A Slice of U.S. Suburbia Springs Up in Afghanistan
Atta Jan Hamkar stands in front of his new six-bedroom home in Ayno Maina, a gated community on the outskirts of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Alex Strick van Linschoten for NPR hide caption
Atta Jan Hamkar stands in front of his new six-bedroom home in Ayno Maina, a gated community on the outskirts of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
Alex Strick van Linschoten for NPR
Ayno Maina as seen from a crumbling Soviet-era housing complex next door. The development is the brain child of Hamid Helmandi, an Afghan-American who builds homes in Southern California. Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR hide caption
Ayno Maina as seen from a crumbling Soviet-era housing complex next door. The development is the brain child of Hamid Helmandi, an Afghan-American who builds homes in Southern California.
Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR
A model of Ayno Maina homes in the community's sales office. The new town will also feature schools, shops, a mosque and state-of-the-art hospital. Alex Strick van Linschoten for NPR hide caption
A model of Ayno Maina homes in the community's sales office. The new town will also feature schools, shops, a mosque and state-of-the-art hospital.
Alex Strick van Linschoten for NPRThe town of Ayno Maina looks like the sort of suburban development you'd find in Southern California — except that it's halfway around the world in southern Afghanistan.
Homes in this gated community are surprisingly affordable even by Afghan standards. And their high-quality craftsmanship and paved boulevards put other neighborhoods across the country to shame.
But as the Afghan-American builder of this unique community is discovering, even a good thing can be a hard sell.
One of the new residents of Ayno Maino — which is named for a heroine of Afghan history — is Atta Jan Hamkar. He owns a new six-bedroom home in the gated neighborhood on the outskirts of Kandahar.
Hamkar says he can't think of a better place to move his wife and children. For one thing, it's safe: not just from insurgents and criminals who would have to get past a high wall and armed guards, but also from strangers with prying eyes. Here, Hamkar says, his wife will be able move around freely.
That is something most women in Kandahar can't do, even in all-encompassing burqas.
"Granted, this place looks American. But we really like it. In fact, many of us gave up our homes in Kandahar to come here," Hamkar says.
That kind of sentiment is music to the ears of Hamid Helmandi, an Afghan-American builder who lives in Northridge, Calif. He returned to his home province to begin work on Ayno Maina five years ago on 10,000 acres given to him by a former governor here.
"We were just trying to create something nice so people would like it," Helmandi says.
But his is no hodge-podge scheme, where people buy plots and erect whatever kind of building they want, as is normally the case in Afghanistan.
Helmandi has painstakingly mapped out how the 40,000-home community must look. A brochure describes it as the "housing plan of your dreams."
Some details had to be adjusted for Afghan culture. For example, bedroom windows are at least five feet off the ground, to prevent peeping Toms from peering into see women inside.
Still, Helmandi is determined to introduce American concepts, too, such as a master plan for the development and energy conservation.
Buyers here choose from among several styles of townhouses and single-family homes ranging in price from $20,000 to $90,000. All have matching facades, double-glazed windows and thick walls.
Schools, shops, a mosque and state-of-the-art hospital that blend with the neighborhood decor are also going up in the new town.
Helmandi says he has even installed the country's first sewer system.
But five years later, Ayno Maina is still more dream than reality. So far, only one-tenth of the town is built or under construction.
The problem, explains Pacha Khan, an engineer on the project, is twofold. People are worried about the lack of security in Kandahar but also about the problems the project is having with the Ministry of Defense.
Khan and Helmandi say the ministry claims it is the rightful owner of Ayno Maina land and has tried to seize the property since the governor who gave it to the builder was replaced.
What the ministry would do with Ayno Maina is unclear. But it also owns a crumbling Soviet-built apartment complex next door to the town that is packed with impoverished former soldiers and their families.
That has led to rumors in Kandahar that Ayno Maina might end up the same way.
Helmandi dismisses such fears as unfounded.
"Each and every city in each country hasn't happened overnight. It took time," he says.
To spur sales, he has begun selling lots on which buyers can build their own homes, provided that they stick to the designs laid out in the master plan.
Helmandi says he is also looking into building another planned community in Afghanistan — in the north this time.