Ahad said he was unimpressed by European and American efforts to eliminate Afghanistan's poppy crop. "The Americans destroyed my country," he said. "I hope Bush and Blair sink," he added, calling for a tray of green tea for his British guests.
The entire village had joined in collecting the opium resin last month, he said.
"It's very hot during harvest time, but I like it," said Ahmed Ulla, 8. "I collect the resin in the morning and go to school in the afternoon."
President Karzai, who met Tony Blair in London last week, has called for poppy production to stop. But his local officials fail to inspire the same dread that the Taliban did, and his interim government in Kabul is virtually bankrupt.
Earlier this year, government officials carrying Kalashnikovs arrived in Kochiano with six tractors and ploughed up several opium fields. One belonged to Zarma Jan, a 35-year-old farmer. Jan waited until they had gone, and then promptly replanted his jerib -- an Afghan term for a fifth of a hectare -- with opium. "They destroyed my field at 10am. At 11 or 12, we started to put the poppy seeds back in again. It took us ten or fifteen minutes," he said.
Asked why they grow opium, Afghan farmers give a half-truthful reply: they don't have any alternative.
"I know that what I'm doing is illegal," Jan said. "But we are poor. There are no jobs. There is nothing for us. I have five children and a wife to feed."
Elsewhere in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, which adjoins Pakistan, there have been angry clashes between "campaign-wallahs," as the anti-drugs officials are known, and farmers. There have been injuries on both sides.
When officials turned up in Zafar Khel, the villagers pelted them with stones. They eventually withdrew without destroying the opium crop, but taking four men whom they put in the cells in nearby Jalalabad for several days.
In other provinces, farmers have simply bribed officials to go away. Anti-drugs experts concede that many Afghans are desperately poor and have little choice but to grow opium to survive.
Sunday, one diplomat in Kabul responsible for drugs strategy admitted that getting rid of opium was going to be an uphill struggle.
The crop has flourished in large parts of Afghanistan since the time of Alexander the Great. Unlike wheat, it requires little water and is ideally suited to arid valleys and unreliable rivers.
"People want instant results," the diplomat said. "There is no quick fix. This is a long-term problem," the diplomat said.
Speaking in Kabul last week, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, William Taylor, conceded that the Taliban had wiped out opium, but he added: "There is a difference between freedom and totalitarianism."
"We think the advantages of freedom clearly outweigh the disadvantages."
Back in Zafar Khel, as we prepared to leave, an old man beckoned us over. "Opium is destroying this village," he said. "The sooner the Americans get rid of it, the better."
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