One of my college friends is a documentary filmmaker. He dragged me along as he followed a group of glaciologists up to a high-risk melt lake in the Himalayas. Somewhere above 16,000 feet I got altitude sickness and headed back to Kathmandu ahead of the group.
I got stuck in the city for two or three days waiting for my flight, under the supervision of the team's local fixer. This guy had his finger in every pie: tourism, automobile importing, etc. I wound up at lunch with him because his assistant wasn't available to play tour guide.
Edit: I'll add that I got lucky getting sick. Shortly after my flight out a large earthquake struck, stranding the rest of the group in the Khumbu for nearly a week.
It's not terribly unusual to end up with random government officials if you're a white guy going into a non-touristy part of the 3rd world. I went to a village in Paraguay, first thing locals did was take me to some government project creating an industrial cow milking operation where I was promptly offered an engineering job.
Low-level 3rd world officials love showing off whatever they're doing to whoever will listen. They usually don't have much else to do. It is best to accept their offer and drink the tea with them or whatever, get on their good side and talk about how modern their little village is, and get on their good graces.
Here in East Africa some people tell me that it should be easy to find a job for me, but I must be talking to the wrong people. Not lamenting, just sharing how different the experience can be...
Not just there (waves at East Africa, where I used to live).
I live in New York (Long Island). People are constantly telling me that I should be having jobs thrown at my feet, considering my skills and track record.
That was not the case, which is why I'm retired.
If I were an inexperienced young buck, living in Brooklyn, that might be the case, but not for an old expert, out on The Island.
It's likely that it's difficult to get capital in East Africa. I knew many very smart, educated people, when I lived there.
On Long Island, it's easy to get capital for non-tech stuff, but tecchies are kind of ghetto, out here.
Just a guess but "east africa" while refusing to name country likely means someplace that theoretically you can wire money to, but in practice the AML control will start flagging like crazy and you get all your account shut down for even trying and no US based employer is going to touch with a 10 foot pole. If it were someplace like Kenya they would say, I'm guessing it's more like Somalia or Eritrea.
It was close to "New Italy" (in Spanish), somewhere within 50 miles of Asuncion.
I don't know much about Agriculture Engineering but there were a bunch of big milk vats, a couple electricians, and then a bunch of officials sitting around drinking the cold Yerba Matte stuff.
I assume they brought me because they heard I was an electrical engineer and I saw they were wiring the place up.
> I assume they brought me because they heard I was an electrical engineer
Yeah, that adds up. Small cities in South America usually have difficulty attracting qualified people to work there. It's a bit better now than it was 10 years ago, though.
Just an add to what has been said. This might be because they heard you are an electrical engineer. I really don't know your qualifications, but here (in Paraguay), electrical engineering is a different degree than electronical engineering.
You might be versed in electronics as your primary field, but since they heard you are an electrical engineer, they thought you could check out the facility's electrical wiring setup.
Thus, if you do mainly electronics, you might want to present yourself here (in Paraguay) as an electronics/electronical engineer.
Yes I was totally unqualified for what they were doing.
Also pretty big language barrier because my Spanish is pretty bad. And Guarani, forget it.
I could probably "fake" it enough to do it now, but not back then.
They were extremely nice though and it was cool to check out a farming project. I would have liked to see some of the more remote farms but never got around to it.
Paraguay felt very much to me like the midwest / "Iowa/Ohio" of South America. Extremely practical hidden gem that is easily overlooked, but makes you feel right at home. Even in Asuncion I felt quite safe. Seems like the country is very active in fostering getting agricultural investment and development.
> Paraguay felt very much to me like the midwest / "Iowa/Ohio" of South America
Funny that you say that. I am by no means a countryside person, I'm as urbanite as any other. But while I never was in Iowa or Ohio (save for a short layover), I lived in West Michigan, and therefore in the Midwest, for some time; and yes, despite the climate being quite different, things seemed somewhat familiar to me in many aspects.
I mean, it's not an uncommon job. Hasn't everyone hung out with a "government official" at some point? Even the people who work the counter at the DMV are government officials, technically. (And are perfectly capable of engaging in corruption, if there is insufficient oversight.)
It doesn't sound like the parent commenter was having lunch with the president. Just some random bureaucrats overseeing a construction project.
