When I first arrived in Doha,
an old expat murmured to me,
“There are three kinds of expats here—
newcomers, stayers, and leavers.”
The city enchants newcomers
with the clangor of modern construction
and daily calls to prayer echoing
since the Hijri calendar’s dawn.
Navigating the pell-mell of life here
is at first like wandering the souqs,
a maze of unfamiliar twists and turns,
day-to-day discoveries and detours.
For some, culture shock comes quick:
they kerfuffle with Khaleeji systems,
then skedaddle from the Gulf
before a single contract dries.
Others slowly learn to contend
with the traffic and desert fracas,
finding beauty in the red setting sun
at the end of a blistering day.
These expats then become stayers;
one contract like another Ramadan.
Calls from the neighboring minaret
become no more than a susurrus.
They dance at local weddings—
amid ululations of joy—
and feel a flicker of pride
during National Day parades.
The souq is no longer a labyrinth,
and they sip karak in a café
watching layover tourists gawk
at the cacophony of curiosities.
Sooner than expected, years pass.
Contract begets contract.
Friends start drifting away.
Quiet fissures form.
Each visit home,
their family seems older—
time, a psithurism,
like all things fleeting.
Then they begin to hear
the faint tintinnabulation:
signing a final contract,
attending their goodbye party,
staring at the familiar red setting sun,
greeting one last newcomer,
and repeating to them—
“There are three kinds of expats here…”
For DB
Photo by Shashi Ghosh on Unsplash
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