Observing life: Never underestimate the tribes that bind us in Abu Dhabi

My friend calls this “the Transit Lounge”, but as I near my seventh anniversary as an Abu Dhabian, I’ve been feeling grateful not just for the friends I made here who are spread out around the world (San Diego, Delhi, London, New York, Hong Kong), but also for the ones who have stayed: they are ­familiar notches on the door frame of my growth chart abroad.

My casual connections now outnumber most of my remaining friends in terms of longevity, and I count them as part of my Abu Dhabi family. There’s Dr Fatima, my doctor from the beginning, who appointed herself my “Abu Dhabi mother”. There’s Ismail, who’s been keeping our newsroom caffeinated and staff spirit elevated since our launch. There’s Vijay at Dashing Nails and Yancito at Champion Cleaners, both fixtures of my last five years.

And last but certainly not least, there's my old driver Suleman, to whom you might remember I wrote a mournful farewell in 2011, when he moved on to a better job and Abu Dhabi became a place where, with Uber and Careem, you don't need a driver on call anymore. But I still tell tales about this slight young man from Pakistan, and how we bumped around our cultural differences with good humour as we navigated the roads of a rougher Abu Dhabi.

In the early years, Suleman picked me up at three different homes without addresses, met my mother and sister when they visited, and drove on in discomfort as I wept desolately after saying goodbye to my friends, whom he referred to as Karama, Manasir and Al Manara, based on where they lived. I rarely pass by their old homes, but when I do, the street signs remind me of Suleman’s names for my own tribes, and the times he used to drive me to them.

I thought I’d seen the last of Suleman, but he managed to stay connected, calling me every year or so with an update (he got married and was having a baby). He friended me on Facebook when he joined in 2013. Every year, he texts me to say Merry ­Christmas, even when he’s at home in Peshawar. And every year, I text him to say ­Ramadan Kareem.

This year there was no response, so I worried my little Abu Dhabi brother was gone for good. Then over Eid he got in touch, on a new number, this time on WhatsApp. “Mo wear r u I’m calling to u before 2 days but u can’t answer me r u hear in Abu Dhabi r outside? I’m suleman.”

Ah, Suleman! I called him and he began with his usual hopeful question. “You get married or no?” I told him no and he laughed too much. “That’s OK,” he said kindly. “That’s your life: alone is ­better.”

“How about you?” I asked. “How’s your wife? Do you have a baby now?”

“I had one baby but she already died – after one day.”

“Oh Suleman, I’m so sad to hear that,” I said.

“It’s no problem,” he said in his understated way. “God will do that.”

But what God doesn’t take away, I am grateful to keep. Alone is not better. In this place where personal eras pass in the space of a few years, where city blocks fall and rise as quickly as dear friends come and go, we cling even closer to the ones who remain.