On a sweltering Friday afternoon under Qatar’s blazing sun, I made my way out to Bu Garn, a tiny residential complex about 30 kilometers outside of Doha, home to the men who build and maintain the mega-projects of Doha.
I came to meet 19 year old Duncan Ssimbwa, from Uganda, who has been living and working in Qatar as a landscaper for the past six months. Next to his building is a small empty plot of land, with sand and stones, where he is meeting his neighbors to play a sport that he had loved since childhood: football.
Duncan plays as a midfielder for a small local football team: Africa United. I’d met him a week prior to this game at another football match, one very different to it. The earlier game was held in a football stadium at night, with flood lights, uniforms, referees and grass. It was played in a public football pitch in Madinat Khalifah, Doha, miles away from where some of the players live.
While he enjoys playing on the grass, making minimum wage in Qatar (1000 riyals per month), it is nearly impossible to pay the 50 riyals for a taxi ride to a dream, one of being a professional footballer. Instead, he and others play in an empty lot of land in Bu Garn.
“I don’t give it my all while playing on this rocky ground”, he tells me before the match. “If I fall and break a bone then it will cause problems with my employer.”
As the match starts, Duncan is visibly better than the other players. Crowds have gathered around the ground to watch the match. He scores two goals and then comes off the field to give other players a chance. There is one ground and many who want to play.
“Most of the players here are from Nepal, they saw me practice once and then asked me to come play with them” Duncan says. “They call me Uganda.”
Duncan takes me to his room through some narrow alleys and up a flight of stairs. We reach a small room shared by four people, in a dimly lit apartment complex. Here he makes his own food, chicken and rice, mostly.
As we go outside he jokingly tells me how when he first came to Qatar he didn’t have a residence permit so he used to run away whenever he would see the police.
“What will they do,” he says as he laughs. “They can’t catch me. I run fast!”
Past Life
Duncan arrived in Qatar near the end of 2021. During this time the weather was cool and living in the desert was not as uncomfortable. While I talked to him after one of the football matches, he said that as summers came around he missed his home in Uganda.
Growing up, Duncan played football regularly throughout primary school. Then in his highschool, he went on to play first and second division football, advancing through the ranks. He had his eyes set on a dream: playing for the Uganda national team. However, tragedy struck in the Ssimbwa family.
“My mother became partially paralysed and I had to work to get money for her medicines” he says at one of our meetings in Education City, home to a $700 million stadium, built for the FIFA World Cup. “I came here so I can work and send back money too.”
Duncan has eleven brothers and sisters, he says that he sends back more money because he loves his mother the most. Now in Qatar, Duncan misses the cooler weather of Uganda and the warm embrace of his mother.
Africa United
“I used to be the captain of the team in Uganda,” Duncan tells me before the match in Madinat Khalifa. “When I came to Qatar I didn’t know I would be able to play football here.”
He appreciated how well maintained the football ground here was and how it rekindled his dream. However, taking an Uber to Doha in the evening was a luxury.
“When I first came to Doha, I was just practicing football by myself,” Duncan reminisces. “Someone saw me there and asked me to come and play with them for their club.”
Africa United was a small club, aiming to bring the best African players working in Qatar, under its wings. They have beautiful uniforms and access to the grounds. The match I went to see was played between Africa United and the Kenya team.
The match was very tightly contested with the Kenyans taking the first half with three goals. In the second half of the game Africa United were able to tie the match after a motivational speech by the coach. After the match, I dropped Duncan and his friend to their home in Bu Garn.
Duncan’s Other Life
Every morning at 3AM, Duncan and his colleagues wake up to catch the bus to Education City. Here they work as landscapers, shaping plants, cutting grass, laying the paving stones and generally maintaining the plants in Qatar Foundation.
Duncan has also worked around the Education City Stadium, one of the venues of the FIFA World Cup that is set to take place later this year. While Duncan has yet to fulfill his dream of being a professional football player, he is making his contribution to the biggest event in the game he loves. They work until the sun is at its highest before taking the bus back to Bu Garn and taking a long, well-earned rest.
In Uganda, Duncan was not used to working this hard, in the hot sun. He came to Qatar after being told by an agent that he would work in cargo handling in Doha. When he reached here, he was sent to work in construction and later in landscaping. However, Duncan, like many others, are making the best of it and trying to fulfill their dreams.
After one of Duncan’s matches, I asked him if he had the choice, would he want to play for the Ugandan football team or the Qatari team. His response was that while he loves his country and his dream was to represent Uganda, if he had to pick, he would choose Qatar so he could grow more as a player.
Abdullah Imran Tahir 