A Nigthmare in Qatar

I was not sure if I was hearing correctly and at that moment I also stopped breathing.The only words that were going through my head were: to the office….to the office….to the office…. The world literally stopped around me and it looked like no one was moving. Complete silence…..I think I’m going to faint…..help…  After some seconds, the officer his lips started moving and he pointed to a man behind me. ‘Mohammed, Mohammed.. yess, chief is calling you… yes you! You need to go to his office’ I continued to stare into the officer his eyes and still wasn’t aware of the actual situation. So was it me that needed to go to the office? Or was it his colleague? I mean he didn’t stamp my passport yet…. So… what is actually happening? All these thoughts running through my mind… Still nervous and did not know what to aspect. Again the officer looked at me and my passport… Finally he stamped it and said you are good to go!  I’ll never forget this moment..I directly looked at L....

I was shocked, sad and could not believe what I heard. How could someone be so evil? What was the trigger behind this message? Was she bluffing or did she indeed speak to airport security? I mean she did have a lot of connections in Qatar, so I assumed she could have done this.  All these questions running through my mind, while I was sitting on the bed looking outside the hotel room window. Looking down, looking up, thinking, thinking hard. Nervous…mind full of scenario’s. I always say that my personal strength is keeping myself calm in hectic situations, however this was not the case anymore.. As L.L and myself were not sure if B.N. was bluffing or not, we agreed that we wouldn’t answer the phone until 30 minutes before leaving to go to the airport. If she messaged us again, we would know it was a bluff. I mean, if you are sure that the airport security will stop us, there is no need to worry or text us again. The time was going slow and even going backwards, well it felt ...

Something I learned during this period of time was that whenever survival mode is activated everyone starts to have a hidden agenda. I believe in this situation, it was worse, because at this point I had known B.N. for only 6months. Therefore, I was not sure what she was capable of. I needed to be selfish at that moment because I had to leave this foreign country as these red flags were contributing to my selfishness.  That same day, I was ignoring all text messages and calls from B.N because I just did not feel like talking to her. On the other hand, I had to play it safe because she was well known in Qatar and most likely had the ‘connections’ in the country. However, I still ignored all communication and went for a nap. I felt tired, sad and somehow still in shock, because that feeling of not being able to leave was still there. The next day was my birthday, but the evening before I went for dinner and drinks with L.L, D.S and another friend W.P to this lovely Jazz bar....