By Ramesh MathewLarge groups of expatriate workers continue to throng Mushereib and the surrounding areas on weekends even though over half the area was demolished in recent months.“Virtually all those locations in Mushereib, which were once considered as the hubs of the city’s retail business activities like Abdulla Bin Thani, and Shahra Kahraba, have been demolished in the last two years. Still the area somehow manages to play host to a large number of visitors on weekends,” said a resident at one of the flats on the Abdul Azeez Street, one of the very few locations in Mushereib that is yet to be demolished.Expatriate workers, mostly from camps outside Doha, start pouring into the streets surrounding their accommodation soon after the noon prayers on Fridays.Some of them says they were coming to the area as their company buses drop them in the open grounds near Mushereib during their weekly “shopping expeditions”.A group of workers from Mesaieed said that even though Barwa Village is on the route from their camp in Wakrah, a lack of transport access and the virtual absence of small restaurants and other “affordable” shops there forces them to skip the place. “If facilities like a cinema hall and small cafeterias are there, we would have gone to Barwa Village at least one or two weekends every month,” says Shantu Thapa, a Nepali technician from Mesaieed. “As of now, there is nothing attracts us to Barwa Village.”Thapa and his friends continue to get food items at “reasonable” rates from cafeterias in and around Musherieb. “We also get inexpensive clothes and footwear from the shops in the area.”However, the main factor that tightens their bond with Mushereib and its adjoining areas seems to be the availability of company transport. Asked if they would go to another place if similar facilities as those in Musherieb are made available there, Imtiaz Ansari, an Indian worker, said: “As of now, we can’t think of going to a place other than Souq and so long as this area remains, we would continue to come here.” The presence of many money exchanges also seems to have had an influence on their weekly trips to the Souq area.However, at least a few Industrial Area residents, who are regulars in the Musherieb in the weekends, felt if there was regular public transport and “facilities” like those found in the Musherieb is available elsewhere, they would not mind visiting such places.Some of the traders who have shifted their operations from Mushereib to other locations in the city and outside after demolitions in the area said they were still to find the business “ambience” of Musherieb in their new locations.