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After college at Univ of the Pacific and grad school at U of Wisconsin-Madison, both involving long periods in South India and Nepal doing anthropolgical research with grants from various foundations on such subjects as leprosy control in South India, Nepal, & Bhutan, Himalayan population change, transmigration in Tibet, the vanishing tribes of hunter-gatherers in Nepal (Ban Raja, Raute) at whose forest table I dined on langur and macaque monkey many times, the Nepal Maoist revolutionary movement, and present-day human sacrifice in Kathmandu Valley, I settled in Kathmandu full time, and still keep a residence there, presently rented to a difficult French woman with UNHCR. I taught anthropology at the University in Nepal for several years in the 1970's through a Ford Fnd teaching grant, and when my research grants ran low in 1978 supplemented my income by teaching Italian cooking to chefs at the Oberoi Hotel in order to complete the dissertation. Demonstrating the right way to fold a tortellini no doubt was the best preparation for my career move into development work as a World Bank and later UN adviser on rights and territory protection of indigenous South Asian peoples. In 1987 the UN sent me to Pakistan for 4 years as an advisor on empowering local communities, particularly in the Northwest Frontier and Tribal Areas, to take control of managing their natural resources, esp. water, happily pre-Taliban days. Then moved on to the Sudan (first time to stray away from the subcontinent) in 1991 again directing a UN rural community action program with a gracious sub-Saharan nomadic tribe called Shukriya. In an era pre-dating the Internet and satellite TV I kept myself occupied for 2 years in the Sudanese desert learning Arabic, studying wild flowers and animals of the Sub-Sahara and raising 316 sheep next to my thatch and wattle hut in the desert, all the profits from which went to the local girls' school that just last year was torched to the ground by the Janjaweed and 42 female students and their teachers raped and murdered. In the process (my dip. passport didn't matter a fig) got the bejeezus beat out of me by corrupt Sudanese secret security patrol certain I was privy to information on the underground resistence--I still sport two holes in my rear lower jaw where teeth once had resided and seeing my driver die a few days later from his injuries. 3 months later I was hauled up to the Sudanese state court on a trumped up death penalty offence by a disgruntled ex-employee --the bogus charge was later dropped but not before the experience tested the limits of my sanity and blood pressure. Then in 1993 back to Pakistan for 4 years as the UN resident representative and only foreigner to be working in the disputed and always under-fire Kashmir territory (and yes, even had an Indian bullet from across the Line of Control pass through my rear window). My "reward" for having risked life and limb for the UN was a generous offer to head a program in a snake infested swamp in northern Cambodia close to the still active Khmer Rouge guerilla camps of Pol Pot. In happily extending my middle finger to the United Nations I then worked 2 years as a free lance anthropologist in Indonesia, Nepal, India and Bhutan before settling down in Egypt in 1998 for the next 5 years and started my next phase of work in environmental policy. It was a hoot to be able to wallow in the rich and many-layered urban culture (opera, museums, ballet, libraries) and demi-monde of the "Mother of All Cities" after what seemed like decades of exile and cultural deprivation and subsisting on whatever I could get my hands on. Since 2003 I have been on the staff of the oldest U.K. consulting firm, PA Consulting Group, first in Jordan (Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba--Lawrence of Arabia land) for a fascinating year, then Uzbekistan for 2 years before being thrown out of the country for having given shelter to Islamic separatist leaders, all advisory gigs related to natural resource management. I brought my long term management career to a close in 2018 after 4 final years in Nepal heading a food security for peace program for USAID, during which I was injured in the 2015 massive earthquake that devastated my house. Since 2018 I have been a special advisor to the UK Government Social Marketing Centre, and now head the international division of a Cypriot development firm. I live and work from my home on the western wilderness plateau of Cyprus, and welcome friends and colleagues to stay and enjoy the natural and cultural wonders of this magnificent Mediterranean island.
