Opium Nation Read online

  The root of Parween’s success is that she used poppy profits to invest outside the poppy business, such as in transportation (her son’s taxi) and carpet weaving. The end result of opium—the abyss of addiction—has no justifications, but until other options provide them with an income, farmers must be weaned from poppy farming slowly; for now, planting drugs is their only livelihood.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” my driver, Abdul Adeeb, asks. “These people are dangerous. If you’re not concerned about yourself, I’m concerned about me.”

  It is too late for this conversation. We are already heading toward Argu district.

  In the van with Adeeb, I feel like I am hang gliding as we drive upward along jagged cliffs, so close to the edge against a forceful wind that if Adeeb turned the steering wheel of his Tunis van a little too much to the left, we would actually fly.

  “Frankly, I’m more afraid of this road right now,” I say, smiling with fake confidence.

  “Khwarak [sister], I know these roads like the back of my hand. Don’t worry, but when we get there and drug lords want to take you hostage and beat me up, my hands are tied,” he continues his lecture on my imprudence.

  Adeeb has been my driver for a week in this hideaway engulfed by mountains and raw beauty. A venture capitalist might come here and see the potential for another Switzerland—with waterfalls, wildflowers, emerald-green hills, mountain springs, and the Kokcha River crashing and foaming against Gibralter-like rocks—and build ski resorts and tourist attractions. The place’s ruby and emerald mines are fabled in all of Central Asia. What makes Badakhshan such a pleasure to explore is that it remains somewhat uncharted territory—that coupled with the largest variety of dust. I never thought dust had flavors, but this dust does. The dust from the roads would satisfy a cigarette smoker’s palate; it’s ashy. The dust in my room at the NGO house where I’m staying is sour; it must be from my own perspiration, which is not surprising in the ninety-degree heat with no fans or air-conditioning. The dust from the poppies is a little bitter, like the Australian spread Vegemite.

  The purple and white poppy flowers have become part of the area’s natural beauty. Adeeb and I pass countless poppy farms. Laborers, including many women, work in the fields scoring the poppy bulbs. The petals have fallen under the searing sun. There are no workers where there are poppy flowers, because opium is harvested once the petals fall.

  “Look at those white flowers. They will maybe make up to a kilo of opium and then become heroin and be used by some addicted teenager who will defame his family. I’m so ashamed of my watan [homeland],” he says.

  “We can’t be moralistic about all this,” I reply. “It’s basic economics here. People farm it because it brings them the most money.” I used to think like Adeeb, but after meeting numerous women such as Parween, who’ve improved their lives through poppy farming, my mind is not on the crop’s inevitable use.

  “Aren’t you the American capitalist!” Adeeb retorts.

  Adeeb is perhaps the most articulate driver I have had in Afghanistan. He’s small of stature and thin, but his smallness belies his outsize gregariousness. He seems to voice all his thoughts. Adeeb, who has studied up to the seventh grade, asks me a lot of questions about my life, but unlike other drivers, he isn’t judgmental about my choices. Most Afghans want to know why I’m not married with children or living at home with my parents. They give me disapproving glares when they find out I’m traveling without my family for work. It’s not ladylike for an Afghan girl, they tell me. But Adeeb is simply excited to be working, and in the company of a young woman he can protect. I am instantly comfortable with him.

  “Why did you come back to Afghanistan for work?” he asks.

  “Because there’s a lot to write about,” I tell him.

  “Is that all? I mean is there something about Afghanistan that made you want to return?”

  “Yes, look around,” I say. “Its beauty, for one.”

  “You haven’t seen the ugliness, have you?”

  “Yes, I have. When I was a child during the Soviet invasion, I saw the ugliness of war. But that’s what makes it fascinating, that combination of beautiful and ugly.”

  I do not share with him the cruelty I have seen traveling around the country over the past few years. The ugliness of Afghanistan was clear in the Pakistani soldier who whipped an Afghan porter on the border; in the plight of the women I have come to know, such as Darya, the bartered bride, and Gandomi, the widow whose daughter self-immolated because she feared her brothers-in-law would rape her; in the destitute men who beg on Herat’s streets to support their drug addiction; and in the drug lords such as Haji Sardar, who prey on women like Gandomi. I don’t mention these stories because Adeeb already knows a version of them, having lived through the years of war in the country. I’d rather focus on the exquisiteness of Afghanistan.

  “You seem to be a smart girl,” he tells me, “so I don’t understand why you want to go to Argu.” He wants to be my protector, but on this trip he isn’t feeling like a savior. He is Tajik, and the residents of Argu are Uzbeks. He is small, and they are bulky and lanky. He’s a driver, and many of them are drug dealers and smugglers.

  We stop at one of the farms, probably about an acre in size. The laborers all look up with a little fear and a lot of curiosity. I have on a long tunic, loose pants, and a large scarf wrapped around my hair and bosom. What always gives me away as an outsider are my sunglasses. I remove them immediately and walk over to one of the men in the field.

  Twenty-two-year-old Mohammed Sharif says he and the several other men in the field have been working on this farm for over four months. This is not their land, but they perform the labor and then divide the profits with the landowner, splitting the harvest fifty-fifty.

  “We might just get ten kilos from this field. That means we the workers keep five kilos and the owner, who does nothing, keeps the other five.”

  The men labor from six AM to six PM, seven days a week. The cycle for poppy cultivation is six to seven months. Sharif and the other farmworkers first have to pluck any unwanted grass, so that it doesn’t destroy the crop. They plant in the fall three times a week, digging holes in the ground with shovels and throwing fertilizer on the soil. Then they throw in the poppy seeds and wait for them to germinate. The seedlings take fourteen to twenty-one days to sprout, and the stalk can grow from one to two feet. It takes about six weeks for the bulb to form in the shape of a small cabbage. Then it blossoms into a four-petal flower. After three months, the petals fall, and in the final stages, sap develops inside the pod. Poppy needs only a little water and can be cultivated in various types of soil. If the prices decrease, farmers can stockpile their harvest and store it in a cool, dry place for up to five years. Farmers in Helmand and Kandahar have larger plots of poppy; those in the rest of the country, such as in Badakhshan, have smaller plots, one-third of which they plant with poppy, leaving one-third fallow for rejuvenation and cultivating the last third with wheat or some other subsistence crop for their family’s consumption.

  “The workers and the landowner each have to pay half a kilo of their harvest to the government as tax, or risk the threat of poppy eradication the following year, and harassment that same year,” Sharif concedes.

  His feet bare, pants ripped, and shirt stained with opium juice, Sharif takes a piece of wood the size of a lipstick, with nails attached to it, and uses it to slice the first layer of the poppy bulb. A black, gooey liquid spurts out. The workers leave the liquid on the bulb for the night, and in the morning, when it has turned gummy, they collect it in plastic bags. This is raw opium. What remains are the seeds inside the bulb and the stalks.

  “How come the government didn’t destroy these crops?” I ask Sharif.

  “No one’s bothered us since we’ve been here.”

  “Do you care that it’s haram [forbidden by religion] to plant this and sell it?”

  He stops his work and looks distressed. “I’ve been working on
opium fields for twelve years, and this is how my family of eleven eats. I don’t know if that’s halal [sanctioned by Islamic law] or haram,” he responds.

  His family has been eating well for the last two years, but Sharif is still in debt. “I don’t know how long it will take before I can pay off my loan. Maybe when my back breaks and my son can do this.”

  If Mohammed Sharif could see the addicted woman in Ghoryan whose glazed eye gazed hopelessly through her chador as she reached out to me through a taxi window, would he continue farming opium? Is it even a fair question to ask him when he has so few other options? The discussion of whether opium farming is ethical is a luxury for this farmer, who would rather leave the debate to the government officials who make the laws. When the international community and Mohammed Sharif’s own Afghan leaders fail to come up with alternatives, farmers must continue to score bulbs and collect the black gum from the field.

  Of the $4 billion generated from illicit drugs in Afghanistan, farmers receive only 20 percent, while traffickers, drug kingpins, and their political connections inside the country snatch the other 80 percent. The United Nations estimates that 245,000 farming households in the country—that’s about 1.6 million Afghans—remain dependent on opium production. But sending armed soldiers and tractors to pull out the fruit of their labor is no solution to an intricate issue that will take decades to resolve. The farmers are part of the problem in the rise of drug addiction, but the solution needs to address them within the broader questions of poverty and security, not demonize them.

  I wrap up my conversation with the farm workers and climb into the van to head to Argu’s opium bazaar.

  Chapter Ten

  The Smiles of Badakhshan

  It’s a three-minute drive from the poppy fields to the opium bazaar in Argu. Adeeb drives through the rows of two dozen or so shops, mud huts with rotting wooden doors. The huts are built three feet above the ground. The unpaved road is topped with gravel mixed with fresh mud. Men mill around the shops in turbans and their pirahan tomban. There are no women in sight. When Adeeb reaches the end of the strip, he does a U-turn, whizzing past the bazaar.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “You saw the bazaar once, and I’ll do a U-turn and you can see it again, and then we can return to Faizabad,” he responds.

  “Stop the van. I’m getting out,” I order him firmly. It’s the first time I’ve used a bossy tone with him.

  “What do you think you’re going to achieve at this place? These men are armed and will have no qualms about hurting you,” he insists.

  “Observation is my goal, and I’ll take my chances,” I persist.

  He grunts and shifts gears. “Let me just go back to the exit of this road so that we can make a quick getaway if something bad happens.”

  “You’re paranoid. But that’s fine,” I agree.

  He drives back to the beginning of the strip, near the road to Faizabad, and finally parks the van. “I’m not getting out,” he says. “They see you as a threat.”

  “Okay. Then you stay in the car,” I reply coldly. I’m annoyed that he no longer wants to protect me. But I understand that he lives in this province and that his life will be in danger after I leave. The chances I take are mitigated by the protection my American passport offers—a protection that my guides do not enjoy in this country. They could be ostracized, harassed, or killed for working with me.

  I wave away my concern for Adeeb and confidently step out of the van. It’s hard to see inside the small shops, even though it’s eleven in the morning. There are no windows, or visible electricity, but a small generator roars in the background, giving light to a few of them. All transactions seem to occur at the shops’ entrances; shopkeepers stay inside while the customers stand outside. The owners sit on the edge of their stores. Some of them spit tobacco; others drink tea. The merchandise for sale includes kilo-size clear plastic bags with black and white substances inside. I assume the white powder is heroin and the black goo is opium. Underneath the plastic packets is grayish opium, shaped like cow dung.

  Some of the shopkeepers, who normally work as money changers when the opium season is finished, are plopped cross-legged on small carpets behind their old-fashioned scales. They use small rocks to balance the rusty silver scales. One vendor, with long arms and dirt under his fingernails, has five bags of heroin on one side of the scale and several rocks on the other. The buyer urges him to throw another bag on the scale.

  “It’s not enough. Another podar, brother. I’ll give you a good price,” says the buyer, a stocky fast-talker.

  “Of course you’re going to give me a good price. Otherwise, you won’t get any of it,” the store owner answers with a smirk.

  Next to his scale are stacks of dollar bills, held tight by rubber bands, each bundle two inches thick. There are no other products visible in these shops besides money and drugs.

  The shops have no signs, no awnings, no paint—they’re stark mud-brick huts with two-piece wooden doors closed with padded locks. In front of one shop, a bearded man tastes the white powder inside a bag. Several others gather around him and raise their arms, waving dollars. They bid and bargain with the shopkeeper.

  “I’ll give you three hundred for that whole package,” one voice shouts.

  “Here’s five hundred. Take it!” another voice screams louder.

  An impatient customer slaps his dollars on the scale. “Let’s settle this. Decide already!”

  A big drug deal seems to be going down, but before I can capture any other details, the men in the bazaar suddenly seem to notice that a foreign woman is among them. For a minute, all transactions stop and a silence falls over the bazaar. This is my cue. I walk toward the shop where the men are waving their dollar bills.

  “Salaam. Chitorastid? [Hi, how are you?]” I greet them.

  I tell the dozen bewildered men that I am a journalist from Kabul. The shopkeeper, a broad-shouldered man in a big turban, steps out.

  “What do you want?” he asks, uncharacteristically impolite for an Afghan.

  “No Afghan politeness and hospitality at the opium market? No invitations for shorchai [tea with milk and salt]? I am hurt. I heard people here were very hospitable,” I joke.

  No one laughs. They aren’t buying into my innocent intentions. Just then I realize the danger of the situation and wonder if Adeeb was being realistic, not paranoid.

  I sputter out an explanation: “I just wanted to know what the price of opium was. Just wanted to get some harmless information. I’m coming from Kabul.”

  “It has gone down from three hundred dollars [a kilo] last year to thirty-five dollars this year. It’s destroying us,” the shopkeeper says abruptly. Then he shuts his shop door.

  I’m surprised that he has even offered to share the price. It’s not clear if he’s upset with my presence or with the falling price of opium. But shutting the door is a clear sign that no more questions are welcome.

  I look around to see that three dozen men have encircled me and are inching closer. I can feel myself panicking, the back of my neck sweating. I’m a talker, I tell myself. I’ve talked myself out of hairy situations in conflict zones in the past and I can do it now. Just talk.

  “If you do not feel comfortable telling me anything, I can leave,” I spit out. “I’m not here to snitch on anyone. I’m not the police and I have no involvement in the government. I have no weapons, no video cameras. You can search my purse if you want.”

  A chorus of voices respond. I can make out a few of the comments.

  “Why should we believe anything you say?” one lanky man asks.

  “Let her be. She’s harmless,” another voice echoes.

  The same shopkeeper who revealed the price of opium steps forward again.

  “Everybody in the town is a drug dealer. From the start of this bazaar to the end, we all sell and deal opium and heroin. It’s how we live,” he shouts, righteously pointing his index finger at the bazaar.

 
His indignant candidness is a confession of power and a refusal to bow down to the official ban on the growth and sale of drugs. It’s a refreshing change from the usual self-victimizing martyrdom of farmers and smugglers in the drug trade.

  I wait for any other comments, any other information about their business, but there’s a petrifying pause.

  Then I see Adeeb, obviously frightened, slowly walking toward me. He enters the circle. “We should get back before dark,” he almost whispers.

  All eyes turn on him, a thin driver surrounded by towering, beefy drug dealers. I’m relieved that he has come to rescue me and at the same time terrified that the drug dealers will hurt him for trying to save me. His welfare is more important than mine because he has children; he’s come here because of me.

  I want to apologize to Adeeb right there for my impudent bravado. I hope he’s aware of the guilt I feel for putting him in this position. But I don’t say a word.

  No matter how equal I consider myself to men, this moment confirms that my belief in egalitarianism is irrelevant in this country. I already knew this, but this is the first time I’m tasting that imbalance, the sheer powerlessness of being a woman in a mob of men. Still, even though Adeeb is an unarmed man, he can still be my savior, for the mere fact that he is a man. A lone woman walking through an opium bazaar is not honorable, but with a man by her side she can be forgiven. The other men immediately notice that I have a protector and the circle around me breaks.