Into the grape fields

Combat Outpost Lakokhel in Kandahar is surrounded by farms on all sides, which form a patchwork of opium poppies, cannabis and grapes. The poppies have already been harvested and the hashish won’t be ready until November — now is grape season.

Soldiers dread patrols through the grape rows, where hidden ditches and ambushes abound, not to mention disease-carrying ticks and the ankle-twisting grapevines themselves. The ditches at the base of the rows are often muddy, and the moisture creates a haze of humidity that hangs over the fields and fogs up sunglasses instantly.

At the edges of the fields stand large mud barns covered with slits like medieval archer posts — this is where the small yellow grape bunches are stored while they await transport to local markets and bazaars. It is cool and quiet inside the grape huts, and the sweet smell of the hanging fruit is an intoxicating respite from the punishing heat and odor outside.

After a thorough washing, the grapes are very sweet and intensely flavored — nothing like the huge watery grapes you buy in an American supermarket. It’s the difference between a blueberry from a California megafarm in February and one you pick from the high shoulders of Mt. Katahdin in July.

(Photo by Ben Brody for GlobalPost)

(Photo by Ben Brody for GlobalPost)

A farmer and his son offer fresh grapes to an Afghan soldier during a patrol in Lakokhel July 21. (Photo by Ben Brody for GlobalPost)