ABSTRACT
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is one o f the most important presences in the developing world, because it dispenses most U.S. nonmilitary foreign aid. Ned Greeley, an anthropologist friend of mine from grad school, helped me get my first consulting gig with that agency in Sudan in 1980. He went on to have a long and fruitful career with USAID, but this two-week assignment almost ended my career.
