LIVING IN DOHA
Dear Newcomer: An Open Letter to� Just-landed Expats Most of us remember being the new person in town—wide-eyed with culture shock and bleary-eyed from jetlag. We remember all too well the loneliness and the overwhelm one feels in the hours, days, and weeks after landing. There is so much to say to the newcomer, yet it is hard to find the right words to say it. To anyone who has ever felt lost or alone in a new country, Emma Morrell dedicates this open letter to Doha's newest arrivals and her once newly-arrived self. Dear newcomer, What did you think when you first got here? Did you arrive in early spring, before the scorching summer heat really kicked in, before you had seen the air wobble in front of you, and you wondered what all the fuss was about? Was it in the middle of one of the recent dust storms that meant you couldn't see West Bay from the aeroplane window as you taxied to the gate at Hamad International? Had you been here before, or did you take this assignment, sight unseen, a leap of faith from where you were before?
We Were All You Once Some of us arrived just a few months ago in the new Doha that glitters with glass skyscrapers and shallow aquamarine waters around The Pearl. Some of us came 20 years ago and can still remember when the pyramid of the Sheraton was the only recognisable landmark in the city. Whether we're lifers in Doha or we're completely baffled as to why a junction with traffic lights is referred to as the "TV Roundabout", almost all of us can remember feeling how you feel as if it were yesterday.
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