I had learnt early in my degree that the United Nations was able to keep skirmishes at a minimum in the 20th century. They used a technique of educating called Alternative to violence program. This program provide each member a way of being heard, the skill of listening has wonderful results. The United Nations world ecological sustainable development budget was only 10% of the 10 trillion dollars we might have spent on conflicts, a substantial saving. The budget provided considerable funds for education and action. Great leaps were made in water, air and biodiversity habitat. Development projects went through a framework that ensured our lands, rivers and the ocean were well protected. I knew I would learn much more about this in Australia. Sustainable management practices is an area where experts from Australia contributed greatly to the world order. I will continue to tell you about Australia’s expertise later in my story. Abdur my mentor, increased my enthusiasm and analysis by his specific request for my research. One of my tasks was to study historic communication records. Particularly from early in the industrial revolution. Abdur asked me to search for the early documents written when the 1st fleet first settled in Sydney Harbour. I wondered what records existed from this time, and where I might find them.
Abdur was interested in what happened to the psyche of people that made them avoid the catastrophe of wars. He wanted me to analyse in detail the physiological changes that he said took place in early Sydney Town. Abdur observed that people seemed to wake up from their customary greed solutions based at this time. He had an hypothesis that certain events in Australia had led to significant changes in human behaviour, even an evolution in humans thinking. My behaviour, I felt was attributed to a childhood in nature. Later the study of ecology at school gave me an escape from my personal struggles. I developed a deep passion for all books about ecosystems and plant relationships. I would stroll through forests with a keen eye on flora and fauna, here I felt serenity.
As a smaller child the fascination of insects, toadstools, in the leaf litter around trees kept me busy for hours. There was also the bigger animals I saw occasionally in the distance like Deer. Once when I was 3 years old my father took me in the mountains very early in the morning with a pop gun. I remember thinking I am a hunter, and he went along with the game. As we crept up the mountain path we saw up on a rock a snow leopard, he was looking at us intensely. Its times like these that are locked in our minds. I always loved my father for experiencing these things together. Afghanistan is such a safe place for children to roam. I wonder is this a why I had a less greed based focus?
One day Abdur called me in to his messy office. Here he had books from floor to ceiling on every wall. On the floor was stacks of books and student assignments. He asked me to sit in an old but comfortable chair opposite him at his messy table. I did notice is that despite the mess there was no dust, he was obviously moving all those documents, whilst feverously doing his work. He looked me in the eye with deep penetration. I knew something was up and I started to get a little nervous. He said “Sharbat, I have found an important task for you. I need your full efforts to make a discovery, it will require a very different effort from what you have been doing in Kabul. Before telling you what it is, will you commit to helping me?” Weather it was foolishness or my adventurous nature I instinctively said Yes, without knowing any more. He exclaimed “good! and told me I needed to spend some time on the other side of the world, to Australia”. Now that’s quite a change for me and I realised then that I was about to experience a lot of different emotions. On the one hand I was excited, another reaction was why?, and what for?, this gave me a confused feeling. He then said ,”I have another meeting just now, we will have to talk about this later”. As Abdur was talking to me I could feel my emotions swell, I could feel my muscles particularly in my face moving. I knew he noticed all these expressions and would only wish me the best. I sat up and walked to the door in a state of confusion. I remembered Bilbo Baggins saying “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door”.
For a few weeks I had difficulty sleeping, not that I felt bad, I had a positive stress. It was going to be an exhilarating experience and I anticipate an huge expansion of my knowledge. Afghanistan and Australia are on opposite sides of the world. My childhood memories of falling out of a tree kept me thinking “here we go again”. I think fear and happiness are both sides of the same coin. It’s like melancholy something else I experience from, time to time. It and depression are like dark chocolate, addictive yet demoralising. Melancholy can give you acute life awareness, I have developed a healthy outlook to these feelings. I put these emotions of mine down to what confronted me by watching my parents disjointed relationship. Now I was confronted with a decision. Do I start a task so big as to change my life and leave my comfortable home town of Kabul or do I take the easy road and stay. In the end it was my mischievous nature that made me do the risky things. I again needed life’s intensity, perhaps suffering. Australia here I come, it was the lure of dark chocolate.
Deer in Afganistan