Opium Season: A Year on the Afghan Frontier

I just retired as a USAID Foreign Service Officer after 26 years of service. Although I didn't work in Afghanistan (I just spent the last 3 years in post tsunami Sri Lanka) I have the experience to critically consider Joel Hafvenstein's Opium Season and in my judgment it is an important contribution to development literature as a personal account. It is well written and hard to put down. He has woven into the chronological account his thoughts and emotions allowing the reader to understand the personal challenges and dangers of working in Afghanistan. He has also developed a clear understanding of deficiencies of programs to reduce poppy production through cash-for-work programs. His criticisms of USAID and its politically driven agenda set by State Department are on the mark. The basic problem is that any real progress will occur over a long period of time -- too slow for the bureaucrats -- with a carefully developed and implemented strategy. Meanwhile there are hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent quickly to meet targets that have little connection to real political or social progress. Throw into this mix contractors who see a major opportunity to make a tidy profit and everybody wins --- except the Afghan people -- and the contractor staff who are so exposed as Hafvenstein describes. I should also add that although he worked for a "for profit" contractor I would expect a "not-for-profit" organization to behave not much differently. Contractors do not establish strategy -- but rather implement the programs designed by the donors such as USAID. Opium Season is an important contribution and should be read by anyone thinking about working in a post conflict country although the general public would also enjoy it. Hafvenstein has clearly demonstrated that although he wasn't a bad administrator in Afghanistan that he is a very talented writer.

Reading the Opium Season felt like reading a first-rate adventure novel starring a particularly likeable and honest protagonist. The great thing about the book though is that, by the time I finished, I had real insight into Afghanistan and into international development and counter-insurgency strategies. The Opium Season is the story of a young development worker thrust into a role above his pay grade: the number two position on a "cash-for-work" program designed to immediately create many thousands of jobs, in an Afghani province, for workers displaced by drug eradication. The protagonist grows from a bumbling neophyte to an effective and often ingenious leader; the project flourishes and pushes into the most Taliban-infested corners of Helmand province. Then the enterprise collapses when some combination of drug lords, Taliban and tribal leaders targets the project for extinction. Mr. Hafvenstein and his colleagues run for their lives. Maybe my favorite thing about the book is the fact that, over a relatively short period of time, Hafvenstein seemed to achieve a remarkable degree of intimacy with a broad range of Afghanis -- and that he fills the book with acute renderings of these different personalities. You start to see how Afghanis think about sex, religion, gender, the United States, and other issues. You also find yourself caring passionately about the well-being of Hafvenstein's co-workers, which makes the second half of the book even more exciting. The other thing I particularly appreciated about the Opium Season is the fact that the author delivered his policy critiques in a way that I found easy to digest. Unlike some authors, he doesn't tack 50 pages of pompous scholarship onto the back-end of 200 pages of breezy memoir. Instead, he shares his policy ideas in bits and pieces throughout the book. Hafvenstein's ideas seem to make sense, and his approach makes the book feel like an escape rather than homework. In short, I think the Opium Season is a terrific book, and I suspect that a broad range of readers will feel likewise.

I read new books on Afghanistan whenever I can. Visiting Afghanistan seems to bring lunacy to the surface in westerners. Joel Hafvenstein retained his sanity and wrote a good common sense book about an experience that must have been really painful. His writing is easy to read, very expressive, and he does a superb job of explaining the local politics that cripple our efforts there and which we understand so poorly. This is easily the best personal experience book written by an American about Afghanistan so far.

Joel Hafvenstein's first book somehow manages to juggle the anecdotal familiarity of an autobiographical travellogue with the clinical objectivity of a historical text... somehow leaving the "clinical" by the wayside. Most Americans saw it on the news that a group of aid workers were killed in Afghanistan in May of 2005. But if that's the extent of your knowledge about aid projects or Afghanistan, ten pages of this book could change your entire perspective on the event. Each chapter introduces you to the aid workers of Chemonics, both Afghani and foreign, with Hafvenstein's signature warmth of loving description. Every page details the near-impossibility of the glass mountain that they climb, endeavoring to help underprivileged agricultural laborers in a country where almost all of the power is in the hands of those who have a vested interest in opium. Every page is a heart-rending yet hopeful account of the unending work that they do in the face of results that may or may not, in the end, be meaningful to the people who need help the most. And as you get to know the people he introduces you to, and as you grow to truly appreciate the dragons they face, you suddenly realize that this book is a true story... and that at the end of this book, some of these characters you have grown to love will die. Hafvenstein has immortalized for the world several lives that may otherwise be forgotten in the endlessly fickle noise of the evening news. As it turns out, they are lives well worth reading about. And once you've encompassed the content of the book, the rest is merely a discussion of the talent of the writer. I found that this account of life and work in Afghanistan nearly reads itself... that, despite the incredible depth of information inside, which in and of itself will have me doing a re-read very shortly. Hafventstein has done something rather masterful with his history: he's used every single historical detail to add nuance and interest to every event in the story. Thus you find out how spats between groups of police are actually related to territorial disputes going back for decades... this could easily become dry, but in fact, it remains steadily and even increasingly fascinating as the pages turn. Another facet of Hafvenstein's particular style: he has a way of writing about the horrors of war and corruption without ranting like a polemicist. His words gather you in, presenting the facts as they happened and respecting your sensibilities enough to let you realize for yourself what it must have been like. But when he describes his own reactions to the things that happened, he switches to a nakedly honest account of his own emotions and motives that I can only wish were more encouraged in journalism. This is a well-written book... even if it weren't more worthy of being read simply because of its vast importance. People, despite the impossibility of the task, are still doing some good in these countries. Joel, his wife, and c

This vivid memoir both tells a gripping story and demonstrates the enormous problems with the U.S.'s current approach to aid and development work in Afghanistan. Despite the best of intentions and the heroic work efforts detailed in this book, Chemonics and its Afghan workers ultimately not only failed in their attempt to provide alternative livelihoods for opium farmers but, in some cases, lost their lives in the struggle. At best, they provided a brief respite from the chaos and terror that has now returned to the province of Helmand. It's amazing that the author has retained his faith in international development and his love for Afghanistan.