mattsiller.com Blog

Back in Darfur and settled. Before I left for break I moved into our main housing compound with most of the staff. Previously I was in a house with six other guys and more isolated, which had it’s advantages…forcing yourself into workout routine, more quiet, etc. But moving into our compound now gives me a better chance to get to know the guys and have some fun. Our company provided some cash to build a little social area inside our compound. The PM said, just make it African themed. Having guys who build for a living has turned this little social area into one pretty bad ass “juice bar”. I’ll get some pictures up next post but let me attempt to describe this place. Theme bars in the states couldn’t come close.

We’ve built two large gazebo-like shade enclosures, hired locals to roof them with grass and reeds like their homes, the tukles. We had a local painter come in and paint an African mural on one of the adjoining walls (for a cool hundred dollars), which actually turned out pretty amazing, except the damn Canadians had to bribe the local painter to paint a huge moose into the scene which then drove the Aussie’s to beg for a kangaroo right next to the camels, so the two out of place animals make you go hmmnn, but I suppose in a cool kind of personalized way. We have a huge wooden entrance door that revolves around a centered pole, hung with local warrior shields and spears. We found banana trees that line the walls and have local pottery strung about. We built a rustic bar, also roofed in the local grass, tin topped, columned in local bricks and lined in bamboo reeds. We set up a sound system, several bbq pits, and brought in refrigerators to keep the drinks cold. It’s pretty cool, I must say. I’m glad I made the move over.

We kicked off the grand opening last night. Refreshments were limited to Aragi, the local homemade hooch (made from dates), used in a fruit punch. The alcohol is a clear biting liquid that’s bought on the market in water bottles. Three drinks were enough. Some say it makes you go blind.

It is really the only social outlet in Darfur so the guys here are planning on doing a little NGO (non government organization) recruiting (where most of the expat woman work) to come socialize.

I cut out early – 10ish, because I felt like going to continue watching Season One of 24. I’m hooked. 13 episodes in two days. Damnit. Good show.

Had some good conversations before hand though. I asked the USG rep how serious the Darfur conflict was on the Congressional agenda. He said it’s pretty high. This week, he was answering a letter written by the president himself on the situation. I keep reading how it’s been a hot topic lately and to be honest, you really can’t tell down here other than the usual attacks on the locals. (That’s pretty terrible I’m numb to it) I see UN folks starting to trickle into theater but that organization in itself is plagued with slow moving bureaucracy and limited in it’s capabilities…ie….they have to have Sudanese permissions to even enter the country, are struggling with the logistics, finances, and motivation of working with the African Union, and on and on. They’re scheduled to turn over in October of this year, but it looks as if my company will remain for awhile none-the-less.

From a political standpoint, the warring sides are pretty volatile. We’re planning to build a big facility here in El Fasher to host a big peace meeting from all sides, GOS, Janjaweed, SLA, JEM, etc in June. This should be interesting because I’m told situations always get rough leading up to peace agreements as the sides leverage for negotiating power. And then Bin Laden made his Sudan statement the other day. But really you can’t tell much change in the daily flow of things here. We were on a lockdown several days ago in El Fasher due to a threat. But I wouldn’t say we’ve ever seen anything tangible targeted our way other than the sporadic pop pop pop ak-47 gun fire off in the distance at night. Assessing the security situation is generally done by monitoring and staying close with the locals. They know what’s going on and who’s around. It’s not that big of a place. If they don’t show up for work in numbers or are acting strange, our ears get perked. This hasn’t happened yet.

Back to my colleagues, the South Africans have pretty interesting stories. The white ones are in the middle of a huge reverse discrimination transition and most are forced to work out of their country. Most of these guys are former military and I’ve heard some interesting mercenary stories…selling their fighting skills in dangerous far away places. A lot of these guys have worked on game reserves in South Africa and they have all sorts of interesting stories about run-ins with Elephants and Lions while leading tourists on their safaris. One of my pilot buddies here has offered his plane to fly us around S. Africa when I wish to visit. This is a main reason I’m glad about being here: having the S. African connection.

As far as my job goes, I’ve made a switch. Mission Information Officer was a cool job because you’re in the know all the time. Another person came into theater interested in the position and I talked to our Project Manager about other positions available to give her a shot at MIO. He’s pretty gung ho about leading me in the path to Project Manager and refers to me as a mushroom in growth. I asked him about available positions. We had an opening on our logistics branch as a warehouse manager. I really wasn’t too pumped about this but he said it’s a good start into management. I have 14 people under me and the warehouse and supply side needs some refinement so I said I’ll give it a shot. The advantages are that I’m outside and moving around more and even though it’s awful hot, the days go quick and for the first time in awhile, I’m not stuck behind a desk day in day out. Plus we’re trying to automate everything and I’ll be able to use my technical skills to formulate and roll out our database.  The warehouse operations is nothing I’m used to, but it’s a step into management. Since I’m planning on going back to school shortly, I think this will be good. And I have some locals under me which are fun to manage while attempting to break down the communication barrier. The nice thing about this project is that people are frequently moving and there’s all sort of room for gaining experience in multiple spots along the chain.

So while I initially worried about returning to Darfur after a great break, new challenges are ahead personally and politically the situation remains interesting. Plus I have 3 ½ more seasons of 24 to watch!

After 10 days of the East coast, I finally made it back to Texas. I flew out of Miami at night and I must say, if you ever have the chance to notice the skyline of Miami at night from an airplane, it is one of the more spectacular sights. I took off from Ft Lauderdale Airport towards the Atlantic and circled back over Miami headed West. From an airplane the glowing city is ascetically lined out, bright lights, packed tight and sandwiched in between a clean and dark cutoff of the lonely Atlantic and Everglades, jump out at you in a surreal 3D panoramic.

Whenever I play the game, Would you rather?, I often ask the open ended question, “Would you rather be on the inside looking out or the outside looking in?” In this real life situation I didn’t have to choose, getting the best of both views. I was mesmorized.

Anyway, San Antonio was relaxing and fun. I took it easy the first few days and then headed up to Austin on Thursday night. More absurdity ensued that night with old friends and on Friday I lounged around having lunch at Guero’s and Coronas on Town Lake.

Good weather again, living in Austin is living in a real world paradise. Deep down I know it is where I’ll call home.

Saturday my buds went out and battled the heat playing midday soccer back in San Antonio. You’d think living in the desert would acclimate you but I’ll humbly admit I was the first to get water and first to call it quits. We had a party planned that night anyway and I had to get that going.

Whenever I’m in SA, I always try to have parties with the friends growing up. We’ve been going strong for years now and I don’t foresee us losing touch. We always pick up where we leave off and generally take it until 3 or 4 in the morning.

The hard part was hopping a plane the next morning. Not a great flight in cattle class and jet lag has definitely played its toll over the last week. Coming this way is always hard, particularly when you try to go to bed at night and your body thinks it’s 4 in the afternoon.

But I’m certainly back. It was difficult to capture my thoughts this go around. I tried to turn my brain off and not over think the return. One, I was coming off a 17 day run of fun and the noggin wasnt joggin. (sorry terrible) Two, thinking about the obvious return from 1st class 1st world spoils to a delusional lifestyle in a backwards country rarely sits well. So I landed, walked down the plane’s rolling steps onto the hot Khartoum Airport tarmac and into the dusty night, let out a long expressive sigh, walked into the makeshift customs line, and wondered the storied reasons for all of the western strangers along side me taking the shared leap of faith.

Five friends and I decided several months ago that we were going to hop a plane, meet in a prime destination, do a little fishing, lounge on a beach, and have ‘20-something’ fun for a long weekend while I was back in the states. We chose a relatively centralized hot spot in South Beach, Florida right off Miami. South Beach is known for its skin, glamour, and Latin flare. Some people love this place, some hate it, but overall, you have to take it for what it is, a place to see and be seen, go out, have fun, and enjoy a vacation while pretending to be a high roller. I made up some t-shirts to memorialize the trip, an idea borrowed off my father’s annual fishing trips with his buddies. Some people didn’t get the slogan…inexcusable…

When six guys come together in a place like this, you can expect some sort of trouble. Now we generally haven’t ever been those guys to cause problems or run in with the law (since college) but you know, there’s just a lot of testosterone in a place like South Beach and to be honest, it wouldn’t be a memorable trip without a little spice. Fortunately we stayed out of jail, but there was a close call in two separate late night occasions. One of our crew’s insistence at entering the hotel without a key and another getting tossed from a late night pizza joint provided a few later laughs. The fights were avoided as well, but these Latin guys just don’t take kindly to others eyeing their women. We avoided two incidents at the night clubs by claiming to be lovers not fighters.

We stayed at a hotel called the Clevelander, the hot spot on the beach and literally the central point on the island. This hotel was one of those typical party places that does its best to offer a Spring Break atmosphere year round. A dance party surrounds their pool and outdoor bars 24 hours a day and when you check into to the hotel complimentary frozen drinks are generously provided. Bikini contests and Latin go-go dancers keep the outdoor area crowded. We don’t really like that kind of thing though so we mainly hung out in a quieter place where the six of us could just relax and enjoy catching up. Ha!

One of my friends is in “Internet Marketing” in NYC and highly connected with all sorts of interesting websites. He arrived about the same time we did on that Thursday but was occupied meeting up with a few girls he had met online. Needless to say, there was a possibility he would be receiving a large amount of ridicule if they were sour.

They all met up with us the first night and we hung out with them on the beach for a few hours but opted to head out on the town later that night. Getting into clubs in places like South Beach and NYC is a story of its own. While in New York, I once sat and watched the arbitrariness of how people are chosen to enter. It’s such a game of who you know, how edgy you look, if you’re willing to pay, etc. I generally choose not to partake in such nonsense, but we were in South Beach and clubs are what you do at night. So the group headed over to our first place. At this point there were only four of the six of us in town so the numbers weren’t so much against us. (Having six clean cut guys trying to enter a club isn’t so easy.) We immediately teamed up with several girls by offering to grab their first drink if they would accompany us in. Sold.

There’s also this overrated concept called ‘table service’ which clubs use to mooch money off of guys by saying “if you want in, you need to buy a table for the night”, which includes some sort of minimum number of bottles your group must buy, each starting at $250. We figured with $11 drinks anyway, a table and bottle would pay off, plus we’d have a place to sit. The first night worked well, economically. (The $1000 bar tab for Saturday night’s table service at our second club was another story.)

Most of the crowd is a mix of locals and tourists, good looking people wanting to dance. Bongo players and dancers generally join the DJ’s progressive beats and with all the lights and ambiance, the atmosphere is charged.

We went to this fantastic restaurant on Friday night, Touch, ate like kings, and invited our waitress and her friends out with us on Saturday.

They accompanied us to a club and trouble ensued, one of us ‘losing’ a wallet, another getting pushed off stage by a buck ten pound promoter (well never let him live that down). We chased a bachelorette party around for a bit, using the simple gesture, “Can I buy the bachelorette a shot”, to win over her friends. Ultimately that was a mistake because her friends were so committed to the bachelorette that they said spending too much time with boys would be unfair to her. I thought that rational was absurd. Isn’t that the purpose of a party as such and why are you at this club again, but whatever.

One of the days we made it to an outdoor lounge/club called Nikki Beach that was the definition of paradise. We sipped Coronas and Mohitos and took in the ambiance, which happened to include lots of skin laying on outdoor beds and hammocks. Cody made the mistake of dozing off and I aptly doused him with our ice bucket.

The fishing was terrible and we paid an absurd amount of money for a half day trip to troll the bay with a private charter and catch one jack fish and some sea weed.

He specialized in monster sharks and we should have gone that route, but we were late getting there in the morning (surprise) and the captain said we need to mount the shark we catch, which we responded with, “which wife of ours will one day allow a huge shark to hang in our house.” So really the best part of the fishing portion of the trip was the t-shirts and giggling at the lone trooper who was sea sick the whole time.

Like true 20-something high rollers, we toasted with a bottle of Don in our hotel before we headed out on Saturday night. (It was won at a company party.) I was the geek that read aloud the provided brochure on how champagne is made and why this one is so special, with its millions of bubbles. But I couldn’t really taste the huge difference that is supposed to accompany the increased price.

Our last day, Sunday, was a wind down day (4 days in South Beach is enough) and we laughed off all the one liners from the trip. Guy traveling is always funny. One of our friends missed his airport shuttle in the morning, another fell asleep in the terminal and almost missed his flight, another forgot which carrier he was supposed to fly and thought he went to the wrong airport. It took him three different carriers to figure it out. We were laughing when one of us admitted that one Christmas vacation, he went to the airport bags packed a day early. The lady at the counter just laughed at him. Despite the absent mindedness, all of us are relaxed travelers. I suppose this could be some point of conflict with spouses down the line.

The trip was alot of fun. No damage done, good memories, and definitely a foundation for the second annual. I made my flight home that night to arrive in San Antonio, not sure how I was going to handle another week…

It’s Tuesday morning and I’ve arrived back into Khartoum after a bending coaster of a trip back to the U.S. If you have some spare cash and 18 days to travel through hot spots in the states with your friends living it up as large as you possibly can, I highly recommend the trip. Over the coarse, I ate well in NYC, caused trouble in DC, fished in South Beach, partied in Austin, and recharged with family and friends in San Antonio. I’ve spent about 80 hours in transit, which isn’t the highlight but those stops in between have made it worth the while.

I started for a night in DC where I arrived almost three weeks ago and treated myself to a room at the Ritz Carlton (god bless the government rate) and a massage at their spa. My buddies planned a get together in the Dupont Circle area with some friends that night and it was fun to catch up. Four months away from DC didn’t actually seem like a long time and we picked up right where we left off.

I took a train up to NYC the next day to visit my buddies in Manhattan. Good weather tends to follow when I trek here and we took advantage, jogging in central park, BBQing on the rooftop of his West Village apartment, trekking through the art districts in Soho on West Broadway (one of the coolest streets in NY) towards Canal Street to pick up cheap fake watches and sunglasses, people watching at the sidewalk cafes, getting margarita ‘pitchers of trouble’ at Tequila Flats, eating overpriced sushi at the swanky Matsuri (Iron Chef) restaurant, and picking up girls at the Spotted Pig, a local Greenwich Village dive bar known for frequent celebrity visits.

I tend to think that people feel at home and at one with a city, they carry that nostalgic appreciation, when there is a commitment from both ends to give and receive equally. You provide a positive presence in the city, an emotional and financial commitment, and it returns a feeling of content, happiness, and belonging. I also think this occurs when you feel the city is a reflection of who you are as a person. NYC is second only to Austin in providing me with this feeling. I always go strong in NYC and of the 10-15 visits, I can’t remember a time the city has not met or exceeded my expectations. (The return trip home generally guarantees a multiple hour smile as I recall the weekend’s shenanigans.) It provides so many opportunities to experience the cutting edge of society, be it people and friends, restaurants, buildings, art, nightlife, and businesses. It can be exhausting as a tourist, but as a weekend local, it takes the cake.

I joke with my friends about using a cheesy pickup line that always comes to mind on top of my buddy’s apartment. It’s a social roof top that offers a 360 panoramic of the island and surrounding area.

It’s hard not to be taken back during a glowing sunset as the city that never sleeps transitions from day to night. I think in the right moment a line such as, “The energy of the city is overwhelming isn’t it?” could hit the spot. But delivering this leap of faith generally brings mixed reactions and my buddies get a kick at frequently rubbing it back in my face.

I spent three full days, Friday to Monday afternoon in New York, then trained back to DC for a few. I had a poker game scheduled that night but it was not as serious as I’m used to, as ‘24’ was overwhelmingly taking the attention from the gamers. I’ve seen this show once and thought it was good but to be honest, have never got caught up in the buzz. But my friends’ addictions, along with slow desert nights led me to splurge for the first four seasons. If I don’t like them somebody here will, but I have a feeling I will. I tend to get a little obsessed with TV series (like watching an entire 22 episodes of Season 2 Alias in a weekend) which I why I try to avoid getting hooked.

Wednesday night I made it over to Adams Morgan in DC (an area resembling 6^th Street in Austin) for a DC Kickball party

and then went late night with my buddy to one of those establishments that takes 1’s but prefers 20’s. We prepped ourselves for South Beach and after raising unnecessary late night hell in his apartment with his roommate (and girlfriend), I woke up early the next morning in a stumbling rush to make the Miami flight and mad at acting over-the-top the night before.

I’m going to piece this trip into several posts for sake of simplicity and my time. Plus Miami Beach deserves a post of its own…