In UAE, Tales of Paradise Lost

"I wonder why I ever came here," Siddiq said.

Over the year, Siddiq and Bairawa have emerged as leaders of sorts of the 30 or so men who live in the camp, a warren of collapsing prefabricated dwellings set over dirt packed as hard as concrete. Water bottles, white yogurt containers, discarded shoes, newspapers and other trash are piled along one of the shanties. Across other paths, pools of sewage collect, runoff from a latrine flooded long ago. The water dispenser is rusted; water was cut two months ago after the company stopped paying bills. Kitchens -- each little more than a dank room with a butane tank hooked to a burner -- are abandoned. With electricity cut, the rooms are too dark to use.

The doors in the compound all stay open, letting in a breeze to compensate for idle fans. That, in turn, lets in mosquitoes and the stench. Sometimes seven to a room, the beds are a mix of thin mattresses, tattered foam or, in a few cases, a piece of plywood. On one sits a newspaper advertisement: "Emirates Hills Villas for Sale," it read.

"Everything was a dream," Siddiq said. "We thought we would build our lives and instead they've been destroyed."

Siddiq's story is much like the others': Raised on Indian films and stories told by returning emigrants with cellphones, cameras and fancy clothes, he paid an agent $1,000 nine years ago to help him secure a job in the Emirates. Once here, he was paid about $200 a month. He was almost never paid on time and when he was, money was deducted for housing, medical insurance, visas and so on. Fed up, he quit on Dec. 31, 2004, and demanded what he was owed. The following year, the company went bankrupt: The Lebanese owner went to Canada, and the other owner, from the Emirates, was absolved of liability, according to Hussein Yusuf, the company's attorney.

Since then, Siddiq has received no money and like the others, has run up a debt of hundreds of dollars at a nearby store for rice, flour, oil and vegetables. He has not seen his two daughters and son since 2002 and no longer sends money home. As with most of the men, Siddiq's visa has expired, as has his Indian passport.

The other men -- most from India, two from Bangladesh and one from Pakistan -- huddled around him, and he pulled out a torn piece of paper, bound with masking tape and folded four times. It bore the date 13 April 2005 and was an order from the Sharjah court for the company to pay him 17,630 dirhams, almost $4,800, in addition to a ticket to his home in Bihar, India. Most of the men have similar court orders, pending appeals; the largest sum is for Chanan Rao, a 26-year veteran, who is owed nearly $6,000.

"We have no worth in this country," Siddiq said.

The words drew nods from the others, their faces gaunt.

"No one should come here," said Bairawa, who left India more than three years ago.

"Once I go home, I'll burn my passport and work as a farmer," shouted Thakur Bhai Jiva Bhai, a 38-year-old from the Indian state of Gujarat who wore a jersey that read, "Dubai OK." "If it's for a few rupees a day, that will be enough for me."

Rao, at 62 the oldest, watched from a distance. He was dignified, his pride keeping him aloof from the conversation. He has seen his six children six times in 26 years. After such sacrifices, he can't come home empty-handed.