“They roll out the drawing for this 10, 000-square-foot mansion and say, ‘What should we do, put on solar panels?’ ” Mr. Freed said.

In February he celebrated the Arab spring in Cairo's Tahrir Square, drawing rare praise from the German media.

And in her practical way she scraped together a small square of dust, and with a twig from a pigeon's nest began drawing a map on the floor.