When National Geographic TV chose Ernie Boch Jr. to participate in its new series, “Undercover Angel,’’ the billionaire car czar replied that he didn’t care where they sent him, just as long as he had a comfortable bed and a clean bathroom.

They sent him to a remote Ugandan village, where there are few comfortable beds and clean bathrooms. Boch, who lives in a 15,000-square-foot estate in Norwood, slept on a cot in a crude hut and used an outdoor latrine. The shower? Buckets of water he dumped over his head.

The object of “Undercover Angel’’ is to place wealthy “angels’’ posing as ordinary people in poverty-stricken areas across the globe, where they will live briefly among the locals while figuring out how best to help them.

Here’s how the publicity material describes Boch: “In this episode, an eccentric billionaire leaves Boston for one of the most deprived countries in the world.’’ The “angels’’ have a limited amount of time “to improve the lives of the locals, forging deep, personal relationships with them along the way.’’

And they can’t just hand out money, Nat Geo says: “They must use their business skills to create lasting change.’’

Here’s how Boch described his 10 days in the village of Wajinja in August 2015: “If they had told me what I was getting into, I would never, ever have gone.’’ But he added: “I’m so glad I did what I did.’’

What he did was hire his own plane — Nat Geo offered participants commercial airfare, but Boch declined — and flew into Entebbe International Airport. “I get off the plane, open the door and it’s like 10,000 blow dryers, so hot and so humid,’’ he said in an interview in his mansion that takes up an entire residential block.

“My place had bugs and spiders and mice,’’ he said. “The first night, I’m bundled up with all my clothes on as the bugs attack. I woke up to the clatter of rats, and there’s rat [expletive] everywhere. I was freaking out.’’

Boch is featured in the second episode of the series, which has already been seen in dozens of countries and is set to premiere in the United States this year. For his undercover identity, Boch, a guitarist who has had his own band, posed as a musician making a documentary on world music — hence the cameras and crew of the British production company, which was shooting him for the real show.

When he arrived at his hut, Boch, who employs a personal cook at home, asked the production crew where they were going for dinner. They pointed out some pasta and told him to build a fire.

“I spent two hours trying to build a fire in an outside pit,’’ said Boch, 59. No luck. He soon discovered a family that lived nearby, and through gestures, managed to make them understand about the fire.

“It took them two minutes to build it,’’ he said. He got the pasta cooking over the fire, but then “the [expletive] thing went out.’’ Boch lost 15 pounds in his 10 days there.

Recounting his adventure, Boch lounged on a sofa in his brick Georgian Revival home. The grounds include a guest house, two carriage houses, formal gardens, and a 70-seat outdoor amphitheater. There’s a Porsche out front, and a Rolls-Royce and Ferrari in one garage. He is president and CEO of Boch Enterprises, including Subaru of New England, which bills itself as “the number one private distributor for Subarus in the world.’’

Boch lives alone in the manse, and when asked about the number of bathrooms, he ticked them off on his fingers: “Eleven bathrooms, 12 with the pool house.’’ There are eight bedrooms. When he led the way around his property, it was clear he loves every square inch of the nearly 8 acres. Shortly before he left for Uganda, he held a fund-raiser at his estate for then-candidate Donald Trump and remains a big supporter. Boch also has houses on Martha’s Vineyard and the Caribbean island of Nevis.

For critics — and Boch has had his share — who might consider “Undercover Angel’’ little more than poverty porn, he believes he did some good, and learned something, in the bush village. “It taught me a new definition of poverty,’’ he said.

And clearly, this was a gig he enjoyed. Mostly. It all started when his publicist, Peggy Rose, saw a TV program called “Undercover Boss’’ four years ago, and had an epiphany: “Ernie could do this.’’ She wrote a pitch to the casting agency, which interviewed Boch. That series was canceled, but they wanted him for a new show.

Once in Uganda, Boch said it didn’t take him long to figure out what both he and Wajinja needed. The first morning in the hut, he woke up thirsty. “Where am I going to get water?’’ he asked the crew.

They pointed to the dusty path. He took a plastic jerry can and followed others, some as young as 5, to a watering hole a mile away. “I’m exhausted, it’s hot, I get there and you can’t drink it. It was disgusting, it smelled, it was dirty. I quickly learned that water is a major problem there,’’ he said.

A young man he met who spoke English explained there was fresh water 20 feet underground, but no technology — or money — to retrieve it. Boch’s mission was born.

But first, he had to make it through seven more days in the hut. Boch, a Type 1 diabetic, had brought a slew of power bars over with him, and his insulin. He was dying for meat of any kind.

When he first arrived, the village chief greeted him by thrusting a chicken into his arms. In the show’s trailer, Boch reacted with ill-disguised shock. But today he says: “I ended up killing that [expletive] thing and eating it.’’

With the help of a villager, Boch chopped off its head. “I ended up plucking that chicken, gutting it, cooking it, and eating it,’’ he said. “It was the worst chicken in the world.’’

At one point, the crew sent Boch to a witch doctor for a good-luck spell. “He gave me an elaborate spell. It was dark. It was smoky. It was like ‘The X-Files.’ ’’ He also got a love potion, which Boch, the divorced father of three children, hasn’t yet taken.

On his last day in Wajinja, Boch called villagers together and explained who he really was and said that clean drinking water was soon coming to their village.

Once home, he teamed with Drop4Drop, a British nonprofit started by Simon Konecki, husband of pop singer Adele. With Konecki’s expertise in providing clean water to remote areas, and Boch’s money, they were able to build a 20,000-liter tank and spigots to bring the water to Wajinja. They did the same for two other neighboring villages.

Six weeks after he left Uganda, Boch returned to the village, where he had also paid to build a school classroom, put a new roof on two other classrooms, and add new latrines with hand-washing tanks. He installed solar lighting at the school, which has no electricity or running water.

He also flew over a load of school supplies, sports equipment, books, health and sanitary provisions, flashlights, batteries, and toilet paper, and hired a truck to haul it all to the village.

“Ernie is a very good-hearted person,’’ said Matovu Derrick, a social worker in the village and among the handful there who speak English. “Ernie brought bicycles, school supplies, plastic tables and chairs, books, sandals, glasses, coats. He helped some community members get solar in their homes.’’

But the biggest boon to the village was the clean water, Derrick stressed. “Before, people had to walk a long way to the water holes, which we would share with the animals. We had to take it home to boil and filter it, and people were getting ill from diseases such as dysentery, typhoid, malaria, and skin infections.’’

As a result of a good water source, he said, the village is healthier and more productive, which has resulted in better incomes for many.

How much did all of Boch’s efforts cost? Boch shrugged. “A quarter of a million bucks, not counting the flights.’’

Boch, a man not much given to introspection, said the experience has led him to “redefine my definition of poor, and made me realize the true value of water.’’ He has long had his own nonprofit, “Music Drives Us,’’ which provides music programs to various organizations. And last fall, his family bought the naming rights to two Boston theaters: the Wang Theatre at the Boch Center and the Shubert Theatre at the Boch Center.

“You could make the argument that there is very little poverty in the US,’’ he said. “In the village, if you have running water and electricity and a bathroom, that’s being rich, to them.’’

Bella English can be reached at english@globe.com.