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Afghan crafts dealer Ali Istalifi acknowledges the amazing cultural exchange that is at the heart of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.

After all, the market, now in its fourth year, is the largest such festival in the United States. This year, 113 artists from 41 countries are taking part.

This week, Istalifi himself brought to the market 3,000 pieces of pottery created by the artisans in his ancestral village of Istalif, Afghanistan.

For Istalifi, however, the market means more than the extraordinary chance to mix with and learn from other cultures. For him, it offers a foothold in the future for his war-weary country.

"This market gives a village like Istalif a presentation to the world," he said during a phone interview this week from Santa Fe.

"When the market selected us to exhibit, we bought everything of quality to encourage our people to export to the West."

Hope is vital to the Afghan people whose country has been ripped apart by fighting since the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

After the Soviets withdrew in 1988, the country was tormented by civil war, ravaged by roaming bands led by warlords and suppressed by the fundamentalist Taliban.

About 10 years ago, the Taliban burned Istalif, a village noted for its rich tradition of handicrafts, reducing the town north of Kabul to abandoned mounds of charred rubble. Wolves and other wild animals roamed streets that had served a population of 65,000.

"It was positioned between the front lines," Istalifi said. "It was not to the interest of the Taliban to have the village on the front lines. They completely burned it down. If no one is there, there is no threat. It is just a no man's land."

Istalifi, 28, was born in Kabul, the son of arts and crafts dealer Abdul Ahmad Istalifi and a mother who was a senior professor of law at Kabul University.

In 1988, as Afghanistan became increasingly unstable, Istalifi, his mother and brother moved to London. He grew up there, separated from his father, who had remained in Afghanistan to look after members of the extended family, for 15 years.

"He had the ability to leave, but he stayed," Istalifi said of his father, who is now 66. "I honestly didn't think I would see my father again."

But things began to change when the Taliban were overturned by U.S. intervention in 2001.

Abdul Istalifi told his son Ali that he wanted to help rebuild Afghanistan, especially Istalif, the village in which Abdul grew up and that is his namesake.

Only a handful of people were living in Istalif in 2001, and they had no way to make a living there.

That's where the Jindag Foundation, created by Santa Fe's Ira and Sylvia Seret, comes in.

The Serets own Santa Fe's Seret & Sons, among the largest marketplaces of Middle East and south Asian imports in the world. They are friends of the Istalifi family.

The Serets had lived in Afghanistan (Ira for 10 years, Sylvia for more than four) before resettling in Santa Fe after the Soviet-backed coup in 1979.

In 2001, the Serets and some friends started the charitable Jindag Foundation to support and preserve the cultural diversity of traditional and indigenous peoples around the world.

After discussing Istalif's plight with Abdul Istalifi, foundation members decided to use Jindag's resources to build 120 shops in Istalif in an effort to jump-start the town's economy.

"We wondered if we should build homes for the people," Istalifi said. "But how is that going to help the people if they have no way to make a living?

"Personal funds donated by our friends to build the shops hit the bull's-eye. That had the cyclical effect we needed."

Too often, he said, aid from the United States and Europe goes to big cities and big politicians, who pocket a lot of it, instead of to villages where it is urgently needed.

But thanks to the Jindag Foundation money, 120 shops were built in Istalif in a three-month period starting in September 2004.

Now, Istalifi said, 45,000 people are living and working in Istalif, pottery-making and other crafts have been revived, and tourists are spending money there again.

The exhibition and sale of Istalif pottery at the Folk Art Market in Santa Fe this week marks the first time this pottery has been exported out of Afghanistan.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for the people of Istalif to share their story and their art with the world," Istalifi said. "And for the world to see beyond the ravages of war into the heart of a beautiful, ancient and rich culture."