An intrepid activist's Afghan alternative

Sarah Chayes's 'flower power' dream blossoms in a perilous place, GEOFFREY YORK reports
GEOFFREY YORK

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- In the war-ravaged city of Kandahar, there's only one foreigner who dares to live without an armed guard at her door.

Her name is Sarah Chayes and she is not only a foreign woman but an American, living in the heartland of the Taliban religious zealots who despise the United States above all else.

It might seem a foolhardy act of courage, but the 44-year-old activist is convinced that she can offer a ray of economic hope to this impoverished city. And just in case of trouble, she keeps a pistol in a front-room cabinet and a Kalashnikov rifle propped up against her bedroom wall.

In a country that has been racked by war and violence for decades, her dream is to give an alternative source of income to people who have lived by gun and opium. On a small scale, she has already done that.

She calls it "flower power," an attempt to turn Kandahar's traditional flowers and fruits into products that can sell in the West, primarily soaps and oils. Today, her co-operative venture has created jobs for eight Afghans, offering a glimmer of a new way of life.

"If people have something to lose, they are less likely to engage in gun fights," she says.

The best symbol of her venture is a former policeman and bodyguard named Nurallah who gave up his gun to work for her. Now he is sorting flower blossoms and grinding pomegranate seeds to make soap bars.

His former police colleagues sometimes laugh at him when they see him bicycling to work at his new job, but he refuses to quit.

"He put down his gun to sort rose petals," Ms. Chayes said. "It's too poetic for words."

Ms. Chayes, the daughter of a Harvard law professor, was a radio journalist who spent several months in Kandahar during the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. She decided to leave her radio job and stay on in Afghanistan to help the war-torn country.

She became fluent in Pashtu, the main language in the region, and worked as local director of an aid agency that was rebuilding homes and supporting a civil society. From that experience sprung her idea for her soap and oil co-operative, called Arghand.

It hasn't been easy. Her roses, for example, are grown by farmers in the Panjwai district, just outside Kandahar, which is now a Taliban stronghold. Canadian soldiers have repeatedly clashed with Taliban rebels in the district, and it has become too dangerous for her to visit the farmers.

The Taliban are not the only threat. A year ago, Kandahar's police chief was assassinated by a bomb blast. He was one of her closest friends in Kandahar, and she was shaken by the killing. She knew that he had been threatened by Pakistani intelligence agents, but the murder scene was quickly sanitized and no proper investigation was conducted. She interviewed witnesses and found evidence to cast doubt on the official version of what happened, yet her findings were ignored.

It confirmed her belief that she had little chance of overcoming Afghanistan's deep-rooted political problems. Her best hope was to work on economic projects. She hired one of the police chief's bodyguards, Nurallah, as one of her first employees in the soap co-operative.

Despite the Western perception of Kandahar as a lifeless place of barren desert, the region has a long history of growing fruit and herbs. Its grapes were sent as tribute to Babylon. Its pomegranates, praised in 12th-century Persian poems, are famed for their anti-oxidant properties, giving soft wrinkle-free skin to their growers.

By grinding the pomegranate seeds into an oil, her co-operative is producing hand-moulded soaps that she sells through her website and through a handful of retailers in the United States. She also makes soaps and oils from wild apricots, roses, licorice root, almonds and other indigenous plants.

So far, her venture is financed mostly by small donors, along with a $25,000 contribution from television celebrity Oprah Winfrey. She expects it will become profitable within a year.