You will see workmen in Egypt doing inconceivable things. A plumber will come to make repairs with a nearly empty toolbox. His most-used tool might be a three-inch drywall knife, which he uses to plaster a pipe into the wall. It is a mystery how he can unstop a drain with no sewer machine or adjustable pliers. The scaffolding on the fourth, fifth and even sixth floors of new construction can be shocking to behold. It is erected quietly by carpenters with no electricity and therefore no power tools. It seems to be put together with 2" X 4" material that has been recycled many dozens of times. Few cuts are made, which leaves the whole apparatus looking improvised or makeshift. The carpenters and their helpers wear t-shirts and pants rolled up, never any gloves, often with no hat in one hundred degree weather. Their footwear is the most striking thing: no boots, only sandals and not heavy leather sandals but flip-flops that you might wear at the beach or coming out of the shower. And these are men swinging hammers and crowbars on the fifth floor of highrise construction, erecting forms into which concrete will be poured to form the load-bearing columns between the floors of a hotel. The men move deliberately and appear to be paying relaxed but close attention to what they are doing. There seems to be no hurry, and maybe that accounts for the lack of broken toes and fractured feet.