DohaAirport’s arrivals terminal is not somewhere I like to linger for long. An estimated 500 new expats walk through its doors every day, making it a stage for intense public drama – both long-awaited reunions and the dawning of years of separation from loved ones.

My first week in Qatar is a permanent fixture in my memory, ineffectually filed under “try to forget”. Emerging from the airport into an oppressively sticky Doha night, I was at the centre of an emotional storm: overjoyed to be reunited with my husband, from whom I’d been separated for several months, but also desperately homesick and disorientated. I cried every day, at least once.

I was woefully underprepared. We only had a week to decide whether my husband should take the job offer – a not uncommon expat scenario. What little I did know about everyday life in Qatar, I had gleaned from the internet. Unfortunately, my forays into web forums and blogs produced fragmented information that baffled or worried me, sometimes both at the same time.

Luckily, a friend had moved out here a year before, and she filled in the yawning gaps. But not everyone is so lucky, a fact reinforced by the number of prospective expats who find my articles online and get in touch, all armed with the same basic but vital questions.