Doha’s Unsung Heroes: Laborers...
I always loathe standing under the sweltering Doha summer sun were in I can’t take out my umbrella with me because of the bizarre “what-on-earth-you’re-doing” look I might get neither from the passerby nor from the passenger on wheels. It’s very strange given that this part of the world ranks amongst the hottest country on Earth (Am I right or right?) -- That I seldom see people carrying around or standing while waiting for the cab with umbrellas on. For me it’s like an unsolved mystery that I get different ambiguous answers and reasons for this. Anyhow, this is not about umbrella per se. It’s about those people, “laborers” to be exact working under the extreme temperatures and schedules even until the wee hours of the morning, getting the lowest salary but with the arduous jobs ever I could imagine.
To begin with, this post was inspired by a “Trash picker’ I saw awhile ago walking under the bridge under the 45 degrees or more, while picking the litter thrown by a stupid dumbest person who doesn’t know about “trash can or garbage can” or maybe doesn’t know how to use or what’s it’s purpose after all. Prior to that I keep on whining about how hot the weather it is today. How I hate standing at the gate whilst waiting for my company driver to pick me up. How I hate the smell of the person next to me. How I hate almost everything I see..I feel..I smell..It’s not that I’m a whiner. I think some of the people who might have an interest to read this are “whiner” by nature. We love to gripe..To complain naggingly or petulantly. We nitpick in situations, the weather, our workplace, our boss, our colleagues, our salary, our accommodations…a long lists of complains follows..
It down into my system that I’m not in the position to complain after all. Even I don’t have a right to do so. Maybe you don’t have a right to do so. I realized I’m (we are) still lucky compared to the ones I (we) see everyday. Luckier from the guy who wave the red flag to traffic us in the roundabouts. Luckier than the laborers who cemented or put the pieces together of bricks in the pavement and roads so that we have a nice smooth ride. Luckier than the food servers and promo girls who are just standing for hours and hours day in and day out. Luckier for the scrimping passengers who withstand the mixed smell inside the karwa bus. Luckier from the kadama who sleep so late and rise too early to cook the food, do the laundry, clean the mansion, bath and chase the bratty ill-mannered rich kids of the expats or locals and even luckier from all those laborers/ workers who have the hardest jobs yet the lowest salaries ever.
This post is not about bashing any nationality. This post is my personal realization of what I (we) have and what I (we) don’t have yet I (we) must be thankful and contented for what God has given me (us). It’s just so sad to think that life is not fair. It’s so sad that we are being rated, graded, treated, and paid depending on our nationality, skin and eye color, status, personality or who are our connections. I know some of us longs to be in the situation of our fellow foreign counterpart who are living in this country who gets the highest salaries, living in the big comfortable villas, driving expensive company sponsored cars and has the best benefits like going home whenever they want to. Personally, I’m still blessed in my own way. I have a nice paying job (though not as high as my foreign colleague yet its high enough to have a decent life). A comfortable accommodation where in I’m just alone in my room without having to share with anyone I don’t know. A personal and company driver who will take me wherever I want to go without chasing and waiting for eternity for a karwa. A working place that has harmonious relationship despite the difference in nationality. A boss who commends me whenever I done a great job. A long list of God’s blessings that I must be thankful of...
Whatever we have we must be thankful, be contented and feel blessed. To the workers/ laborers I salute you. Hats off to you guys. Because without them, no one will do cementing of the roads and pave way, no one will cook our food in the restaurants and fast foods, no one will do our laundry, no one will take care of the kids while we do our shopping and chatting with our friends and most of all no one will do the jobs that we cannot able to do. Isn’t a high time to be a friend to our least of our brothers and sisters? They deserve a respect, a good treatment; a raise in salaries (maybe), even a smile and simple way of saying “shukran or thank you” is enough for them to realize that they have their worth. A simple gesture of kindness will do. It will lighten their burden. I bet you will not swap your life now to be in their shoes. Because I know, we know..We can’t live without them. We cannot live with the “Unsung heroes”.
“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. – Christopher Reeve
steve1 ...billions of people do believe that there is a divine plan behind everything....and billions before them have believed that too...and most likely billions after them will believe that too. my point is even by sheer numbers that believe this to be true this seems to be an idea that can not be brushed aside as false.
thanks cabbage for your piece..i appreciate it..i just want to share my views about this matter..
Of course we all look at what is around us and we judge the situation because it is near and real.
The men who work as labourers here are no different at all to any other labourer that works in any other country.
My father was a farmer - he sometimes could be up all night and day in all weathers including hot and cold.
He would have to break the ice in winter in order to bring us water to make drinks or to wash. We did not have a tap or a bathroom when we lived in Ireland – when we got to England we had a bathroom :-) When I say bathroom, we had a curtain that separated the bath from where we ate.
There are miners that suffer the same temperature in other countries as today in Doha.
Trawler men - that fish in cold treacherous waters.
Aid workers- that work in the same heat for NO money.
Have you ever seen the film 'Blood Diamonds' or a BBC production ' Men from the Blackstuff - especially Yosser’s story'?
I doubt it.
Men and some women work under these conditions all over the world, not just Doha.
These men that come here to work as Labourers are paid to do a job and it gives them a salary that is more than they would get at home.
It is not right in our eyes – but if we complain too much about it and fight for their rights as we see it – we may ‘shout’ so loud we price them out of their job.
Do you want that on your conscience?
I do feel sorry for these people - but they are not the only ones.
Slavery and low paid workers is not only a Doha problem.
The usual 'dig' at how much we Westerners earn is the only thing that truly transpires from your posts strawberry_shisha. The usual - discussed a gazzillion times, argued about and always comes up no matter what.
Enough said.
indeed..let's pray for them to be safe always given the risk in their jobs..may your God bless you..
Its time to atleast think about those less blessed.
Thanks for bringing this noble thoughts to the public,
let us pray Almighty Allah for their well being.
I thought you share your room with another two families...lol
Sal, get a life why do religous people always either blame or thank God for everything, its the same with every faith, look, the labourers don't actually live longer than office staff, they breath in dust all day and have all sorts of accidents.
Its just life, non of us can help who we are or where we come from.
But if it makes you feel better to think of all this as some sort of divine plan then OK in your world perhaps it is.
lol..thanks..this post attracts positive as well as negative response..i respect your opinion and fair judgement on this..i'm not trying to brag or anything here..i don't even have intention to make someone envy because i'm not even as lucky as the foreign expats like british, americans, ausies..etc..who are more priviledge thanj us asians..
i just want us to be thankful and be still thankful of whatever we have..they have something that we don;t have and we have but others don't have..it may not be on the material things but God will bless us on something else..
i hope my message come across..
Yes...you are not doing any favour to the labourers by pitying them here ...you may be doing yourself and others a favour by making yourself feel high and privileged.
As a matter of fact, because of the fact that they do manual work as opposed to sitting on their a---s and sipping coffee all day, they probably live longer, healthier and happier. THAT is ALLAH's justice...everyone gets his fair share of privelege...only we THINK wrongly that we are more privileged than the other. But you never really know that you really are luckier just because you are sitting in a 4 wheel SUV.
The labourer working on top of an under construction sky scraper will most likely never get Type-2 Diabetes.
But yes we must thank the Almighty at all times. The 'poor' is being tested whether he thanks the Almighty despite the scarce resources; and the 'rich' is being tested whether he would spend a reasonable amount of his money on helping the poor and the orphans (not just write pityful emails on qatarliving).
SS... you bet... never was this patient in reading such long posts...:)
We can't change their fate nor their present but empathy towards them will make ourselves better persons. Good post.
thanks alot..i hope you enjoy reading my post..
haha..indeed..it was so funny that how many times i thought of bringing one with me then id prefer not to bring anymore..
SS... nice thoughts. Am sure you are doing your bit whenever and wherever you can. Though I was lost for a while in the myriad of issues you covered may be because you became a bit emotional too, but then its alright. Though everything else sounds OK including your staying alone...:) I find it difficult to accept about being contended with what we have, as then that stops the growth of an individual. Within limits, not being contended with what one has is what makes the journey of life wonderful as it gives it a meaning to live another day.
Hhahahha I felt the same way too...And I amzed toknow how much an umbrella it cost here! I would rather stand under the heat...
your welcome brother..i hope time will come that there's an equality everywhere were in the person will be viewed and treated as equal not as less..
Thanks SS for sharing your thoughts. We need to always remember and thankful about things we have, not things we don't have, to be a grateful person.
what i'm trying to imply here is we must be thankful of what we have not to complain of what we don't have..and to acknowledge the worth of the least of our brother and sisters who were mistreated and unnoticed..i'm not posting this to brag or anything..i think u did not get the message of the post..
usually such writeups are inspired in people who think they are 100 times more comfortable than these labors. This is nothing but expressing pity over their fate. If you really care, spend your annual vacation doing their job and give your vacation to them with their pay. That is the only way of acknowledging their favor to us in letting us write this stuff from the comforts of our luxory homes. Demand more salary for them while asking less for yourselves to give these labors a sense of justice to their work. Can we do this? Or just a lip service?
Tell you what SS, my a/c in my bedroom packed up at the weekend and I was mighty miserable. It's times like that you think of them, 20 to a room.
admit it or not, we are all here because we earn more than we earn in our respective countries..it's just that some our blessed to have a very comfy life compared to others..
At the end of the day, they are here because they can earn more money than if they stayed at home with their families, however, I can't wait till the Emiri Decree comes into operation. I think he who must be obeyed needs to base his decision on Temperature rather than which month it is though!
yes because without this workers/kadamas/laborers who do works we can't do i think we will not able to survive..
thank you!!!
very true SS, we must always look at life that way, Respect and acknowledgement, it makes a lot of difference for them who are not so fortunate...
agree with you..
The best income is that which is earned from manual work.
lol..amazing indeed..
welcome to qatar.. you will find amazing...