Sarah Chayes says "It's hard for an American -- even as "embedded" an American as me -- to fully guage the joint effects of disillusionment and the Iraq prison scandal on Afghans' attitude toward the current regime and its US shepherds."
Kandahar, May 29, 2004
Dear friends:
I am back ensconsed in Kandahar. Sunny Kandahar, I might add. My thermometer reads 120 degrees every afternoon, though that is when it's sitting on the window sill in the sun. I can't decide whether the metal casing is retaining enough heat to seriously distort the reading. Inside my room, it shows 100 degrees, free and clear.
In the high-pressure week or so since I've been back, I've found myself paying less attention to the political situation than usual, focusing instead on the immediate needs of my "charge," the BALCO dairy cooperative. One hears of the usual incidents: a mine going off day before yesterday, at a village cross-road about halfway between Kandahar and the US base at the airport. Two or three little children were killed. A customer of ours being asked by a friend to make 30 photocopies of a sheet of paper. When he looked at it, he saw it was anti-American propaganda. He promptly informed the police.
It's hard for an American -- even as "embedded" an American as me -- to fully guage the joint effects of disillusionment and the Iraq prison scandal on Afghans' attitude toward the current regime and its US shepherds. Fortunately, in a way, access to visual images -- television or press with pictures -- remains very limited in Afghanistan, so the full impact of events in Iraq was probably muted. On the other hand, there has been one clear consequence: ordinary Afghans will now be much less willing to cooperate with US forces in hunting down insurgent Taliban. Believing that Abu Ghraib represents the typical lot of prisoners in US hands (particularly since there were similar stories emanating from the army detention center here in Kandahar), almost no Afghan would turn another in to face it. So the impact on the "anti-terror campaign" at least, is negative.
Meanwhile, it's been a pleasure to watch this cooperative...steady its course. The day starts around 5:30, when the Zabi and Hayatullah come to drive their loads of milk cans out to the villages. Zabi has the most onerous task, with about 80 families to collect from. He makes three main stops, but also beeps his horn at four or five doorways like a school bus. The families send their children out with pails and yellow plastic jerrycans that once held cooking oil, and all manner of other recepticals full of milk, and they crowd around Zabi's white truck while he perches on top of the cab and writes down each person's amount. Dad Mahmad measures the milk and and checks for quality. There's a constant temptation to add water, and it will take some time to make the families understand that this is THEIR cooperative, and if they steal from us, they are in effect stealing from themselves. But the fact remains that the transaction makes a significant difference in their lives. I keep using the example of 60-year-old Naim, who used to cycle with his 14 liters of milk every other day all the way into Kandahar from his village (about 8 miles on dirt roads) to sell it to us for the equivalent of about $3.50 each time. That's how much that $3.50 was worth to him. Now Naim's village is on Zabi's route and he hardly has to leave home any more. And more than 70 other neighboring farmers now have an outlet for their milk.
The trucks come into Kandahar and some milk is dispatched raw to a few shops; our neighbors appear with their assorted bottles for a liter or two for breakfast, then muscular Dad Mahmad hefts the rest into big vats over diesel-fired rings for "pasteurizing." A gruelling, dirty business done this way. Then we sit down for tea on our small porch, cross-legged on a blanket, dipping warm flat bread from the baker around the corner into a plate of fresh butter sprinkled with sugar. A lovely moment.
The cooperative was founded by a group of Afghan professionals in the midst of the Taliban regime. That context made it difficult for them, since they were all associated with the "democratic" camp. After the fall of the Taliban, they took the cooperative back from its manager, and asked me to pilot it through a phase of expansion and modernization. Currently, we're working to stabilize the day-to-day operation. We're not quite breaking even, but we're starting to come close. More important for me is the spirit of collaboration and "joint ownership" that is emerging among the tiny staff.
This is a small project. I feel that it is a pilot not only in the conventional sense, of demonstrating a form of cooperative small-business organization that could be applied to other agricultural ventures, but also in demonstrating, for all to see, relationships of trust and good-fellowship among the people connected with the cooperative -- from the four (soon to be six) members of my own staff, to the shops we supply, to, naturally, the farmers. This is a traumatized society, as I indicated, and the psychological scars, in the form of mutual distrust and exacerbated self-interest, remain vivid. Sometimes I think that if we can just set a different example, show that it can work to our material as well as psychological benefit, that will be an achievement. Then, as we expand the joint decision-making style to include the farmers, I believe we will be helping foster the rebirth of local democratic practices that years of war have shattered beyond recognition.
Practically, our plan is as follows. We are currently lodged in rented premises, a house, in fact, wholly unsuited to dairy production. With the help of US Army Civil Affairs, we hope to build a production facility on land donated by the provincial government. Then we have to equip the facility with machinery that will upgrade the quality of our products (milk, yoghurt, cheese, local forms of butter and dried curd, etc.), not to mention improving Dad Mahmad's working conditions, but without the improvements being so complex as to require standards of maintenance unavailable here or raise the cost beyond our customers' means. We also need a couple more trucks, (a refrigerated one would be great), and we need some operating expenses while all of this is put in place.
This is a very concrete, grass-roots, limited-duration project. My aim is for BALCO to be wholly self-sufficient within a year or so, ideally turning a surplus that can be invested on improving conditions for the farm families that make up our membership. Meanwhile, we will be building the relationships with them and consulting with them so as to bring BALCO closer to the status of a true cooperative. Then, if conditions continue to permit, we can raise our sights to larger ambitions, such as introducing some crops that could be viable substitutes for the opium poppy that is now ubiquitous around here.
It's just the "initial investment" that we need to find outside Kandahar. It will probably take $50-$100,000, if I add in the rather disproportionate expense of bringing some western specialists (including a vet, if possible) to help plan the stages of this modernization. I would ask you to see if you can help support one of the very few American civilians left out here doing this kind of work. I am convinced that it is this work, close to the ground and consistent over time, that can make a difference. Please mark your check "BALCO" in the memo line, and make it out to Trust In Education, PO Box 936, Lafayette, CA 94549. (TIE is a 501c3 non-profit organization.) In return, you will receive occasional missives like this describing the progress of our efforts; you can write to me any time you want to ask questions; you can come visit, etc. This is not an impersonal affair. You will know exactly what happens with your money.
Alternatively, we also have a "wish-list", for those of you with specialties or equipment to contribute. Some of you have already volunteered to design our emblem, for example, or look into solar power to run our future machinery. It is very exciting to discover and engage with new partners this way. The list is attached. My mailing address is: Sarah Chayes, c/o BALCO, APO AE 09355.
Thank you all so much for being interested in Afghanistan's future.
My very best wishes,
Sarah
