Workers in Qatar

The never complained. At times he just said that the work was very hard.” Caressing her three-year-old son as she recalls the father he will never see again, 25-year-old Him Kumari Yongan tries to maintain her composure.

But her eyes fill with tears. “I don’t know what to do now,” she confesses. “I am alone.”

Ms. Yongan is sitting in a dingy guesthouse in Kathmandu, having come to the capital because her husband has died – not in their village in eastern Nepal but 3,500 kilometres away in the desert heat of the world’s wealthiest country.

In April, a few weeks before Nepal suffered its worst earthquake in 80 years, the petroleum-rich state of Qatar reported that its economy grew a healthy 6.2 per cent last year – almost triple the rise in Canada.

Such prosperity during a major slump in oil prices is due largely to a construction boom. The people who lead the world with a gross domestic product of almost $100,000 (U.S.) per capita are building stadiums, hotels, highways, shopping malls and airports, all to give life to one of the great global sports events: the 2022 FIFA World Cup.