Between Two Worlds

Amiry chats with Rami Zahran ’06, from Palestine, in the coffeehouse.

From an applicant pool of 400, five students were chosen. Amiry was one of them, selected to attend Li Po Chun UWC, where he took courses toward his International Baccalaureate degree. “My old school [in Hong Kong] was so small. We were like a family,” Amiry said, taking off his blue Maine sweatshirt to reveal a red T-shirt from his high school. “Those were the two happiest years of my life.”

At Colby, far from the danger of his homeland, Amiry is now able to concentrate on his studies. The former child laborer has a work-study job behind the main desk at the Olin Science Library.

But at Colby he has different concerns. He worries that he will not fully seize the opportunity in front of him. “These are the great chances,” he said. “I want to be someone in the future”—someone full of wisdom, a diplomat. “[The idea of] failing to be that person, with all of these chances that I’ve got, hurts me now,” he said. “I shouldn’t be sleeping eight hours.” Amiry continues to make Dean’s List.

He also worries about his family. Though he sometimes feels like the media paints a dramatic and selective picture of life in Kabul, he also knows there is danger and is concerned when he hears of suicide bombings. “I think a lot about it,” he said. “I have such an easy life here. I think about it and I get worried.”

With the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the people of Afghanistan were given “a blank sheet, a new start,” Amiry said. These days, Afghanistan remains in the throes of civil unrest as resurging Taliban forces battle the government and NATO troops. There is corruption, people don’t have the same confidence in the government or President Hamid Karzai, and the world community has lost some interest in Afghanistan, he said. Still Amiry said he maintains hope for his country. Life is changing. Afghans have Internet access and are exposed to globalization. They see their country from a different perspective—a global one.

Amiry knows that he can contribute to that perspective through what he has learned since leaving. “I sort of see myself as standing between two worlds and looking at both,” he said. He will take that perspective home with him. When he does, he hopes he will no longer be protected by a bulletproof vest but empowered by his education.

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