Doha's Culture mash

My maid is from India. The caretaker of my block of flats is Egyptian. The cleaners at work are Sri Lankan, the computer technician is Pakistani. When I go to the shops, the cashier is Philipino and my taxi driver is from Somalia. I have met and conversed with Irananian diplomats, Syrian PE teachers and Indonesian engineers.

In fact, of an 800,000 or so population in Qatar, only 20% are Qatari. You can go all day and not hear a word of Arabic. English seems to be becoming the Lingua Franca– although this is not necessarily the English you learned at school.

Overall, it’s a complete and wonderful mishmash of cultures and peoples, and it all seems to works very smoothly. Conflict is rare, and people, on the whole, are amazingly honest. I have walked out of a shop several times to have people run after me because I had accidentally over paid.

Another thing you’ll find about the people here is that everyone has a lot of ‘go’ in them. They are here to make money, to get ahead, to improve themselves. Some of them are supporting whole families back in their countries. This ‘go’, I believe, is why people are honest. They are here to make money by working hard, not by cheating.

Honest or not, with so many people, there needs to be a strict system. You come to work and you leave when you are finished. You can come on a visit visa to try and find work, but when your time’s up it’s up. If there were not rules like these, such a tiny but rich country would be swamped.

That’s all for now - I’m off to eat in the local Turkish restaurant. Or maybe I’ll have an Indian...

Also see: Qatar Culture

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