Ellice Mol

Documentaries, radio features and words by Ellice Mol

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When my lover became my carer

By ELLICE MOL (Originally published on SBS Life)

Most couples have difficulties balancing work, family and friends, making time for each other, making decisions and paying bills. But when one of you has a disability or serious illness things can get a lot tougher. 

Photo credit: Jessamine Chen

Like any couple falling in love, we were crazy about each other. We cuddled, stayed up late, made love. We wrote songs and connected over a mutual love of grammar and words. We laughed for hours. Nothing to worry about. We had finally found each other. We were lucky. Very lucky.

Rhys was at university when we got together. Planking had gone viral and Charlie Sheen was ‘bi-winning’. I had just returned from Afghanistan where I had been working as a journalist.

I was run down. My specialist, who had seen me as a patient for at least seven years, but could never remember my name, asked if I’d ever thought about having a lung transplant. I wasn’t worried. I’d been dangerously unwell before but I’d always pulled through. It was all part of the package of cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic condition that affects the lungs and digestion. It’ll pass, I thought.

Meanwhile my relationship was moving fast. After five months Rhys and I decided to move in together. In our apartment, under the flight path, Rhys became familiar with the chaos that comes with CF.

My lung function had been stable at 30 per cent for the past 10 years and according to my specialists I was unusually ‘high functioning’. But by our six month anniversary my lung function had dropped to an alarming 19 per cent. I could no longer climb stairs, hang out washing or lift shopping bags. I started to depend on Rhys for help with all those domestic chores.

Rhys watched me deteriorate. I struggled to get out of bed most days. He would cook delicious feasts to entice me to eat but I had lost my appetite and was fading away.

Rhys started coming to my clinic appointments. The doctor ignored him – I suppose he thought it wasn’t worth the effort. But Rhys quietly observed and heard what I couldn’t bring myself to admit. I was dying.

When I was told I had a 50 per cent chance of surviving unless I received a transplant soon, Rhys, who had become my advocate and my carer, was left out of the discussion. He was upset when he found out. I was furious and felt like I was being forced to have a transplant. But my health was the worst it had ever been. My quality of life had slipped and now that I was with someone I cared about the decision wasn’t just about me anymore. I finally accepted that if I wanted a future with Rhys I would need a transplant.

Back at home we were becoming even more isolated. We didn’t see much of our friends. I couldn’t be out for more than a few hours before my body was swathed in pain. I was barely hanging on. I developed social anxiety. I could barely speak due to constant chest and throat infections. Rhys became fluent in my subtle cues that would signal when I needed him to speak on my behalf.

We were introduced to a new team of doctors at a new hospital that specialises in heart and lung transplants. To our relief we were warmly welcomed at the new clinic. The staff learned my name immediately. They made a special effort to invite Rhys to all the appointments. Rhys did a thorough job of asking the doctors all the questions I’d forgotten to ask. They offered him support. I saw a psychiatrist for my anxiety. The heavy load suddenly became a little bit lighter.

Once I had finished an all-consuming round of tests, known as the ‘work up’, spread out over eight months, Rhys and I had some space to work on our relationship. The trouble was I could hardly breathe. There were times when the only use for sharing a bed was so Rhys could hear that I was still alive. Every day I worried that he might find it too hard and walk away. Some days I even wished he would. The physical chemistry we had gave way to emotional dependence. We were both grieving for the relationship we once had.

My health worsened to the point where Rhys had to carry me up the two flights of stairs to our apartment. My reserves were empty and our relationship was fraught. I’m not sure whose life was more shit.

There were times when the only use for sharing a bed was so Rhys could hear that I was still alive.

By the middle of winter 2012 I was officially listed for a lung transplant. All we had to do was wait. We weren’t sure how long it would take. Maybe one day, maybe five years. The match would depend on blood type, tissue type and size. I was smaller than average so I might have to wait longer. We agreed to stop thinking about it and enjoy the days we had left together. We shared brief moments of joy and laughter. The relationship was still worth fighting for.

Seven weeks later I got the call we were expecting: a match. It was a huge surprise and even though I was so desperate for the transplant we weren’t really prepared for it. Rhys and I sat on the edge of our bed, holding hands waiting for the ambulance to arrive to take me to the hospital. Once we got there I was prepped for theatre and was suddenly faced with having to say goodbye to Rhys, perhaps for the last time. We said our goodbyes and he watched me as I was wheeled in my bed through the doors to the operating theatre.

I woke up a day and a half later with a breathing tube in my mouth. I knew everything was going to be ok the moment I saw Rhys’ smiling face. My mum was with him and she was smiling too.

It was a slow and critical path to recovery and Rhys was with me every step of the way. He witnessed the pain, the tears, the medication-induced rage, the hallucinations, the moment when I got my appetite back and shamefully scoffed a Mrs Macs pie at the hospital cafeteria, the moment when I took my first walk around the ward and the moment I was told I had a bleed near my heart and would have to go back to theatre for another risky operation. After two weeks he brought me home and the real healing began.

On the first anniversary of my transplant I ran in Sydney’s famous City to Surf. It’s now been four years since a generous donor saved my life.

Rhys’ kindness and strength endures. He is my best friend and my heart is full of love for him. We are back to where we were before I got sick and in celebration of our renewed life together we brought a puppy into our home. He reminds us every day that life is fun and worth living. There are still some health-related challenges but we know how to do it now. I’m not sure what the secret is to holding on to a relationship through an experience like ours but I do know that we never lost hope and we never stopped loving each other.

As seen on SBS Life

Love the story? Follow the author here: Twitter @EleechiMo, Instagram @EleechiMo.

© Ellice Mol 2016

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The 5 hardest things about an organ transplant

By ELLICE MOL (Originally published on SBS Life)

A double-lung transplant is an incredibly fraught and invasive procedure. But the physical trauma and subsequent pain are only parts of the long struggle before and after a transplant.

Image: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory - PNNL

Acceptance and uncertainty

At 27, I was faced with the difficult decision to undergo a risky double-lung transplant, which may extend my life by anything from one-to-20 years or more, or do nothing and have a 50 per cent chance of dying within two years.

Although my chances looked better with a transplant, the outcome was still uncertain. But my health was diminishing so I reluctantly accepted that the course of my life was uncertain. I slowly accepted that I was too sick to work or take care of myself. As I lost the ability to concentrate and write, my life and career plans were put on hold. I was a radio journalist but when I got sick I became unable to project my voice and sometimes even talk due to the difficulties I had breathing. Acceptance and giving up, however, are not the same thing. I never gave up.

The time immediately after the transplant

I woke up with a tube down my throat, unable to talk, unable to move. The high doses of pain medication gave no relief. It was only a matter of time before I was offered an epidural. During the operation, my sternum had been cracked and my chest opened nearly 10cm in order to replace my lungs with healthy ones. But it wasn’t over yet.

A few days later I returned to surgery with a bleed near my heart. I was also given high doses of steroids and anti-rejection medication for the first time, which was a shock to my body. The new cocktail of drugs caused me to hallucinate, have wild mood swings and visceral nightmares that still seemed real 10 minutes after I had woken up. And on top of all that, someone had died to save my life, which made the mind games even harder to bear.

"Acceptance and giving up, however, are not the same thing. I never gave up."

Telling people

You don't look sick; you're too young to need a lung transplant; you need to get more exercise; just think positive; there's a natural cure for everything have you looked on Google? These are just a handful of the comments I received on the days that I was brave enough to leave the house.

A few of my good friends had trouble understanding the reality of what was happening to me and it was difficult to explain my situation because not many people really understood what it was like to be so close to death.

It seems that society shies away from discussions of death and dying. As a result I developed anxiety, a fear of going out and avoided people who I knew would offer solutions that were laughable at best and medically reckless at worst.

At 27, I was faced with the difficult decision to undergo a risky double-lung transplant, which may extend my life by anything from one-to-20 years or more, or do nothing and have a 50 per cent chance of dying within two years.

Although my chances looked better with a transplant, the outcome was still uncertain. But my health was diminishing so I reluctantly accepted that the course of my life was uncertain. I slowly accepted that I was too sick to work or take care of myself. As I lost the ability to concentrate and write, my life and career plans were put on hold. I was a radio journalist but when I got sick I became unable to project my voice and sometimes even talk due to the difficulties I had breathing. Acceptance and giving up, however, are not the same thing. I never gave up.

The time immediately after the transplant

I woke up with a tube down my throat, unable to talk, unable to move. The high doses of pain medication gave no relief. It was only a matter of time before I was offered an epidural. During the operation, my sternum had been cracked and my chest opened nearly 10cm in order to replace my lungs with healthy ones. But it wasn’t over yet.

A few days later I returned to surgery with a bleed near my heart. I was also given high doses of steroids and anti-rejection medication for the first time, which was a shock to my body. The new cocktail of drugs caused me to hallucinate, have wild mood swings and visceral nightmares that still seemed real 10 minutes after I had woken up. And on top of all that, someone had died to save my life, which made the mind games even harder to bear.

"Acceptance and giving up, however, are not the same thing. I never gave up."

Photo credit: Jessamine Chen

Staying positive

In the lead up to my transplant, it was hard to imagine how good life could one day be. My energy was spent getting through day-to-day challenges, such as climbing the stairs to my apartment and the four hours I spent each day on nebulisers and breathing exercises, as I hung my hopes on some faint notion of things being better in the future. But when I got the call for the transplant and I came out the other side, it was better than I had ever imagined.

I went from constant breathlessness and exhaustion to being able to run within a few short months of the operation. I even ran the City2Surf with my dad. And the benefits didn’t end there. My appetite returned for the first time in years. If I needed something from the shops, I was free to go and get it. I could sing a whole bar and actually hold the notes without getting breathless. Believing in a better future, even if you can barely imagine it, was one of the things that got me through the worst of the bad days.

Connecting with my donor

When I got my new lungs, I imagined the person that donated them to me. I was deeply aware of their presence and wondered what had happened to them. But in Australia, the identity of both the organ recipient and the donor are kept private. Contact between the recipient and the donor’s family, however, can be facilitated through an intermediary. After my initial recovery, I decided to write a letter to my donor’s family to thank them for their kindness and generosity and for taking away my pain. I wanted them to know that their loss hadn’t been for nothing.

To my surprise I received a reply a few weeks later. My joy turned to grief as they opened up about the person they had lost. I was heartbroken. They said they were happy and so proud of me. It wasn’t until I read that bittersweet letter that the full magnitude of what had happened hit me. I suddenly found meaning in what had transpired and became very connected to my donor. It was the hardest letter I ever read but it was also the greatest. I think about my donor every day and it makes me more determined to live my best life.

If you wish to be an organ donor, discuss your wishes with your family. Organ donation is the ultimate act of loving kindness, and it brings tremendous comfort to the donor’s family to know that their loved one could offer a second chance at life to so many deserving people with families and loved ones of their own. Through organ donation you could transform the lives of up to 10 people.

As seen on SBS Life

Ellice is a writer and advocate for organ donation. She ran in the City2Surf on the first anniversary of her double-lung transplant raising money for the Australian Heart Lung Transplant Association.

Love the story? Follow the author here: Twitter @EleechiMo, Instagram EleechiMo.

© Ellice Mol 2016

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The Connection (2014) Feature documentary produced by Elemental Media ELLICE MOL: Associate Producer

This film explores the latest scientific evidence for a connection between the mind and body. See The Connection Documentary website for more information.

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She was told she wouldn't live to see her 30th birthday. But an organ donation saved her life.

By ELLICE MOL (Originally published on Mamamia) A little over a year ago I was severely underweight, my lung function was at 19 per cent, and I could barely walk a few steps without stopping to rest. I was born with a genetic illness called Cystic Fibrosis, a life-threatening disease that affects the lungs. A lung transplant is often the last resort to prolong the life of a person with CF. By 2012 I had quit my full-time job as a journalist and producer, and life as I knew it became a lot harder. I was 27 and had been in a relationship with my boyfriend Rhys just shy of a year, when doctors told me I would not see my thirtieth birthday without a bi-lateral lung transplant. I’d been waiting for that day my whole life. Rhys was incredibly supportive and without a second thought, he essentially became my carer. But it was a tough time for us – we were young, and felt like we still had so much of our lives ahead of us. As my health declined sharply, we tried to remain upbeat and focus on all of the amazing things we’d do after my transplant. In 2012, I was put on the transplant waiting list and just seven weeks later I received the call I had desperately been waiting for – a suitable pair of lungs had become available, donated by a stranger whose own life had been cut short. An ambulance rushed me to the hospital and before I knew it I was in theatre. There wasn’t even time to see my family to kiss them goodbye. After seven hours in surgery, I opened my eyes and saw the joy on Rhys and mum’s face as they stood by my side. For the first time I breathed with ease. My healthy new lungs were perfect.

I was excited about the possibilities the future held, and found a new lease on life, but the months that followed the transplant weren’t easy. Recovery was slow. I was very swollen and in pain for many months after the surgery. Eventually, I was able to start exercising and each day my strength and fitness improved. I grew out of my old clothes, gaining a very welcome 13 kilograms! Once the worst of the side effects of the medication had subsided, I could focus on everything I wanted to achieve. Since receiving my new lungs, I’ve travelled to Vietnam, graduated with my Masters degree, been appointed to an exciting new full-time role, and in honour of my donor, I ran in Sydney’s famous City2Surf a year after my transplant. It’s difficult to express how grateful I am to my donor, and their family who generously thought of others in the midst of their own personal tragedy. Their selfless gift has given me my life back. During DonateLife Week, I’m encouraging families to discuss their organ and tissue donation decisions with their families. The opportunity to donate organs is rare – only around one per cent of people will die in hospital in the specific circumstances where organ donation is possible. In Australia, family members must always confirm the donation decision of their deceased loved one before donation for transplantation can go ahead. That’s why it’s so important to discuss your organ and tissue donation decision with your family, and to ask and know their decisions, too – it’s a conversation that could one day save lives.  Ellice is a journalist and content producer. She recently ran Sydney’s famous City2Surf to celebrate her first ‘transplanniversary’. She can be followed on Twitter at @Eleechimo. As seen on Mamamia 

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My amazing race (2013) Feature article published in Women's Fitness Magazine By ELLICE MOL 

This feature article about my lung transplant, recovery and running in the City2surf was published in the February 2013 issue of  Women’s Fitness Magazine.

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Hosting confidential (2012) Web series produced by Elemental Media commissioned by Fairfax Media ELLICE MOL: Associate Producer.

Follow this link to view an episode of Hosting Confidential.

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Love on the transplant list

Just finished watching a confronting doco that I can very much relate to. It's an amazing story of a remarkable couple whose love is tested to the very edge of life. Kirstie is 21 years old, born with cystic fibrosis, who is told she has six months to live unless she receives a lung transplant. Click here for the BBC site or see below.

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Produced by ELLICE MOL. Originally broadcast on Correspondents Report, ABC Radio National.

There are many dangers, obvious dangers associated with travelling to Afghanistan at this particular point in time - there are snipers to avoid and roadside bombs to dodge. But if you happen to be a Western women then your journey can be even more fraught, as freelance journalist Ellice Mol discovered.

Report: Ellice Mol  www.abc.net.au | © Australian Broadcasting Corporation

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Afghanistan’s wounded remain a sorepoint

By ELLICE MOL

I knew I was in for an adventure when I arrived in Kabul. But looking down at my foot hanging limp from my leg, and exposing my ass in the middle of a crowded and dusty Afghan road, wasn’t the kind of adventure I had in mind.   The day this all happened was the day before the Kabul Conference, where world leaders including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were in town to map out the future of the war-riddled country. Security, even more than usual, was tight. The city was on alert. The main arterial roads were closed and people advised to stay at home. It was mid-summer and I had just arrived in Kabul, to work on an assignment with friend and fellow journalist, Travis Beard. I was captivated by the city. Families crowding into cars, burqa-clad women, sometimes five or six squeezed into the back. Kalashnikovs slung over the shoulder of every uniformed man, surveying the dusty streets. Traffic at a standstill held up by convoys of towering military tanks and SUV’s, travelling through the city. The tell-tale sounds of Kabul - horns tooting, helicopters overhead, and prayer music. Travis and I left the house on the motorbike, to spend an afternoon exploring the city and picking up supplies for our new project. I heard the crash before I felt it, on what seemed an empty street on the journey to Finest, one of Kabul’s western supermarkets. There was a loud howl. The bike spilled to the ground skidding several meters on the dusty road. I couldn’t see what had struck us because my face was tangled in my headscarf. Confounded, as to why pain was surging through my body, I began to wonder if I’d been shot. Maybe Travis had been shot? Still attached to the bike, he spun around to check on me. “Are you OK?” “I am OK”, I lied. Shock was hiding the true extent of the pain. “We’ve been hit by a car,” Travis said, a slight understatement given it was a four tonne armoured SUV designed to resist roadside bombs. Our motorcycle hadn’t even made a scratch, let alone a dent. Travis and I soon realised that my foot, like the motorbike, had come off second best. An open wound mangled and contaminated with dirt and gravel. As Travis helped me onto the ground, onto my good foot, I saw my left foot, bereft of any skin or structural support that held everything in place, limply hanging from my leg; disgorging sinew and tendons and pissing blood. Two Russian occupants got out of their vehicle and began yelling accusations at us in Russian. They were from the Russian embassy. The commotion attracted a crowd of Afghans, speculating, in Dari, over what they were witnessing. In shock I began shouting ‘hospital, hospital!’ at the puzzled onlookers. In an attempt to move the bike off the road and out of the way, Travis momentarily left me as I hopped on my good foot. The onlookers did not reach out, probably out of deference of local sensitivities to women. After thirty years of civil war and invasion from foreign forces, what else is there to do but bear witness?   Someone did reach out – a Russian diplomat, wearing a crisp clean shirt. He tried to lead me to his car. Fearing I was being kidnapped, I panicked. Travis returned to assure me they had offered to drive us to the hospital, in the Goliath-like vehicle that hit us. The Japanese-funded hospital on the Ministry of Interior Road was only a few hundred metres away. When we arrived, Travis lifted me onto a bed inside a dimly lit room. It looked like a set from the old television show, M*A*S*H. Travis squeezed my bloodied hand. At the same time the policeman, who entered the room with us, pointed out a tear in the backside of my brown cotton trousers. Suddenly my headscarf was yanked off my shoulders and wrapped around my bottom; better a woman’s head be seen than a naked buttock, a cultural difference that seemed insignificant to me when I was woozy with shock and blood loss. In Afghanistan, women must cover their rear with loose non-fitting clothing in public at all times. It is believed that women should occupy separate quarters in public and remain veiled to maintain social order. Values held by Afghan society, reinforce these gender roles. So do prying Afghan policemen. However, the doctors who administered the first aid ignored the hole in my pants, and focused on treating my injury. They soon realised the repairs were beyond their expertise. We were told an orthopaedic surgeon at Wazir Akbar Khan hospital, would be able to help. With this new knowledge Travis loaded me into a wheelchair to take me outside with the prerogative of negotiating another ride from the Russians. Outside, the policeman investigating the incident was talking to the crowd of Afghans, who might have been witnesses, and the Russians. We became the centre of a heated debate in Russian, Dari and broken English over who was responsible for the incident. Not knowing the language, I sat in the wheelchair, in the dust, watching my bandaged foot drip blood onto Travis’ boots. “In Afghan law,” Travis whispered to me, “the larger vehicle is always at fault.” Seeing as we were hit from behind I thought it was obvious that we weren’t at fault, but really, I didn’t care at that stage. I just wanted to get to the hospital. Finally we were back in the vehicle, travelling again, toward Kabul's major hospital in Wazir Akbar Khan. At the hospital I was taken into the women’s emergency room to be examined and have my foot x-rayed. I noticed two female Afghan nurses sitting on the bed waiting for something to do. Their eyes widened at my arrival. The unscrupulous policeman hadn’t left my side throughout the ordeal and was pushing me to answer his ‘important’ questions about my marital status. I wondered what this had to do with his investigation. I now know that a married woman earns more respect than a single woman. It is always best for a woman to say she is married even if she is not. After a great deal of persistent questioning, I told him Travis was my husband. He remained suspicious of my story and continued to seek out the truth, slowing down the progress of the doctors. He tried to explain to me in limited English that my family would not be happy about this accident and I should press charges against my ‘husband’ for trying to kill me. Trying to kill me I guess, by having an SUV crash into the rear of his motorbike! The policeman, with his big miscreant grin, urged me to make a statement, to confirm his aforementioned conclusion. In that moment of immense frustration I yelled at him to leave me alone. I sat on the hospital trolley in the room, alone, wondering how it all got to this. And why was no-one attending to my deformed foot? It took a series of documents to be signed and stamped, and my bill paid up-front, the equivalent of $US6.00, before any surgery could start. X-Rays showed my foot was fractured and on further inspection doctors discovered the tendons in my foot were severed. I was taken up to the second floor surgery, via a rickety lift. Travis left me at the door of the theatre. Going into surgery I asked the doctor if I would be able to walk again. He smiled and said, ‘Yes, you will run!’ In the theatre I was given a tetanus shot for the open wound. I also had a shot of anti-viral drugs and anti-bacterial drugs, plus a sedative for the pain. Word had spread throughout the hospital that there was an injured foreign woman. It was seemingly mandated for every doctor to drop by theatre for a look. About a dozen doctors passed through, each asking the same dozen questions. Even though I had the urge to supervise the work to my foot, I gritted my teeth with pain and feebly answered the visitors' questions. The doctors, in their wisdom, told me to lie back and relax! After the last stitch was painfully tied off, a plaster cast was moulded on my foot. My situation was starting to look better. But where was Travis? He had disappeared from the waiting room, replaced by Hamid, an Afghan friend I knew. “Where’s Travis?” I asked. “He’s been arrested,” Hamid replied. The doctor told me I would have to make a statement at the police station to have him released. However, there was a catch. I couldn’t be discharged from hospital, without my husband’s permission - a trifle difficult considering he was in a police cell.  After a great deal of persistence Hamid managed to get hold of Travis on his mobile phone at the police station. He handed the phone to the doctor, who accepted Travis’ verbal permission to discharge me.  I was carried out of hospital on a stretcher. Hamid and his friend Gulistan, who had kindly brought a car, were forced to carry me nearly a kilometre to where he had parked, due to the oppressive security that day. Unlike the Russians, Gulistan didn’t have diplomatic number plates. An hour later across town I was brought to the police station where Travis was detained. In the meantime he had negotiated his way out of incarceration. After all this, the same policeman investigating the incident deemed it necessary to accompany us back to the house where we lived. The ordeal was soon over, despite his lingering suspicions, when I signed a statement translated into Dari saying I was married to Travis and that he was NOT trying to kill me.

How lucky I was to be alive. As a foreign women caught in a perilous situation in Afghanistan, I felt so fortunate to be accompanied by men who knew the score. But some Afghans aren’t so lucky. The week after my accident, Afghans rioted near the US embassy in Kabul, after a NATO military vehicle moving in a convoy crashed into a civilian car, killing four people. Although the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) promised an investigation, rumours later emerged that the team involved in the incident were immediately flown out of the country. This is not an isolated incident. A similar crash led to large-scale riots in Kabul in May 2006, leaving at least 14 civilians dead. Mr Daniele Riggio, Public Diplomacy and Information Officer for Afghanistan, offered some hope at a NATO Afghan student forum in Istanbul last year. “There is a tactical directive to minimize the risk of civilian causalities and there is also a driving directive because security parameters should not allow you, pardon my French, to drive like a jerk” he said. As for me, I have returned to Australia. After many doctor visits I now know the true extent of my injuries; complex, multiple fractures known as a Lisfranc fracture, and two severed tendons. I can walk again although it has taken six months to get back on my feet. I have a large impressive winged shaped scar on my foot, which I am told will fade, but I quite like the idea that it will be there forever. No scar, no story. My adventure was not so unique as many Afghans lose their lives in road accidents every day. I’ve since revisited Afghanistan despite the trauma of the event, because I had some great experiences there. Only now whenever I set off on my adventures I MUST promise my family I will be more careful.

Ellice is a freelance journalist, editor, and radio broadcaster. Contact her via email. 

 © Ellice Mol

[leechie]

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The Fifth NATO Afghan Students Forum has come to an end in Istanbul, Turkey.  

More than 40 young participants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, Europe and North America met for lively discussions and workshops to map out the future of Afghanistan. Special guests 'Kabul dreams', the first Afghan Indie rock band, performed for the crowd, at the international forum. An example of unity between Afghan ethnicities, the band are a source of hope for young people in Afghanistan. Of the 48 countries who have sent troops to Afghanistan, 23 are NATO member countries.

Report: Ellice Mol   www.dw-world.de | © Deutsche Welle

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German-funded school takes creative approach to helping Afghanistan rebuild

Afghanistan's nascent democracy may be taking hold, but decades of conflict and civil unrest have left its cultural heritage and institutions rather worse for wear.

The simple pleasure of playing music was forbidden under Taliban rule between 1996 and 2001. In recent years, though, Afghanistan's music scene has experienced a revival. One of the institutions that's had a hand in that revival is the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul, where under-privileged children can receive a musical education.

The Institute is largely funded by international donors, among them Germany, which shipped nearly five tons of musical instruments to Kabul. What's more, the Goethe Institute supports the employment of Afghan music teachers, training for music technicians and scholarships for orphans through funds provided by the German Foreign Office.

Report: Ellice Mol   www.dw-world.de | © Deutsche Welle

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International Women's Museums Conference meets in Bonn

Since the early 1980s, women's museums have been established in many countries around the world to promote equal rights as well as alternative perspectives on arts and history.

Women's museums house collections of stories, photographs, artifacts and memorabilia relating to women and their cultures. Participants from four continents and more than 20 countries attended the second international women's museum conference, which took place in Bonn, to exchange experiences and gain new insights and inspiration.

Report: Ellice Mol   www.dw-world.de | © Deutsche Welle

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Produced by ELLICE MOL

We often question the origin of commodities like meat and dairy products, but have you ever wondered where your chocolate comes from? The Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer, providing 43% of the world's supply. Harvesting cocoa is intensive, back-breaking work, which for centuries was a job done by the world's poorest labourers. The declining cost of cocoa beans has now led to the work being done by West African children. Carol Off has documented the practices of slavery and the tainted history of cocoa in her recent book, Bitter Chocolate, Investigating the dark side of the world’s most seductive sweet.

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Animal farming and greenhouse gas emissions

Produced by ELLICE MOL for The Science Show on ABC Radio National

Beef production has adverse environmental effects. In addition to impact on land and water, cattle, being ruminant animals produce methane, emitted from both ends. This accounts for one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions. Ellice Mol reports on the latest accounting of greenhouse gases from animal farming, and how these emissions can be reduced.

Transcript

Robyn Williams: Did you know that agriculture accounts for about a third of emissions but is nonetheless left out of most of the schemes. Is this wise? Ellice Mol reports.

Ellice Mol: The biggest sector of agricultural emissions is livestock and the gases produced from both ends of cattle as they digest their feed.

Tony McMichael: Globally the livestock industry at large and particularly beef cattle industry has a major impact on the world's environment.

Ellice Mol: Professor Tony McMichael from the Australian National University.

Tony McMichael: The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation produced a report in 2006 called 'Livestock's Long Shadow' and they're making the argument that the impact of intensive forms of beef production around the world is affecting fresh water supplies, affecting the use and the sustainability of land, and of course is contributing to climate change via the energy that goes into the sector and in particular the methane gas that is produced by cattle as ruminant animals in the course of fermentation of their diet. Already livestock production around the world is doing a lot of damage to local environments and accounts for about one-fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions when you look at that sector as a whole. So it's a major environmental problem that is already pushing us beyond sustainable limits.

Ellice Mol: Farmers have always had to cope with climate variability, as Katrina Sinclair, research economist with the NSW Department of Primary Industries, explains.

Katrina Sinclair: Over the last ten years there's been an increase in the amount of fodder that they're storing as a risk management strategy because they've been exposed to these very dry years in a row. They've experienced some bad years, and we've got farmers here that are already storing more fodder. They've been starting to grow more prairie grass, increasing the acreage. So farmers are making changes and it doesn't strictly sit under the banner of climate change, it's in response to how the seasons have been.

Ellice Mol: With a reprieve from the drought in sight, the Australian cattle herd is projected to rebuild over the next few years, which means livestock emissions will increase. The Department of Climate Change estimates the number of grass-fed beef cattle in Australia will reach 28.7 million head by 2020, the highest it's ever been. Professor Tony McMichael says the current level of meat consumption is unsustainable.

Tony McMichael: The world is on a trajectory at the moment for levels of meat consumption that is simply not sustainable with current methods of production. Indeed, the G8 meeting has very recently said that in order to meet demand it's likely that meat production would have to increase by 80% by the year 2030. Frankly, that's not sustainable, and I think environmental scientists in the Food and Agricultural Organisation recognise this.

The other thing that can be done of course is to radically change some of the production methods for producing ruminant animals, cattle and sheep for example. And third, we could actually switch our meat preferences to other types of animals, and in Australia that would include eating an increasing proportion of kangaroo meat.

Ellice Mol: How is the consumption of kangaroo better for the environment?

Tony McMichael: First, it's basically a healthier meat. Human bodies are well attuned to consuming lean game meat. We've evolved to eat it over two million years. It has a much lower content of saturated fat, much more of what we call fish oils, the unsaturated omega 3 fatty acids that are actually good for us. Second, the kangaroos are not ruminants, they don't ferment their food in the way that cattle and sheep do and they don't produce the vast amounts of methane gas which is such a potent greenhouse gas, many times more potent than carbon dioxide. And third, of course, they tread much more lightly on the Australian environment, they're not cloven-hoofed animals and they don't damage our topsoils.

Ellice Mol: However, as population growth steadily increases, Tony McMichael says the global demand for meat and dairy products is set to have a major impact on the environment.

Tony McMichael: We have a serious problem arising in the world with respect to the levels of meat consumption in a world that is becoming increasingly over-populated. At the moment the international average is of the order of 100 grams of meat a day. In America it's over 300, in Africa it's less than 30. If we were to have a population of nine billion by the year 2050 and we were to have huge developing countries like China, India, Brazil, Mexico, all intending to eat meat at that sort of level, the amount of meat we would have to produce in the world would be extraordinarily greater than today, more than double.

Ellice Mol: Dr Van Zwieten says the agriculture sector will need to adopt new farming methods to cope with climate change as the demand for food increases.

Lukas Van Zwieten: Farming will have to do better than what it is at the moment because human population is increasing, we all need to eat, and the demand for food globally is certainly increasing. So we just need to look at ways of doing things better, and new farming methods are always being developed. We've got lots of people on the ground doing research, working with farmers to try and improve the system.

Ellice Mol: Cattle are just part of the problem. The use of fertiliser in crop production is also a major contributor to harmful emissions. Research conducted by Lukas Van Zwieten and his team has led to a pasture improvement product known as biochar made from plant and animal waste. The process also creates a source of renewable energy.

Lukas Van Zwieten: Conversion from tilled cropping systems through to pasture has been established to increase carbon content in soil, thereby sequestering carbon. Our particular angle is conversion of the labile carbons in the forms of animal manures or in the forms of plant material such as cellulose and lignin into more permanent forms of carbon. We call it biochar. In that whole process we're converting some of that carbon into energy, so electricity, and also into a very stable form of carbon which should be able to be traded on the carbon market.

Ellice Mol: This technology could harness 7 million tonnes of bio-waste that exists in NSW alone.

Lukas Van Zwieten: Wastes that are currently going to landfill include things like bio-solids, include green wastes, include domestic wastes such as paper and food scraps, by-product forestry residue. We've got animal feedlot manures, we've got paper mill wastes, just to name a few. We've got wastes from the macadamia industry, we've got wastes from the rice industry. All sorts of agricultural and urban wastes can potentially be put through the pyrolysis unit which converts those biomasses into electricity through the conversion of the biomass into flammable gas which can get turned into electricity and also biochar.

Ellice Mol: Emissions from landfill account for 13% of global greenhouse gases. It's the second largest source of methane after emissions from cows. While researchers are still working on methods to reduce methane emissions from cattle, the technology to reduce methane from landfill already exists.

Lukas Van Zwieten: Well, the technology is ready to go now. I guess we're just in the final stages of proving the methodology up. We've recently commenced a scoping study for the north coast of NSW to have a look at the volume of biomass that's available for slow pyrolysis in the region. We're looking at the price of electricity, we're looking at the potential price that we might get for the biochar. So once all of these figures start aligning, business will come in and we'll start dictating the implementation of these new technologies.

Robyn Williams: Lukas Van Zwieten, senior research scientist at the NSW Department of Primary Industries. And that report by Ellice Mol.

This story was originally broadcast on The Science Show on ABC Radio National

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Three Australian aid workers have developed a new educational program for Afghan youth - the main attraction - skateboards. Skatistan is a project funded by International sponsors. Featured in story: Travis Beard, Australian Aid Worker

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Kosovo's declaration of independence at the weekend has sparked a division between nations. While Britain, Germany and the USA have recognised it's new found independence, Kosovo's secession has been rejected by Serbia and other European countries. How will the new nation survive in this brave new world? Featured in story: Dr Felix Patrikeeff from the Department of Politics at the University of Adelaide.

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Stage right for new chases

Chris Taylor’s made a name and face for himself with his Chaser mates, and continues to push the boundaries, ELLICE MOL writes.

By ELLICE MOL (Originally published in the Canberra Times)

IT’S ALL action on the set of The Chaser’s War on Everything, which features an enormous dart board, a giant cricket bat and a small scale model of a Trojan horse. Andrew Hansen has been taken to hospital vomiting, so rehearsals are running behind schedule. Chris Taylor has stepped in to take Andrew’s place in the segment. “What we have learnt from current affairs this week”.

Taylor reads off the autocue, the script intended for Hansen. Both Chas Licciardello and Taylor are editing the script as they go.

“Sadly there’s no Andrew this week as he was detained by security at the Logies, but I’m very privileged to warm the seat,” Taylor reads, with a distinct nasal resonance.

Taylor went to an all-boys private school in Sydney, which might explain his flawless articulate. For our interview he sits on the edge of his seat ready to answer questions. He’s dressed in jeans and a dark long sleeve shirt, much the same as what he wears when filming The Chaser, but on this day he’s wearing glasses.

He talks confidently and openly about his schooling. “It’s not a school I have much respect for but in many ways it was the making of me,” he says. “I think it was the comedian Peter Cook, who said there’s nothing like a private school for making a good satirist. There are only two possible responses you can have if you go to a school like that. You can submit to it entirely, and believe that rowing and rugby are the most marvelous things on earth, or you can recognise it for a very artificial anachronism that it is. Luckily I was in the latter and had a good bunch of mates.”

In the back of classes, Taylore began writing comedy for the first time. “We’d write a sketch a line at a time and you’d pass it along. You’d have to out wit the one before you. This forces you to become very quick and compete against other writers.”

However, he’d never send his children to a single-sex school. “I’d never met a girl till I was 20. It’s more useful to learn social skills than it is to learn algebra.”

These days Taylor is used to performing in front of a live studio audience, but admits he becomes nervous wreck when it comes to confronting public figures. 

“I get very nervous with the street stuff in public or the confrontations of public identity. I get so nervous. Andrew and I won’t do anything confrontational because we’re just not very good at it and we feel deeply insecure and uncomfortable. I’d be a nervous wreck going up to John Howard.”

He says if push comes to shove he could confront the head of Macquarie Bank but he wouldn’t enjoy it. He’d rather work on something more whimsical.

“I don’t mind doing those things like the Mr Darcy piece I did recently, which was just harmless and funny.” He grins.

Taylor completed a journalism degree before he was posted to Melbourne on a five-year ABC cadetship. Having worked as a television reporter Taylor was the only Chaser boy with a genuine news background. “I wonder if that’s the only reason they took me on.”

His achievements on the Chaser have been well documented in the media – along with rumors of their signing to a commercial network.

What everybody doesn’t know is that Taylor has also achieved success with a side project he wrote for an off shoot of the Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 2 Loud. It all began after he got stinkingly drunk at a pub with Wharf 2 Loud curator and actor, Brendan Cowell, when he let slip his secret desire to write something for the stage.  

Subsequently Dead Caesar was written over summer when Taylor was taking a well earned break from the The Chaser’s War on Everything. The premiere of Dead Caesar at the Sydney theatre company sold out. “Thankfully people laughed in all the right places,” Taylor says.

Coming from The Chaser where half hour scripts are churned out as a group and words are treated very disposably, Taylor was happy to be the sole writer for a change.

‘Working with a group of actors, who were giving me feedback, wasn’t dissimilar from The Chaser. The only difference is I was the only writer. I’d always take the feedback of the actors on board just the same as when I bring The Chaser script to the table”.

Having watched Dead Caesar performed on stage in February, Taylor is now preparing to sharpen it up for its return in July. Working as the only writer on Dead Caesar allowed Taylor to play to his own sense of humor.

Each one of his Chaser colleagues, however, has a different sense of humor which Taylor says is probably the strength of the show.  They are all media savvy and have a penchant for comedy but that is where the similarities end.

Craig Reucasssel, very much the family man, is described by Taylor as a back-seat driver. “He’s very much the alpha male – he’d lean over the desk and just point to buttons,” Taylor recalls from his time working with Craig on Triple J. “Chas [Licciardello] is an eccentric person and there’s no denying it,” he says with a laugh. Taylor says Julian Morrow’s “a very anal, pro-gadget type person, whereas Andrew is very dry and musically brilliant, a closet Dr Who collector.”

Taylor is more reserved. He admits he’s not the life of the party. And although he always knew he was a funny writer, he was never really one to tell gags at a party.

He and his Chaser colleagues spend 6½ days a week working together so it makes sense that their days off are spent apart.

While the others might spend the time off with their families Taylor likes to go out more. He loves music and movies.

On his half day off he likes to sleep. “We get really run-down and exhausted on the show so if I get a half-day off on a Saturday I’ll probably sleep for a lot of it.”

So how important is it to satirise authority figures? Taylor thinks for a minute, and says, he doesn’t really like the word “important”.

Nothing’s really important. “I think every healthy democratic society should encourage irreverence and ridicule and lampooning of authority figures.” He doesn’t think The Chaser has any political influence. “I don’t think we change anything [but we] remind those in charge that not everyone necessarily agrees with them.”

It’s more worthwhile to make people laugh then it is to make people think about whose running the place. “We’re often mislabeled as satirists when a lot of what we’re trying to do is just be funny. We’re not trying to be angry or subversive. That’s part of it but most of it’s just goofing around.”

At that moment Craig Reucassel pops his head in through the door to harass Taylor.

‘It’s all bullshit,” Reucassel says. “I’m just telling about how you’re signing to Nine,” Taylor replies. Clearly these guys have a lot of fun working together and why wouldn’t they, when they can dress up as the band, U2, and wreck havoc in public.

The Chaser team of five has had a charmed run at the ABC,   but Taylor is perpetually frightened about the prospect of growing up. “While the ride is lasting I’m going to enjoy it and the day it dries up I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Last year we saw an ABC favorite, The Glass House, was axed and Taylor knows The Chaser will be next. “The ABC has a commitment to renewing the comedy slate and trying new people out so we can’t have many years left before they do to us what they did to The Glass House.”

What will they do when or if that happens? “We can sellout and try to do what we do on commercial TV. I’ve got no desire to work for commercial television, it doesn’t interest me and I’ve seen too many good people die there.”

Taylor doesn’t have any aspirations to perform much or be in front of the camera. “I would love to keep writing for TV or theatre or film. I wouldn’t mind doing some documentary work behind the camera.”

The Chaser team might consider a Michael Moore type movie. “People are willing to back us financially, but we haven’t had a killer idea for one yet.”

It’s time for Taylor to get to the dressing room before filming. As we walk out to the ABC foyer we both set eyes on a long line of people. It’s 5.30pm. The Chaser begins recording at 7. The audience arrives earlier each week. Does the increased popularity frighten him? “It does a bit. It’s strange to see them line up for something they can get free on their own TV.”

Ellice is a freelance journalist, editor, and radio broadcaster. Contact her via email.

© Ellice Mol 2007