Monday, September 15, 2008
After four and a half months on the ground in Afghanistan, one thing Brad Arsenault, a 1991 KU graduate, is sure of is this: There’s no such thing as a typical day in Farah, 400 miles southwest of the Afghanistan capital, Kabul.
Arsenault, the man on the ground for the United States Agency for International Development, has had to adapt quickly to an extreme level of security, an ongoing epidemic of opium production and a host of infrastructure problems.
“We have a really difficult situation in Farah,” said Arsenault. “Whenever I do travel, it’s with a lot of security. If I want to see something, we have to mobilize a lot of people – armored HMMVs, body armor – the security is just another layer to deal with trying to get to the projects and get things done.”
Arsenault is USAID’s field program officer to the Integrated Command Team in Farah, which also includes a military commander and representatives from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and State.
Much of Arsenault’s day-to-day work involves working with the elected provincial council in Farah on issues such as education, infrastructure and agriculture. Although USAID doesn’t participate in opium eradication, Arsenault helps to promote alternative agriculture programs to make other crops, such as wheat, fruit and vegetables, more marketable products for Afghan farmers.
“Farah used to have a vibrant, dynamic and active agricultural base,” said Arsenault. “But after the Soviet invasion, the soil just kind of deteriorated.”
But beyond developing more crops, there are also issues of highway development and water management.
“Only about 18 percent of Afghanistan can be cultivated,” Arsenault said. “So you’ve got a small amount of land to work with, and what you have has to be at maximum production.”
Arsenault said nothing could have fully prepared him for this experience.
“Afghanistan is an isolated place,” said Arsenault. “It’s not like any other place I’ve ever worked.”
Arsenault said that students interested in working in the international development community can best begin preparing themselves by reading a variety of news sources.
“Pay attention to a given situation from a global point of view — see what a Chinese journalist is saying, or what an African journalist is saying,” Arsenault said. “Try to begin developing ways of analyzing a problem or situation from the point of view of as many different cultures as you can.”
Additionally, Arsenault said that both his work in the Peace Corps and his graduate degree made him much more valuable in the foreign service field.
“When you get into international work, that’s what people want to see,” Arsenault said. “Having Peace Corps on your resume lets people know that you can tough it out in a poor, developing place for a couple of years without a lot of resources – it just gives you a little street credit.”
The journey from receiving his undergraduate degree in English to promoting development projects in the Middle East wasn’t a short one for Arsenault, or even direct. Arsenault participated in study abroad programs, piquing his interest in development work in undeveloped areas.
After leaving the University, Arsenault spent two and a half years in the Peace Corps, primarily in Central Africa, teaching basic masonry and carpentry skills, before returning to Chicago, his hometown. After another six years of roving from one employer to another, he enrolled in a graduate program in urban planning and policy. He returned to Africa working for a number of non-governmental organizations from 2001 to 2004 in Guinea, Sierra Leon, the Ivory Coast and a half-dozen other countries. None of these countries could have entirely prepared him for his current assignment, however.
While Arsenault said he typically tried to return to the United States at least once every six months, he also realized that the situation in Afghanistan would probably outlast his own service.
“It’s going forward,” Arsenault said. “But it’s not going forward quickly.”
— — Edited by Ramsey Cox
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