Tag: Algeria

#1 – Matthieu Giuly

| November 2, 2012 | 0 Comments

38 years old, Matthieu is the son of two intellectuals who were born and raised in French Algeria. Matthieu was born twelve years after Algerian independence, the fourth of four children. His parents made sure the entire family had a strong sense of their identity, Matthieu’s family is made up of Pied-Noirs, and his parents taught him that he was not completely “French”, nor could his family return to live in what his parents considered their true home.

Matthieu was born in Marseille, and in his teenage years, began to relish his position as an “outsider” compared to many other students. He spent much of his time hanging out with less popular groups of students. Immigrants, social outcasts, Matthieu discovered he had a knack for walking between social groups with ease. An apt, if not always attentive student, Matthieu graduated from the University of Lyon with a degree in Applied Modern Languages. Matthieu is a polyglot, and can speak French, English, German, Spanish and Arabic fluently, and has a basic understanding of Italian, Chinese and Portugese.

Matthieu is a world-traveler, who has not stayed in any one part of the world for longer than three years since graduating from university. He has worked for several newspapers, UNICEF, and held down brief positions with the French Foreign Ministry, Monsanto and Deutsch Bank. He has visited or lived in 82 different nations. Currently, he works as an international fixer, a go-between for the wealthy. He helps Chinese businessmen plan trips to Miami, assists members of the Saudi Royal family buy homes in Macau. He is well-known for his creativity, his problem-solving and his willingness to travel anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat.

Matthieu’s wanderlust is a strong product of his upbringing. Due to his parent’s influence, he’s never felt at home anywhere, and was surprised to find, when he did finally visit Algeria, that he didn’t feel the spiritual connection to it that his parents made it seem like there was.

With an impressive list of contacts, Matthieu can often be choosy about who he works for. He has been blogging his travels for the last two years.

Matthieu is six feet tall, with a short mop of messy black hair, wide brown eyes, a round face and a seemingly permanent five o’clock shadow. Despite the occasionally high-profile nature of his job, he always prefers casual clothes to suits and corporate wear.

Matthieu is distinctly impulsive, occasionally disorganized, and has never planned out his life much more than a month in advance.

Gregarious and kind, Matthieu is a kind of social chameleon, able to fit in equally well at a pub in Cardiff as at a black tie dinner in the Hamptons. He is, however, slow to trust, and his travels mean he has lived much of the last 15 years alone. His relationships are short, and most of his friendships exist on a professional level, rather than a personal one. While he is a adept liar, Matthieu is not without morals, although he fully understands the nature of his work means working with unseemly characters. He simply tries to do the best he can in a business where morals can be a hindrance, not a help.

Matthieu met Kamal in 2011, and eventually found in him someone just like himself, a person who feels that, for whatever reason, they cannot return home, that there is little or nothing for them there, or that they do not have a “home”. Moreover, loathe as he would be to admit it, years of traveling alone had begun to wear on him, and Kamal quickly proved himself invaluable, personally and professionally.