Kennedy later came with bunk beds, and the group of us assembled everything. We drifted slowly to sleep with dreams of a bright future. Ten of us, sleeping in one tiny room. 

At 3 am, I was woken up by the call to prayer. As a Muslim man, it took me by surprise to see the sunrise at 3 am. I went to pray, the Quran recitation at the mosque had a heavy Bengali accent, and by the time I got back, the sun was out and scorching. The Bengalis and Pakistanis were very interested in us because we were a strange sight. It’s not common for Kenyans to be seen in these areas; there were misunderstandings and hostilities initially, but that later changed to brotherly support – they would offer us meat, fish, and Arabic bread whenever they had surplus. As a Muslim, I thought I would fit well in Qatar. I thought my 14th-century basic Quranic Arabic would help me assimilate. But it didn’t.

Kennedy also told us that we would not be paid for the three months we spent getting the licence, and the fee would be deducted from our salaries – QR533 (US$146) per month — for three months, when we will receive only QR1267 (US$347) cash in hand out of the QR1800 (US$493) promised. We were not expecting to be paid. The offer letter also stated that we were not entitled to any food or medical cover. We had carried food from Kenya to last us for a couple of weeks. Flour, dried fish, and dried vegetables. We were ready for anything and everything. 

We were to do a medical test on arrival, paid for by the employer, and then after we got our Qatar ID (residency permit), we were supposed to sign up for driving classes. Even the salary of QR1800 was contingent on us doing 300 deliveries per month, and then we could stay off work. All the riders we spoke to after we arrived said it was not possible and that it was less than the norm.

Kennedy visited us only at night, and he gave promises upon promises for the first two weeks, but he later claimed that the Chadian partner, Abdoule Djidda Idriss, was on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. He then sent us a video of the boss at a wedding. As the weeks went by, we took every story with a pinch of salt. To get by, we would receive mobile money transfers from Kenya and then convert it to Qatari riyals. The money changers were Kenyan bootleggers who sell moonshine. That’s where Kennedy had taken us. That was a big red flag about Kennedy.

I only had 1000 shillings, and I changed it to 27 riyals (US$7). I negotiated with the caretaker of the building, and he installed WiFi for QR25 so that I could connect with my cousins back home. With the two riyals left over, I bought two cigarettes.

Two weeks in, Kennedy had abandoned us completely. I would walk around in the evening to look for Kenyans or just go look to have a conversation with anyone. I was anxious. I noticed during my walks that I have not seen a female or a child in two weeks. It was a very strange world. By now I was supposed to have done a medical test, and my residence card should have been processing, but I was stuck, and there seemed to be no information coming to us. I spent the next two nights hungry. That’s when it hit me – there was no job. 

I spent hours browsing the internet for details about the company to no avail. Kennedy was nowhere to be found; our agent in Kenya kept reassuring us that we would soon find jobs. Whenever he called me, he changed his tone and became more aggressive and threatening. He threatened to have us deported, so we clung to every word he uttered. We lived in fear and uncertainty. My colleagues included people from different walks of life, some from rural areas and others from the city, with different upbringings and different ethnicities. They all wanted a job, but now they were abandoned in a strange country where everything was bewildering – I was almost run over by a car while crossing the road because I wasn’t used to right-hand driving. 

Once I reached Qatar, some of my old friends did meet me and tried helping me. I would go out every day, job hunting with them. They guided me. I clung to my faith, I prayed five times a day, hoping for a breakthrough. This was an elaborate plan to swindle Kenyans. Fleece them in Kenya and abandon them in Qatar. Kennedy was one link in this scam. Slowly we pieced together information about him – he was fired by a security company and now does illegal deals to survive, we heard. He is also known to be a distributor of moonshine in Qatar. Rumour has it that the reason he is never seen in daylight is because he is undocumented. We were also told that he has a wife and a child who live with him.