Anish Adhikari awoke at the Qatari labor camp at 4 a.m. to diarrhea from last night’s rotten fish. His tonsils were swollen from the limited water made available by his employer while working 14 hours a day in 125-degree heat. But he remained hopeful that building air conditioners for 80,000 ticket-holders could provide the equivalent of $8,000 over three years to support his family in Nepal. That he could pay back the loan shark who’d secured Adhikari a job beginning in 2019 with the Hamad Bin Khalid Contracting Co. (HBK), the contracting firm owned by the the highest echelons of Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family. He thought of his father and sickly mother living with his six brothers, their four wives, and their eight children in a hurricane-ravaged farmhouse, using an animal shed for a kitchen. But the 23-year-old soccer fan was helping to construct the site of this year’s World Cup final; some days, when he arrived at Lusail Iconic Stadium before dawn, Adhikari forgot how exhausted he was.</blockquote></ref> | Anish Adhikari awoke at the Qatari labor camp at 4 a.m. to diarrhea from last night’s rotten fish. His tonsils were swollen from the limited water made available by his employer while working 14 hours a day in 125-degree heat. But he remained hopeful that building air conditioners for 80,000 ticket-holders could provide the equivalent of $8,000 over three years to support his family in Nepal. That he could pay back the loan shark who’d secured Adhikari a job beginning in 2019 with the Hamad Bin Khalid Contracting Co. (HBK), the contracting firm owned by the the highest echelons of Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family. He thought of his father and sickly mother living with his six brothers, their four wives, and their eight children in a hurricane-ravaged farmhouse, using an animal shed for a kitchen. But the 23-year-old soccer fan was helping to construct the site of this year’s World Cup final; some days, when he arrived at Lusail Iconic Stadium before dawn, Adhikari forgot how exhausted he was.</blockquote></ref> |