mattsiller.com Blog

As most are already aware, I have departed Darfur and left Sudan permanently. I left on December 5th, 2007, 735 days after I first arrived. My feelings about leaving were mixed for a number of reasons. Two years of my life were spent supporting the peacekeeping efforts in Darfur. Most of the days went fast. Surviving it did require a good amount of patience, a strong routine, and a sense of humor.

There is a long way to go to bringing peace to the region of Darfur and into Sudan. The reasons being too many to count, I will just say the complexity of the mess here is overwhelming. For me, two years of working in the country was a plenty (at least without a long break . I’ve mentioned before that the chaos in these places can be contagious, which I’m trying hard, several months out, to put into perspective.

It is the people of Darfur and of Sudan who will ultimately resolve this conflict, not the international community. I believe it will take a new, robust leadership within Sudan to force this change. Otherwise, I suppose exhaustion will be the only other catalyst. Sure the international community will be key to reintegrating and redeveloping the region, but they cannot stop the war.

Rebel parties need to unite under a common cause. A peace agreement needs to be implemented. The UN and their peacekeepers need to be mobilized in mass to enforce the agreement. Infrastructure needs to improve (roads, schools, etc). A strong agricultural campaign needs to blossom (pun intended), and so on. Conditions need to layer so that people feel secure enough to restart a life, a livelihood, a family, and they can ease off the food programs that provide these things for them right now. An environment needs to be created for which farmers and herders can see that an AK-47 is not a necessary means to an end. All easier said than done, I realize.

Anyway, I enjoyed my time there. It was an experience. It’s the people who generally make the place, and I really enjoyed making friends from all over, as well as getting an insight into the people and culture of Sudan.

My next move (after a short stunt in France) is to study International Economic Development in a graduate program during the Fall, so I’m taking these experiences with me to further learn about the factors needed to create stable countries capable of sustainable development and sound investment.

In the meantime, check out my latest blog, An American In Montpellier. Thanks to you for reading this blog and providing such positive feedback, a motivator to me in more than one way.

On vacation in South East Asia.  Will write with some travel stories shortly.  My work in Darfur is still going strong, to conclude in November.  Have a few thoughts on that as well.  Stay tuned. 

Our place of residence, impregnable in its distinctly castle-like walls, lies a few hundred meters from the main road (which is the only paved road in the town), beginning at the airport and leading through the town before heading south. In between the road and our compound is an old dirt soccer field where locals and AU military soldiers practice in the afternoons. Directly across from us is a dilapidated stadium. When I first arrived, horse races occurred at this stadium on Fridays (which was an experience in itself, the Darfur horse gallantly galloping in constant circles on a miniature horse track built more the size of a soccer pitch). In the past I have used this stadium as sanctity for exercise. To my surprise, the run-down stadium has recently undergone major renovations, turning it into a real place for sporting.

Before the renovation, when entering I would pass an old man camped in the shade who spent his days and nights methodically weaving old scraps of cloth into braided rope to sell. Slouching over his work, wearing the same traditional white local dress and a thousand wrinkles, he always grumbled a mellow hello to me in Arabic. I returned the greeting as I walked by, thinking about the distinct clash between his clothing and mine, a sleeveless bright red Coca-Cola running shirt and New Balance tennis shoes. For some reason to me he epitomizes Darfur, living through a storied history, being pushed out of a once prosperous profession, and now barely skimming a living off homemade rope.

It was in this stadium that I (occasionally) ran late afternoon laps, dodging the donkey-doo, stray goats, overgrowth in the rocky dirt path and using the five or six stadium steps for ‘bleacher training’.

About the time I returned from my last leave in June, I noticed the town started cleaning up the place. I was uncertain why, other than I heard soccer games would soon be played. Grass was planted and frequently watered (not an easy commodity to come by). Two weeks ago, an uncanny amount of people joined in the effort and built higher walls, evenly surrounding the stadium. They built an inner fence around the field, added new concrete seating, a curiously local VIP area, and even painted the place white. (Painting everything white in the desert is an anomaly to me. Of course white is cooler, but it also attracts the orange-brown dust which immediately stains and ruins the newness (a look Hollywood tries to mimic when creating authentic ancient Middle East backdrops.) To top off the renovation, four giant light towers were set up for night events. It was eye opening to see so much work occur here in such a short period of time. The stadium underwent a huge transformation in just 10 days. Why? Who was paying for it?

I soon found out that Sudan’s President Bashir was scheduled to visit my town of El Fasher. All this work was a part of a monetary advance he gave the community to spruce up the place before he arrived. He was coming to speak as a part of a ceremony opening the newly renovated stadium. No doubt the timely donations would be used as leverage, claiming Khartoum actually does contribute money into the region.

Inside the Stadium sitting in the Sudanese Style VIP Seating

The procession leading up to his arrival and speech was busy. The stadium is, like I said, right across from our housing compound. By 3pm in the afternoon, the stadium was packed with people and the entire area was flooded with interested parties and military police and special Sudan Forces (who wore red bandanas as an accessory to their desert camo -symbolizing their commitment to die for the president). We were all convoyed back into our compound and told not to leave, the gates locked tight.

We instead climbed the inside of our compound walls and sat on sea containers, peaking over as people, horses, and vehicles lined the dirt road that the president and his entourage would soon come down.

We watched as cars paraded past with giant bullhorns resting on the hoods repetitively blaring “Allah is great”. Animal skin drums were rhythmically pounded by locals in the back of trucks and locals carried political signs. Ornately decorated camels in the brightest of colors strutted past carrying covered thrones. I’m told this type of flair is only showcased by the Janjaweed tribe members. It is typically used in wedding ceremonies where the bride is ‘introduced’ to her new groom. Various tribes’ colors were also worn by groups of women who were ceremoniously dancing.

One of our Sudanese staff told a story about how the president enjoys dancing in the local ceremonies. Before one of his speeches he joined in dancing with a crowd of tribal women. As it livened, he reached over to grab one of his body guard’s guns and fire it off into the air in celebration. As he raised up the gun he shot too soon and accidentally hit and killed one of the dancing women. This, while he was president of this crazy country. A quick $10,000 apology payment and he was cleared from the ‘accident’.

One of the interesting things about the scene was the motivation of the crowd. I’ve mentioned it was diverse and lively. But in reality the people of El Fasher and most in Darfur actually dislike the president. I don’t need to reiterate why. Most of the people at this event were either Janjaweed, students, curious, or simply paid by the government to attend.

As we sat and looked out into the crowd, the people took a fascination at looking at us through our razor wire and gates. Some would wave and others would stare, but we felt like true caged animals as curious eyes gazed from the outside in.
About 30 minutes before the president arrived, we were told by the event police to get down from our perch inside our compound as it posed a security threat. I wasn’t sure if he was referring to us or the president but I guessed the latter, as the guard later came over to invite us as a group into a special area reserved for us in the stadium.

Probably not a good idea to be a group of westerners trapped inside a stadium if demonstrations occurred or if we were singled out by the president or a rogue anti-westerner, so we declined the invite.

The president finally arrived, entered the stadium, and spoke to the crowd, asserting in an Arabic diatribe the lies told by the western world, typically making promises and spinning truths. (He had the gall to announce to the people of Darfur that peace has come into the region.)

Overall, it was an entertaining change from our normal routine. And it opened up a stadium where we can now watch daily soccer matches and run in a nicer place. Thank you President Bashir. Isn’t it the little things that are supposed to make a difference?

I just wonder what happened to the old rope-making man who used to reside at the stadium. He is nowhere to be seen.

Ahh…the perils of keeping up with a responsibility. The problem with staying focused about writing on a blog is that in order for the site to remain active and healthy, your commitment to it needs to be near the top of your priorities and thought, all the time. To keep a successful blog, particularly one about a narrowed topic, looking for information to add value to it has to be constant. Over time, there are the obvious obstacles: overexposure, lack of interest, censorship, and the occasional appropriateness of publishing something personal to a world-wide audience.

Some say, “Matt, just write about your normal life. Just say hey”. But life out here isn’t always exciting and I don’t always have something interesting to post about my personal life. To compensate, I’ve mixed in the political situation and economic impact and regional nuisances and so forth.

Eventually, I wrote a few posts which may have drawn the line with political correctness, especially in relation to our client, which were censored by my higher-ups. I wrote several  posts about the business of peacekeeping, which I found interesting because this type of work has a lot of ironies, but they too could cross the line of telling “business secrets” or drawing the wrong attention to our real mission, so I didn’t publish.

I’ve saved all these writings and maybe one day I’ll be able to publish them in a more non-professional setting when I’m far removed. But the fact is the readership has developed over the course of my 20 months here and I’m not just writing to my friends and family anymore.

That’s not a bad thing, but the pressure is somewhat different. I’ve had comments ranging from, “Shut your blog down now!” to “My client wants to advertise on your site. What are your rates?”

I think I’m going to revert back to writing to my friends and family and see where it leads. I’m aiming to make it a responsibility I enjoy rather than a crutch of censorship and writers block.

I’ll restart by posting a few pics as this is one aspect I’ve always avoided for no good reason. I think I’ve relied on my writing to conjure up the imagination, but images always serve the audience well. If you revisit at the previous post below, I’ve added picture enhancers, as well as a few on this post with some inscriptions to get you back into the swing of things about the world I share in Africa. Enjoy.

Pics from the Market

The longer I work out here, the shorter my patience gets.The more relaxed and laissez faire the society seems to be, the tighter the restrictions that are placed on our lifestyle. While we are expanding the project exponentially, our living and working quarters have been constricted with impregnable fences erected as added security. I used to look out through our razor wire fences as the crowded IDP buses whizzed by the cow-herds walking to feed by the women carrying firewood on their heads. I used to like to say to myself, “Now this is Darfur”, as I reflected upon the pulse of the road. Now we have a giant wall of sand. It has (un)ceremoniously symbolized the blanket which numbs all imagination, adventure, and uniquity which initially compels one to come to such a place.

So, in order to cope I’ve tried to get out more when I can. I’ve been speaking with various US folks here, Foreign Service Officers, my future profession of choice. I’ve had some interesting conversations with the concept how the government these days is really trying to combine development into the core of their foreign policy in emerging countries. I’ve further learned about the various entities that have their hand in a place like Darfur; from the governments, military, and intelligence agencies to the humanitarian side of aid and NGO’s.

One interesting thing I picked up recently was the difference between Foreign Service and intelligence agencies. The primary difference when handling information is how they gather and report it. As a political officer, the Foreign Service employee will open gather information and interpret it, reporting their analysis to policy makers in Washington. An intelligence gatherer has an assignment to gain certain information on a particular topic and report that information back to Washington in raw format, without any analysis or interpretation. It could be said that the art form to the Foreign Service officer is the interpretation of the information while the art form for the intelligence agent is the method in which he is able to obtain the information.

We’ve also learned to kill the time and fight the constriction with pranks. I suppose pranks are supposed to die out when you get older, but when push comes to shove and life become a mellow routine, you do what you gotta do. In true Siller fashion, I may have taken a recent one a little too far.

Several months ago a friend of mine and I tried to find a goat and put it into a sleeping quarters of a fellow colleague. This proved a bit more of a challenge, considering security limitations in night time wandering – oh and theft. We realized quickly in this environment it wasn’t that smart of an idea so it was nixed for a more tangible one. After a poker game one evening we sand-bagged one of the other player’s rooms. This simply means taking lots and lots of sandbags and barricading his door closed. It worked well and to good results, as he had to wake up to potty in the middle of the night and was forced to go in a bottle (fortunate for him, an empty was available.)

I suppose mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery, because this prank was mimicked for several weeks afterward in various forms, among them upon me, where several conspirators with master keys and access to local labor had a wall of sandbags professionally stacked inside my room. When I opened the door, I was briefly surprised by the immediate obstruction.

These carried on for weeks with other various forms of silliness, Ceram wrapping tents shut, strategically placing rubber life-like snakes in inopportune locations, and the like.

No big deal and no harm done. So we continue. Recently, we had a little dinner and party to commemorate three years in Darfur (not going to comment on that) and coincidentally we had a new government representative arrive to oversee our contract. He’s basically the person who reports back to our client that we are doing a good job. We schmooze him and make him one of us and get him involved in our operation. So on his first day in theater I accidentally made sure he became involved real quick.

Since he was new, I didn’t realize he was a VIP, so to speak, and was not to be touched. While he was talking with two other of our employees who happen to be knee deep pranksters, my buddy and I snuck up and doused them all with water balloons, nicely soaking our new ally.

Mature I know, but he probably felt good that the comradery out here is tight enough to include him in the shenanigans so soon. That’s what I tell myself anyway.

So we trudge forward, voluntarily I realize. Cause when life provides lemons…

So for the infrequent visitors it has been some time since my last post.  Thanks to the patient folk.  I promise over the next few months to work at least one post a week toward entertaining you with the nuisances of our Darfur livelihood.

For those who I didn’t get an opportunity to visit over my extended break in the US, I have decided to stick it out a bit longer…pushing the two year mark.  I still scratch my head and frown my brow at the thought of staying until November, especially when I re-read previous posts that show little if any enthusiasm about continuing.

But I made the choice to continue for a number of reasons and will stick by it.  One of them centers around the idea that I have the improbable notion of attempting to turn this blog into some sort of readable book, but of course all I envision at this point is the NY Times Best Seller header on the cover, cameo appearances on daytime talk shows, and a constant stream of residual income, not the actual inner workings of the blood, sweat, and tears that it will take to spin a unique plotline and a sellable story in order to achieve this grandiose scheme.

Either way, there is still a lot for me to accomplish out here so I stuck with it.  Judging by the plane ride back, I’m not so sure it was a good idea.  My flight from DC to Frankfurt was struck by lightening.  I had just closed my eyes and a giant flash reopened them abruptly, accompanied several minutes later by the pilot coming on air, stating in his strong german accent, “No worries, yes that bright flash you just experienced was the plane getting struck by lightening. We don’t think the electricals were damaged but we will find out when we try to lower the landing gear in a couple of hours.”

I envisioned him coming back on stating, “Has anyone seen ‘Memphis Belle’; We will need your assistance in the lower hull self-cranking down the wheels for each wing.  Anyone successful will be offered a free upgrade or single segment voucher for their next Lufthansa experience.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I dozed back off to sleep and the plane’s engines seemed to get eerily quiet.  I then imagined in my dreamy state feeling us dropping in altitude and the pilot coming on saying, “Yes, our electricals were fried and all engines have failed.  We’re at 12,000 feet and can coast toward mother earth for another 10 minutes, but if we can not restart the engines, let’s go ahead an assume the crash landing positions.  You all listened to the safety presentation, right?”

Of course my dreams started getting more carried away.  I was hoping it was the several glasses of wine because I envisioned at the final moments the pilot counting down from 30 toward our death, only for the engines to be resurrected at the point of no return (with the pilot giving a big German Howard Dean ‘Yeeaahhh’ as we dusted the tree-tops and happily made our gasped accent back upwards…to safety).

Stopping the dream at that point wouldn’t have done justice to my buzzed imagination.  I later realized once I analyzed this dream that I have been living in Darfur too long because just as we saved ourselves from imminent death over Germany’s Black Forest, the plane swerved hard left to avoid a rebel’s anti-aircraft missile, which I caught a glimpse of right outside my window streaming upwards in its onmious red and orange trail as it narrowly missed our wing.

In leiu of this dreamt attack, I believe standard protocol of the pilot would be to take precautionary sharp upward left and right avoidance movements with the aircraft, like a climber would in traversing a mountain, in order to quickly climb into safer altitudes.  My pilot, in my infinite imaginary wisdom, decided flying was unsafe and emergency landed in a nearby field.

Once the plane landed (the landing gear did end up working) and was brought to a bumpy halt,  I remember the rebels quickly approaching the plane and coming onboard to look for, in particular, Anti-Israeli individuals for immediate execution.  I opened an eye and saw two men quickly shot by the insurgents as they recognized their enemies.  I closed my eyes and played possum as they walked down the isles in their quest for redemption.  When they came near me they stopped and I could smell their sweat and opened an eye to see a pair of two black ominous eyes staring in return.  It was at this moment I realized there was a Palestinian seated behind me who at the start of the flight was wearing the traditional patterned black and white scarf.  To my horror, in our impromptu and rocky landing the scarf had flown forward over the seat and into my lap.  I looked down at the realization that I was end’s meat. How would one explain themselves in this situation?

I thought, yes I am in quite the conundrum.  So I did what any rational person would do in that scenario of a dream, I confidently said “I think you’re mistaken, this scarf isn’t mine.  It is the guy’s behind me.  See him, right there.  Yes, that’s your target.”  I remember thinking, “Am I really kidding myself? Is this going to work?”  and then, “Wow, if I don’t get killed by these guys, then the guy behind me is going to do it for them if he makes it out alive.” 

He didn’t make it out alive, and as they passed by in their fierce and bloody determination, I snuck off the plane and into the adjacent forest, along the way hiding behind wreckage of other planes they had successfully shot down.

I later thought…hmmnn not a good foreboding about my last tenure in Darfur.  Anyway…such is life and one’s own imagination.  If, in these final months, I get to experience any of the fun I dreamt on the plane ride, then it will make for some quality posts.  Stay tuned.

Sorry about the extremely long and overdue postings.  Quick reason is that I took a brief break from Sudan and am back in the states until mid June.  I will return and plan to stay in Darfur through the fall.  There are more postings to come.  Thanks for being patient. 

I submitted one of my posts from this blog to a website called Truckin’ that posts “Short Stories, Sagas, and Tales from the Road”. Some of the stories are off the wall. Some interesting. The author posted my tale in this months issue and claims it to be one of “the most chilling Truckin’ stories to date.” Check it out.

I have a friend living in Darfur who’s had one of those eye widening, wait, say again, damn, girl experiences over the course of her stay. During her time in the desert, she’s developed a resume for the record books. I’ve written in previous posts about the types of girls that come to Darfur, mostly playing the stereotypes in my descriptions. Of course, you find folks with combinations of traits that cross these defined borders, and to many extents, she does as well. But there is a clear stereotype in this aspect of her experience, and I think it’s worthy of a solid tribute post.

When you think about coming to a place like this, there are a few initial concerns that jump to mind. Is it safe? What are the living conditions? What is the food like? And then, the given, What kind of exposure to sickness will you face, and how will you handle it? I’m sure every mother (and sane person) thinks coming to a place like this exposes yourself to unnecessary risks, be it health or danger, and so why do it? Most people here face down those worries, carry an even keel about them, and balance the good with the bad in this regard. Some are lucky and dodge it altogether. I’ve been fortunate with regard to my health and exposure to problems during my time here.

My friend, on the other hand, has had Murphy’s Law waiting for her around every corner. If something (relatively impermanent) can go wrong with regards to her health and safety, it has. I think of it as a cross between The Naked Gun, There’s something about Mary, and Out of Africa. Her story has subtle humor that’s grown exponentially throughout the year. I’m just glad we can sit down and laugh about it. She leaves shortly so, inshallah, nothing more will occur. But for the sake of this tribute post, let’s get to business:

One – She arrived into theater during the April timeframe of last year when the summer’s heat was already in full force. During her first week here, while on a tour with management, she developed a case of heat stroke and promptly fainted on her way to the chopper in between site visits.

Two – During the rehydration period and several days rest at the site, she developed a sinus infection that set her back another two days, one of many that would frustrate her equilibrium over the course of her year.

Couldn’t be an omen…

Three – Shortly there after, a seasonal bug pops into play called the Nairobi Fly, also known as the Acid Fly. If this red and black fly lands on your skin and you swat it dead, an acid like substance secretes from its body and causes severe burns in that location. If it stays on your hands and you touch another part of your body it spreads. The irony is that she had just published a notification to all personnel to watch out for this fly, to include measures to take in case you came in contact. Not that very night while sleeping, a Nairobi fly crawled on her arm. She accidentally squished it when closing her arm at the elbow, unbeknownst to her. The fly’s acid not only burned an inch radius circle on her inner forearm, but did on her bicep as well. The mirror image burns took almost a month to heal.

Four – To add to the legacy, while driving at the market, she became the damsel in distress when in the middle of flocks of people, got the vehicle stuck in a mud hole from the rains. She developed quite the audience when the AU Force Protection had to come and tow her out.

Five – In the kitchen of one of our houses, we utilize propane cooking gas in the stoves. Several months ago while baking, the flame went out in the oven. When she returned with a match and bent over to relight the flame, an explosion from the built up gas inside the oven soared out and singed all facial hair (including eyebrows) and an unsolicited portion of head hair. A shocking haircut – yes. The damage – fortunately, only surface.

Six – Back in December, many of the personnel were evacuated to a neighboring site during a security threat. While waiting the several days for the situation to calm, she went into the local town’s market to see about getting portions of her body waxed. Aside from the fact that it’s a risky endeavor in a first world, this could be deemed an adventure from the idea’s inception. As it was, we jump to the portion of the story where Nair has covered some of her arms and face in the town’s ‘hair removal facility’. As the time came to wash the substance off, a critical ingredient to the process went missing….Water. The water well went dry and there was no way to wash off. By the time she returned to the camp where water could be found, it was already too late and 2^nd degree burns had occurred. The medics at our site covered up the burns and put…(cringe at my least favorite word) ointment….on burnt areas and wrapped up. In the end she looked like mummy.

We thought, wait wait wait…isn’t the only safe way we know to remove hair in Darfur with cooking gas??

Seven – She had to fly to Khartoum to get further treatment to ensure no scaring. And wouldn’t you know it, while in Khartoum, a tooth of hers cracked down the middle.

Eight – If that wasn’t enough, she decided to get some rest at a hotel while in Khartoum. While shopping at the local store around the corner, a man began to follow her, ultimately checking into a room next door to her (one of the known methods of danger to avoid). She barricaded her hotel room door with available furniture and waited it out until she could get to the dentist the following afternoon. Beforehand, she met with a man who recommended this particular dentist as the credible and best dentist in Khartoum. As he was drinking his coffee, the tooth that the dentist had just worked on fell out into his coffee in front of her. Needless to say, she caught the next flight to Nairobi to see a dentist she felt more comfortable with.

Nine – On her latest vacation, she visited the island of Mauritius. She had pushed her vacation back and spent seven months working strong without a break (we normally go four). During her stay in the hotel, she had two panic attacks. Initially she thought it was an allergic reaction to the fish. After the second, which involved no fish, she saw a doctor who claimed it was related to built up stress of working non-stop for seven months.

Ten – On her way back to Sudan, she flew through Dubai. It must be that equilibrium thing, because on the way to transfer her luggage at the carousel in Dubai, she “lost her lunch” in public and the airport doctor deemed her too sick to fly.

Now one would initially think, wow, either she is prone for problems or has extremely bad luck. Who knows? I do give her credit because she’s a globetrotter, despite the continual challenges she faces, and sticks out her commitments. I initially classed her into the “city girl meets the wild” stereotype when she came out. But despite all the pain and frustration she’s gone through, where someone might be unlucky to face one or two of the ten problems we’ve identified since arriving in Darfur, she’s kept her head high and maintains herself well in this ‘man’s environment’. For that, she gets the Darfur Diploma with Honors upon her departure.