My new project

I’m writing this from a traffic jam in Cairo, where I’ll be spending most of the next few months on my new project. As in the city, hopefully not the traffic jam. Headed to the client site once more, which is a public entity much like the city itself – massive, chaotic, and extremely interesting. In essence, I’ll be doing the economic development work that I’ve always wanted to do.

As always, one should be careful what one wishes for. Through my travels I have gotten quite used to using public toilet facilities that are essentially a literal hole in the ground with a bucket of water fulfilling the function of Western toilet paper; in fact, I have gotten quite good at remembering that in large portions of the world people only ever pass things to one another with their right hand, and why.

But there’s something quite surreal about consistently having to use such facilities, with hygene standards described by my interpreter as “not human”, while wearing a suit and tie.