By Isabel Ovalle
Doha is a boiling pot. People from all parts of the world live and work here. Many move here to work, while others follow their families. Whatever their story, one day they leave behind their roots, their family and friends in the home country and begin a new life in Qatar. This is the common thread that links expatriates to each other here and helps them establish new and long-lasting friendships.
This is the idea behind Qatar Expats at meetup.com. This website provides a platform for people to meet according to their hobbies and tastes. As the site explains: “It’s a place for expats and newcomers in Qatar to meet up for activities and social events such as shooting, horseback riding, boat trips, safaris, coffee, dinner, beach or barbecues in the evenings and weekends and so many other ideas.”
Mel Alderton took over as event coordinator at the beginning of this year, but has been organising events since January 2012. Meetup.com, she said, was created in the United States and has local groups in over 190 countries. Meetup aims to make it easy for anyone to organise a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 9,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.
The original mission of the site is to revitalise local communities and help people around the world self-organise. People who wish to join the Qatar Expats group must go to www.meetup.com/Qatar-expats, where they have to create a profile and request to join.
“The group Qatar Expats was created a couple of years ago by my predecessors. We try to keep a balance between the number of men and women so everyone feels comfortable. Members can suggest activities and we encourage them to host them and follow up,” said Alderton.
This group has over 540 members. However, the coordinator explained: “Not all of them are active. Since there’s a lot of turnover in Qatar, some leave, others are not active for some time and later come back.”
The group is a lifeline for many living here. “Upon their move to Doha, they don’t know where or how to start making friends, even though they really want to do things. Some of them find us straightaway and others hear about us through friends,” Alderton added.
Groups like Qatar Expats gather people from different age groups, with members ranging in age from the 20s up to the 50s. The group organises events that suit all tastes and ages. There are also all types of professionals in the group, including engineers, doctors, nurses, teachers and midwifes.
For the coordinator, it’s difficult to say how many nationalities can be found there, but the group seems to be a mirror of Doha’s population. “There are the British, Americans, Lebanese, Pakistanis, Koreans and much more. I have a recent photo of us with 11 people and among them you can find nine different nationalities.”
In Qatar, Meetup has approximately four regularly active groups besides Qatar Expats. Among them is Qatar Board Gamers, put together by one Qatar Expats member. “This is a meetup group for those who enjoy a good board game with friends,” says their site.
The group plays a wide variety of strategy board games ranging from Eurogames such as Powergrid, Carcassonne, and Settlers of Catan to classic war games such as Panzerblitz, Rommel in the Desert, Twilight Struggle and everything in between, the site says.
Members of this group have a range of skills, experience and interests, which means they frequently play different games each week depending on the caprice of the attendees when they meet for their weekly session. “We welcome everyone, whether you are a hard core gamer looking for experienced opponents or just curious and interested in learning something new,” the site says.
Other groups include one for language lovers. With 72 members, the group welcomes people interested in languages.
“Qatar has quite an international environment, people from all over the world live here. Many foreigners living here are interested in Arabic language.” This group started in the United Arab Emirates and was expanded to Qatar, where members approach the following languages: Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, French, Chinese, Korean, Italian and German.
If you’re Hispanic or simply speak Spanish or like salsa, there are two other groups for you: Salsa in Doha and Latinos in Doha.
The Peninsula
