic experience. Saudis like to travel in packs. Maybe this has to do with the tribal mentality but it is not unusual to receive 25 or more Saudis at your doorstep with little to no advance notice. The culture and tradition dictates that one does not protest or appear shocked. Instead they must be greeted with a warm welcome and lots of joy. If they have come to stay a while, one should never query exactly how long they will be staying. In fact the opposite is expected where one is to continue to encourage them to stay longer…even if they have already been with you for more than a month.
The houseguests will expect from what the Western perspective is “being coddled” but from the Saudi perspective is simply making your guest feel at home. Speaking of home, they will indeed make your home their home. Rather than conform to your routines or customs, you are to not only know their ways but conform to them while they are in your home. Again, this is to reinforce that your home is their home and they are to stay as long as they wish.
Houseguests from hell can be comparable to running a luxury hotel where you are the manager and have little to no control over who comes through the door to stay. Like in a hotel where the “customer is always right and their desires are to be met” the same applies to the houseguest. If you have other responsibilities they will not stop. The duties of a hostess will simply be applied on top with the other responsibilities.
If your houseguests choose to prepare a meal at 0300 hours because they slept all day and therefore have their days and nights switched around, you as a host, say nothing. If during this wee hour foray they happened to use the food you were planning on preparing the following day, you say nothing. If they left their dirty dishes with leftover food on the plates out in the open in spite of heat and risk of attracting bugs, you still say nothing. After all, they are your guests and can do no wrong.
When houseguests are from very traditional Saudi families and backgrounds your bathroom will take on a new look while they are in residence. Not only with the door to the usually small windowless room kept closed but the floor will remain saturated with water the duration of their stay. And many young women seem to have a tendency to miss the wastebasket when disposing of tissues, paper or used sanitary napkins so sometimes these items will be found on the saturated floor seeping in water. It’s expected that the housemaid will come in and clean these items up. Again, these are houseguests so nothing is to be said of such practices.
Houseguests from Hell seem to be a common phenomena in Saudi Arabia and this post from Nzingha’s soapbox further enlightens one on what to expect.
Filed under: culture, friendship, relationships, Saudi Arabia, Saudi culture, Saudi customs, travel, Uncategorized
Yikes!
Yikes indeed! Well, this happens everywhere, even in Malaysia where I’m from. You’re supposed to treat the house guest with respect and say nothing, even when they forgot to flush down the remnants of what they ate for breakfast….
Oh I can’t wait for weekend!
wow, you have experienced some really rude guests. My mother actually complains about people like that.
most of my mothers friends don’t do such acts. even her family members don’t stay more than an hour during weekdays. they never drop by unannounced.
my mother would comment on those people as being “Bedouins from the central region who are not cultured”. obviously not all people from central region fits her stereo type. the story of the tissue was also mentioned by my mom when she was at the gym with her friends. women seem to miss the trash when throwing the tissues. she showed her dissatisfaction with her friends behaviors, especially since it was coming out of college professors and wives of higher ups in the government.
about the water saturated bathrooms, we men suffer from those too. i have my own bathroom that i take care of, and i hate seeing it saturated with water after someone. it happens often, especially after religious men who think that drowning themselves in water is piest. its not, especially in a desert environment when water should be conserved
I’ve never been to Aus, and I really would like to go to it and NZ. My bro honeymoon was in Aus BTW. I’ll share a story that happened with my same friend who was in Sidney airport
. He went to Newcastle, Aus with his wife. It’s really a long story, but I’ll say it in as few words as I can 
He didn’t complete a night in Aus and he was beaten by 6 Ausi boys. He was living in a hotel at that time. It was his first hours in Aus. The people who beat him didn’t even looked at his face. He herd knocking on the door, he opened it , and voila hits/kicks from everywhere he got. Then, at the end when the matter went to the police, they apologized from him. they found out that the 6 guys were mistaken, they wanted to beat another guy, and they knocked on the wrong room. it happens that the guy whom they were planning to beat and my friend have almost the same weight and features 
.. BTW my friend is Saudi, and the guy whom they wanted to beat was Ausi
This incident was so popular that the Saudi cultural attaché phoned my friend and , he too apologized, and told him this is the first time that a Saudi is attacked in Aus.
Best
Please ignore the above comment ; That was a typo .. I wrote the comment in the wrong spot
sorry to all
I for one would never tolerate a guest(s) from hell. I become the hostess from hell
What happened to respect?
I think it goes without saying the one tries to make one’s guest ‘feel at home’, but a guest also needs to show their appreciation for you making them ‘feel at home’.
Having guests and being guests is a give and take situation for both parties. The behaviour you discribe is selfish, self centred and shoking and nobody should feel they have to tolerate it.
It seems like in the Western culture there is an unwritten rule that if a houseguest is to stay beyond 3 days then normally they would stay at a hotel or depart or shift to another family member. That has not been the experience I have observed here in Saudi however.
Just to further add to Abdullah Hamed comments…. while one tends to generalize with Bedu’s and their attributes or lifestyles, some of the traits, such as those described in today’s post, do not apply only to Bedu’s.
I would just like to add that the 3 days rule also apply in Arab culture. “Guest right is for 3 days” the Arabic saying goes.
Of course, a lot of free loaders view this as more of a guideline than a hard coded rule.
My dad comes from the culture where you’re also expected to “coddle” the guests and prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner for them every single day and make their beds and clean up after them and practically wipe their arses for them while your at it. Except their are no maids which is problematic.
My mom comes from the culture where the idea of making your guests at home involves telling them where the fridge is and where we keep the cereal.
Having experienced both types of guests I much prefer my mom’s way and my dad has come around quite impressively to her way of doing things
I think it makes having family/friends over a lot more enjoyable and less overwhelming/burdensome. You can actually socialize instead of just cooking and cleaning all day
But kudos to all you peoples out there who can handle this on a regular basis. I sure as hell couldn’t
Well I’ve already said enough on this topic.. man do we both have stories I’m sure
I agree with Elle…Saudis or not, I would tell them about themselves. I wouldn’t stand up to it for one minute, especially if someone turned my bathroom into a pool of water. I don’t care where we are, common decency is a must in MY home. This is even an unislamic thing to do. You are not supposed to ever overstay your welcome, and like Saudi Jawa said…3 days is the rule. If you are staying longer than that, you stop being a guest and start being a member of the family IMO and you need to start helping out for goodness sake!
LOL These people have never heard of the “cold shoulder” apparently. After a guest stays too long, you start offering them cold, unappealing food and they get the hint and leave.
I have six children in a three-bedroom house and don’t even know where I could have 25 guests stay on short notice. I hope they like sandwiches. One each. And water to drink :]
But your description reminded me of some of the things Jesus did which struck me as kinda rude (no offense to God or anything.) He’d wander about the countryside with these disciples and go to people’s houses and they had to prepare meals for lots of people. I’d be really overwhelmed just as Martha was.
Oh dear this post brings back some whacy stuff-
The bathrooms would be better off being called Wet Rooms! My MIL could never get over why ours in our suite was always dry and spotless (that room was staying dry even if it killed me!! LOL) whenever women were at the compund, to my irritation and mil’s delight, ahe always showed off our suite, bathroom included! To her it was like showing everyone our baby pictures- of course then Everyone wanted to use it because they could count on it being clean- which my husband bless his heart was like a demon possessed and would say no in no uncertain terms- locking our rooms even! Gotta love the man!
And when you say houseguests are all over the place in your home- you ain’t kidding! Hurricanes and tornados seem better mannered.
When I first got married we were “forced” to stay during our honeymoon leg in Sanaa at the house of mil’s family- thankfully we got our own set of rooms- but I felt I was imposing while being imposed upon- the minute my husband left the suite in the morning- even if it was to warm up the car- a brood of women would descend on me- wanting it always seemed to catch me in “post” intimacy form! But I was raised to never leave my room in disarry in the morning- complete with with airing the room and completely dressed when I opened the door and faced the rest of the house- so it became a cat and mouse game as to how quickly the women could barge in on me and not find me decent! LOL- sadly for them, they missed everytime- my husband is in many respects just not Arab enough- and would help me get the rooms in order- he is a genetic neat freak-thank Allah! And privacy to him is sacrosant- so his family historically knows he absolutely hates being imposed on- like I said not Arab enough…
But while you get to socialize with the family, it does wear you down because indeed all household rules go by the wayside- I say it so much to my kids that when a guest arrives in our home in the States- they automatically in a mimic of my voice go and say “yes, we know they do what they do and we do what we have to do- rules are rules don’t lose yours!” Well at least they are paying attention!
But it is to say the least a vertible disaster at times- haven’t had a guest I would invite back!
Isn’t there somewhere in Islam that if a man stays at another person’s place he should not expect hospitality after 3 days? I am sure there is a hadith like this somewhere.
In our Bengali culture if you stay longer you are expected to buy some groceries, help out with the housework etc. I know in Bengali culture if you are a guest usually the first meal is good and then you become part of the family and don’t get any “special” treatment until you are about to leave!
Although I guess this rule doesn’t apply to mother-in-laws, aunts, old people …
Okay…so if ones houseguests are family there are then no “expected” rules such as the 3 day rule?
I’ve heard of the three-day-rule too!
)
Woehahahaaaa!! this was just too funny again! (Coming from somebody who will never have to fear such visits, both because her appartment is too small, and her manners are too rude
* for the uninitiated non-Saudi it may be a traumatic experience.*
* Saudis like to travel in packs*
Hahahahaaaaa! I get the funniest pictures in my mind!
So what do you do Bedu? Place cots all over the house?
What do your cats think of houseguests?
You are far too nice, and faaaar to diplomatic!
Visiting you becomes more and more appealing
I say the 3 day rule applies to everyone, especially inlaws who should behave more like family in a home than some distant guest. Family shouldn’t feel akward getting in someones kitchen and helping w/ the piles and piles of dishes. I think family shouldn’t feel ashamed of cleaning the bathrooms they use and mess up unless there is some medical condition that keeps them from cleaning up or they are simply too old to expect anything from as far as physical help. But even those w/ medical conditions and old age can help to adapt to our schedules and participate in the family especially w/ extended stays.
but here i am getting started again
I hear you Nzingha and can so relate to your words…
Best is the middle of them. Warm welcome is limited to 3 days only. Afterwards, start to spook them. Say, one nite when I woke up I saw something like a misterious figure there at the corner and suddenly dissappear…bhoohooo..
Effective indeed.
I’m afraid if one were to try and spook the guests the guests may think the host or hostess is just plain crazy!
LOL crispy! But I think Carol is right – it wouldn’t really work.