Notes from the Field: Arghand Cooperative
Things are not getting better in Afghanistan. We hear about more deaths, new attacks, a reinvigorated Taliban, but little of it sinks in here at home. In this age of simmering wars, causualty reports, skirmishes, and bombings have lost their impact.
It takes a hardened first-hand account to bring home the miserable chaos that rules in much of Afghanistan. I just got an inside look at Afghanistan from Sarah Chayes, a founder of the Arghand Cooperative in Kandahar. She sometimes sends missives to Arghand’s retail partners.
There is a brittle frustration in her “Notes from the Field,” dated August 22. In a report that pressed on my heart, she wrote in part:
I’m feeling a little funny again, that slight pounding of the heart upon the instant of awaking in the morning, sleep broken when the dogs bark at night, that sense that something is brewing…
Little of what she narrates of life in Kandahar sheds hope for the situation there. She feels that the recent jailbreak and tandem attack on Arghandab by the Taliban had little to do with territory and everything to do with sending a loud warning.
The message they intended to deliver to the local population came out in stereo: we can come in here when we want to. If you’ve been collaborating with the government or the foreigners, we’ll know about it. We’ll string you up by the heels long before ISAF gets around to mounting a counter-attack. Ordinary people make up the audience that matters in this fight. For them, the menace of the Taliban message, as expressed in the June assault, couldn’t have been more convincing.
Sarah has been arguing for years that the Karzai government is threatening the future of the country as much as the Taliban. Corruption, self-interest, and double dealing with the Taliban, have put the average Afghan in the middle of a no-win situation. Afghans are now forced to chose between competing evils.
In the midst of all the turmoil, the cooperative continues making the essential oils for their wonderful soap. Often they are running their presses at odd hours when electricity is available. Sarah reports the cooperative is just about finished planning and paying for a solar electrical system that will gain them independence from the unreliable local grid.
Still, the future of any enterprise in Afghanistan, including Arghand, is tenuous. But we keep hope in play by supporting Arghand while we pray for change.
Keep shopping your good values.