It’s sunny in the conference room with old wooden floors in Nukus. This city was once the capital of the abundant river delta region south of the Aral Sea. Now the capital lies in a dry desert landscape and the almost 2 million inhabitants of this autonomous region, Karakalpakstan, have been adapting to a lack of water for decades. The evaluation specialist from Seoul asks a female farmer from Bozatau district, sitting opposite her, “why would her husband be unwilling for her to work for the village council”? The other farmers burst out in laughter, and the woman replies, chuckling, “If you’re asking that, then how can I even start to explain!”.