Folks Are Scared

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00:00
George Gavrilis
This episode was recorded some weeks before the Taliban entered Kabul. A bit down the road, we will talk about the current situation of Afghanistan's museums and heritage sites. We know that many of you are wondering. For now, this episode provides essential context.

00:22
Laura Tedesco
You remember a few conversations ago, George, you asked me, how can we put an importance on saving heritage when we have footage of the Taliban executing women in stadiums, it's got to be one or the other?

00:35
George Gavrilis
Yeah.

00:36
Laura Tedesco
And I tried to present the discussion back of, well, it doesn't have to be one or the other, you can care about both. And I feel the same way about Mes Aynak, that it is not a zero sum game. It is not either, you preserve the site, and no one benefits from the revenue of the copper. Or, you destroy the site, strip mine the hell out of it, and the Afghan government gets its portion of the revenue from the copper. It doesn't have to be one or the other. 

01:11
George Gavrilis
This is Monuments Woman with Laura Tedesco. I'm your host George Gavrilis. Today we are continuing on Laura's journey into Afghanistan. If you are new to this podcast, we recommend going back to start with Episode 1. For everyone else, welcome back. Let's jump in.

01:29
George Gavrilis
Mes Aynak— it's the kind of place many people might put on a bucket list. But it seems so far out of reach. Roads to the site are harassed by Taliban fighters. It's surrounded by tall fences to keep out looters, and it's also threatened by a modern-day Chinese mining investment. It's a sad dilemma for Afghanistan, a country that doesn't always have the luxury to both preserve its past and raise money to pay for its future.

02:01
Laura Tedesco
I'm gonna preface it with I'm very saucy. I'm very saucy today, George.

02:07

George Gavrilis
Oh, love it. I want you to be saucy. Okay, Laurie, you said that you kind of messed up the chronology and conflated multiple events. How so? Explain.

02:19
Laura Tedesco

"October 2, 2010. First attempt to visit Mes Aynak today. It was thwarted due to security. We weren't allowed to enter the site, and the ANA (Afghan National Army) prevented it for reasons we didn't know. There were threats of mines on the road, and a helicopter took me back to Kabul rather than traveling by car. I was shaken and more scared than any other day so far. "

02:49
Laura Tedesco
You asked me about my first visit to Mes Aynak. What I recalled was actually portions of my first visit and my second visit combined, and then something else that happened from a trip to Herat, where a security guard picked me up and carried me somewhere, that didn't happen at Mes Aynak.

03:13
Laura Tedesco
It wasn't until the next day when I was in my yard gardening and listening to an audiobook where I was like, shit, that's not what happened at all. I thought about it, and then I went back to my diary, and I was like, Oh, right. 

03:30
Laura Tedesco

Now I remember when we drove in the dried up riverbed, we never made it to the site. We got stopped along the way, because one of the security detail guys got a message in his earpiece radio, that the road we were on was landmined. We stopped in our tracks, and they dispatched a helicopter. I walked onto one of those little teeny helicopters that seats two people in the front steering and navigating, and then, like, a bench, like a small one enough for three people in the back.

04:03
Laura Tedesco

I rode back to the Embassy like that. I remember being addled by it, because I was slow to recognize that the shit was real enough that a helicopter had to be dispatched. The cars that were part of the two-car caravan that I was in— it was two, maybe it was three cars, I don't remember exactly— those guys just had to make it out and drive home. 

04:29
George Gavrilis

Which they did?

04:30
Laura Tedesco
Which they did. Yes, they did.

04:32
George Gavrilis
So one of these guys was your security minder, the 280-lb meat bag? What did you say to him, when you saw him later, about this whole episode?

04:40
Laura Tedesco
I also remembered that incorrectly. My security minder was not a big beefy guy. He was a slender, no taller than me, brainiac guy who ...

04:53
George Gavrilis
...the guy who grabbed you and lifted you up?

04:55
Laura Tedesco
No, nobody grabbed me and lifted me up. That happened…

04:57
George Gavrilis
[laughing]

05:00
Laura Tedesco 

That happened another time, where there... 

05:03
George Gavrilis
Laurie, is anything you've said true?

05:05
Laura Tedesco
Yes, it's all true. It's all true. It is like the dates and the experiences seem to have mixed in my head like a big pot of borscht.

05:14
George Gavrilis
Well, that's a good correction. But why do you think you mixed it up?

05:19
Laura Tedesco 

I mean, I'll have to ask my shrink, George.

05:22
George Gavrilis
hmmm...

05:24
Laura Tedesco
But I think I probably was ...

05:25
George Gavrilis

What do you think your shrink will say?

05:26
Laura Tedesco
I don't know. We'll have to ask him or her. But...

05:30
George Gavrilis
Oh, you don't have a shrink? 

05:32
Laura Tedesco
Not anymore. I need ...

05:33
George Gavrilis
[laughing]

05:35
Laura Tedesco
I need one.

05:37
George Gavrilis

Okay, we can work on that. Actually, this is kind of shrinky, isn't it?

05:40
Laura Tedesco
Maybe it is. I had not remembered, actually, the helicopter ride back from the landmined dried up riverbed until last weekend. 

05:50
George Gavrilis
OK. Got it. And now the helicopter ride's on the way back to Kabul or on the way to Mes Aynak?

05:55
Laura Tedesco
On the way back. 

05:57
George Gavrilis
Okay.

05:58
Laura Tedesco
We made it out close to the site, got turned around by the Afghan National Police. None of us really understood why. And then, some short time after that a helicopter showed up, and I was on it and silently riding back to Kabul. 

06:12
George Gavrilis
Hmm. Okay.

06:16
George Gavrilis
Now that you've corrected your memory for us, what would Mes Aynak have looked like in the fourth and fifth centuries?

06:23
Laura Tedesco 

It would have been a busy place, and it probably would have been smoky, because there would have been a lot of copper processing there. It might have been noisy. It might have been a combination of a devotional place— we know that because there are monks' cells, there are a lot of stupas, there are places where people would go for devotional reasons—

06:47
Laura Tedesco
It was also a place that was supporting massive copper extraction and process, and that's a raw material that would have been very valuable and flowing thousands of miles on Silk Road trade routes.

07:02
George Gavrilis

Would the surrounding mountains have been forested at the time?

07:05
Laura Tedesco  

Probably, and that would be a fantastic topic for some PhD student to look at the environmental conditions of first millennium AD Central Asia. In order to be processing the copper on the scale that we think it was being processed, a lot of wood would have been needed, because you need to heat that raw material in order to burn out the impurities and reduce it to a more usable material that could then be alloyed with other things and made into weapons and jewelry and all kinds of other commodities.

07:41
George Gavrilis

Hey, Laurie, switching gears here for a moment, who were the Afghans that you remember from your time at Mes Aynak?

07:50
Laura Tedesco 

I didn't interact with many of the Afghans. I was around them. Let's put this into a context. I'm a foreign woman, I show up in a convoy of vehicles. There are definitely Afghans at the site— archaeologists, unskilled laborers who were hired from the local village, policemen, other unidentified people to me, and I hardly interacted with them.

08:14
Laura Tedesco
Even the Afghan archaeologists weren't at that time interested to interact with me. They didn't know if I knew archaeology, or if I had done a PhD on early copper metallurgy, they didn't give a shit about that. I was some foreign lady who pulled up in a bunch of cars to interrupt their work. So I have to say, I didn't interact with Afghans very much at Mes Aynak. 

08:39
George Gavrilis
But you feel like you know your shit, right?  

08:41
Laura Tedesco
I've read a pamphlet, like I know a little something.

08:48
George Gavrilis

Why are you in a surly mood today?

08:50
Laura Tedesco 

I got a phone call this morning from an Afghan asking me to help him get out and his entire family. It's someone I know quite well, who I never expected would ask to leave.

09:07
George Gavrilis

Wow.

09:08
Laura Tedesco
I'm going to do what I can, which is probably very little, but I'm going to do what I can. It sort of put into a high relief, and sharp, raking light— folks are scared.

09:22
George Gavrilis

Why was this the last person you'd expect to want to leave?

09:25
Laura Tedesco 

I don't want to say too much, because if I describe the circumstances, why I didn't think he would want to leave, it will probably reveal who I'm talking about. I don't want to do that today.

09:36
George Gavrilis

Hmm.

09:38
Laura Tedesco
I don't want to out him in that way. So I had to ask questions. Have you been threatened? Did you receive threatening text messages? Has someone showed up at your house threatening you? Are your children being threatened? If not, that's okay. But I simply need to know in what direction I communicate to the right people, you are afraid enough that you want to leave your homeland.

10:00
George Gavrilis
What were the answers to some of those questions you asked?

10:03
Laura Tedesco 

I'm not going to tell you today.

10:06
George Gavrilis

Okay.

10:08

Laura Tedesco 

Only because I don't want it recorded. Maybe we can talk about it down the road.

10:13
George Gavrilis
Yeah, yeah. What do you think the chances are, though, that you can get them out?

10:18
Laura Tedesco 

Slim. I'll try. I'll call in. I mean, I will reach out to the people who I think can genuinely help.

10:30
George Gavrilis
Yeah.

10:38
George Gavrilis
What does that mean, though, about all the work that you've done there over the past 10 plus years?

10:45
Laura Tedesco 

That's a good question, George. We're watching a circumstance unfold and none of us quite knows what the next chapter looks like. We can predict it, but no one knows. With respect to the work that I've done, that I've been involved in, I don't know. I don't want to get too philosophical about it. The short answer is, I don't know. If someone does, I would love for them to enlighten me.

11:13
George Gavrilis

Okay. Are you okay, continuing today?

11:16
Laura Tedesco
Definitely. As long as you just know, I'm saucy.

11:20
George Gavrilis
Yeah, you can be saucy.

11:23
George Gavrilis

Can you be saucy about the exhibition that you did at the National Museum on Mes Aynak?

11:29

Laura Tedesco 

Yeah, yeah.

11:30
George Gavrilis
Take me through the highs and lows of what it means to set up an exhibition at the rickety, but atmospheric National Museum of Afghanistan.

11:39
Laura Tedesco 

Again, like everything, it was very collaborative. What I was seeing were artifacts coming out of Mes Aynak and being delivered to the National Museum that were staggering, beautiful, rare, gold, gilded sculptures, statues, we could go on and on, there's a photography book about the exhibition that people can look at.

12:03
George Gavrilis

What's it called?

12:04
Laura Tedesco 

It's called Mes Aynak.

12:06
George Gavrilis
Cool, but take us there, describe some of the artifacts that you were drawn to.

12:08
Laura Tedesco 

There's a lot to describe in that. I'll just try to pick a couple. Lots of sculpture. Picture the head of a Buddha sculpted out of a soft clay. So not a very high fired clay— it would have been more unbaked. Fragile, but still intact. It would be about the size of something you could hold in the palm of your hand. So small.

12:31
Laura Tedesco 

There's something exquisite about the way the eyes are sculpted, and the refined aquiline nose and the shape of full lips in a mouth that's closed, and then like a kind of softness to it. You're just drawn to stare at it. 

12:49
Laura Tedesco
Then it invites you to ask all kinds of questions: was there a model for this? Was this a face that was based on somebody the sculptor knew? Or was it completely idealized? 

13:01
George Gavrilis
What do you think based on what you know?

13:04
Laura Tedesco 

I think it was an idealized representation that was the marriage of different artistic styles. Some Hellenistic, that lingering influence from when Alexander the Great and his armies passed through Afghanistan, some Eastern styles of what might look maybe more Indian or Asian. 

13:26
Laura Tedesco

There were more than say, 20, I don't remember the exact number but sculptures like this in the exhibition, and so they needed to be displayed in a dignified way. That wasn't an easy thing to put together.

13:38
Laura Tedesco

We enlisted some very talented Afghans to design the exhibition, and money was no object. It was again at that time when the US was bulldozing money into every endeavor. I basically said to the Afghans I was working with, I don't care what the price tag is, make a beautiful exhibition. And Oh, and by the way, you have three months. And they did it. 

14:02
George Gavrilis

Why is that a short time for an exhibition? Coz it's a small museum, you already have the artifacts…

14:08
Laura Tedesco
There takes time to design. If any of the artifacts needs any kind of special conservation, there's not a lot of time for that, they might need to be stabilized, or they've got to be mounted properly, so they don't fall over. Then you got the cases. How are the cases going to be arranged in the gallery space? What color are the walls and we want to put some text on the walls. There's all these choices and questions, and then production that has to take place.

14:37
George Gavrilis
What was the reaction of the museum director? He must have been thrilled to host this exhibition.

14:42
Laura Tedesco
He was in his understated way. He was quite thrilled because it also brought a lot of attention to the National Museum. It brought a lot of very fancy people to the museum with pledges of money. Diplomats, army generals, cabinet members of the Afghan government. Journalists were there.

15:07
George Gavrilis
When you put on a high profile exhibition like this, in Afghanistan— though these are better times than today— and the exhibit is largely from a Buddhist site— what kinds of dilemmas does that cause in terms of securing the exhibition and the people that go there and the museum itself?

15:23
Laura Tedesco
At the time, it didn't cause any concerns. People were not talking about that concern at all. There was a sense of relief and pleasure at being able to have these objects that were not just Buddhist, but reflective of this fascinating and important element of Afghan heritage. 

15:50
George Gavrilis

Could the museum today do a big exhibition on Mes Aynak or some Buddhist site or would it be too dangerous today?

15:56
Laura Tedesco
I think it would be too risky.

15:59
George Gavrilis

So what does one go to see today at the National Museum?

16:02
Laura Tedesco
There are still some Buddhist things on display. Sure. But, other things are maybe emphasized now in the gallery spaces like some of the early Islamic metalwork or the clothing of the different ethnicities, those are on display, some architectural pieces from those rare Nuristani styles of woodcarving. And so, yes, there will be some Buddhist things surely on display, but I don't think that they're going to be the feature.

16:37
George Gavrilis

We talked about the potential destruction that will be caused at Mes Aynak by the copper mining, once it truly starts. But one of the things that I've been wondering about is why did the site survive, given the many years of Taliban rule, and given that the vicinity was an Al-Qaeda training camp? Why didn't it meet the same fate that the Bamiyan Buddhas met?

17:03
Laura Tedesco

Because it was underground.

17:05
George Gavrilis
Everything?

17:06
Laura Tedesco

It was not exposed. 

17:07
Laura Tedesco
For the most part, yes, everything was buried. And surely, people knew about the site, because some exploration of the site had been done in the '60s and that had been published. So the existence of the archaeological site was known to those who wanted to know it.

17:26
Laura Tedesco
The existence of the site was also known to the local community, because there was plenty of looting that had happened at the site as well. But for the most part, it lay buried, and so the vast majority of the site was undiscovered. And probably remains that way. There are probably decades more of archaeological work to be done at Mes Aynak.

17:54
George Gavrilis

What can a place like Mes Aynak possibly hope for, given Afghanistan's uncertain future? Do we put Afghan military all over to protect it? Or do we re-bury it and hope that nothing happens to it?

18:09
Laura Tedesco
That is an excellent question. What is the best we can hope for? Re-burying it, that's actually not a bad option. Is it realistic? I don't think so. If it can just remain unbothered. I don't know what's going to happen with the copper mining. That's a big wait-and-see for all of us. I don't know what's going to happen there. But if it can just remain unbothered. I think that area is largely Taliban-controlled now, that part of Logar.

18:38
George Gavrilis
Which means what, though, for access to the site?

18:41
Laura Tedesco

It makes access to the site difficult. I haven't been there in many years now. So I don't know. There formerly was a perimeter of the site that was protected by Afghan National Police. I don't know if they're still there.

18:54
Laura Tedesco

There was a camp where Chinese workers were residing. And that camp was protected by the Afghan National Army and there used to be a Czech Republic military base nearby, and a small American military base nearby. So there were other forces nearby stabilizing the area, but that's gone. All that's gone.

19:15
George Gavrilis

Is there any chance that the Taliban might open it as an archaeological site in order to get money and funds?

19:22
Laura Tedesco

Very interesting question. I don't know. Some months ago, the Taliban came out with a public statement, their own press release, stating that they would respect Afghan heritage and that they would not destroy sites that had fortifications and minarets. But there was enough vagueness in the language of the Taliban statement that there was some wiggle room that maybe they were only referring to Islamic sites. It's not clear …

19:54
George Gavrilis
Does Mes Aynak have fortifications?

19:57
Laura Tedesco
Some of this site— Yes. So Mes Aynak is actually a constellation of a number of different sites that altogether comprise Mes Aynak. Some of those sites have fortifications around them. Some of the Buddhist sites have fortifications around them. There's a Zoroastrian component to the site that has a fortification around it. 

20:18
Laura Tedesco

And there's the copper. I think if the Taliban were to come into power, they're going to need some kind of revenue. Right? Maybe they're going to want the copper mines for their revenue. I don't know.

20:32
Laura Tedesco
None of the scenarios looks particularly rosy.

20:36
George Gavrilis
But that's exactly it. There is no rosy outcome.

20:40
George Gavrilis
Hey, tell me. When was the last year you were in Mes Aynak? 

20:44
Laura Tedesco
It might have been 2013. 

20:46
George Gavrilis

How was it different a few years later, from the first time? 

20:48
Laura Tedesco  

Much more archaeology had been done, so there was much more to see, much more of the architecture and the story was getting fleshed out the story was being exposed through the excavation. So you can now begin to see a bit more of the scope of what was happening at Mes Aynak, and the range and the sheer land that it was expanding over.

21:16
George Gavrilis
What else do you want to talk about? What's on your mind? 

21:18
Laura Tedesco

So here's what's on my mind, George. We're talking about something that is interesting to a handful of people. My ability to get out to Mes Aynak and have a helicopter dispatched was all because there was this massive infrastructure to enable that.

21:41
Laura Tedesco

They are maybe quaint stories now. I'm really addled. The person who called me this morning, I was very stunned. And I think me talking about an adventure and saying how exhilarated I was to see this archaeological site is insensitive. And who cares about Mes Aynak right now? I do. 

22:10
George Gavrilis
You do? I was going to ask.

22:12
Laura Tedesco

I do. I do care about it. And I care about the fate of it. And it cycles back to the question you asked me some time ago— how can one hold space to both care about culture, and all of these other very grave life-and-death things that are happening on the ground right now in Afghanistan?

22:34
Laura Tedesco
And sometimes I find it very easy to hold space for all of it and to acknowledge what a very dire situation Afghans are having right now. And I can hold that in my mind at the same time as caring deeply about the preservation of culture. But today, I'm not holding the space very well.

22:55
George Gavrilis

Yeah, I feel you, you know. It's the same outrage people feel when ISIS goes into Palmyra and demolishes the monuments. But they don't feel the same outrage when they hear about a person they've beheaded or a family they've killed, you know. It doesn't resonate the same way.

23:14
Laura Tedesco
But when ISIS beheaded the head archaeologist of Palmyra, because he wouldn't tell them where some of the antiquities had been taken, and they murdered him at the site, that was also outrage-eliciting. It's really rather heavy. 

23:35
George Gavrilis

Yeah, the history of humanity is heavy. And frankly, Laurie, Mes Aynak was abandoned and left in ruins for a reason.

23:46
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

23:47

George Gavrilis
There is always a reason, right?

23:48
Laura Tedesco
It was abandoned because they ran out of wood to process the copper.

23:53
George Gavrilis

Right? Even in the fifth and sixth century, governance was sometimes shitty and bad. And people didn't think about...

23:58
Laura Tedesco

Oh, yeah,

23:59
George Gavrilis
...about life after the immediate month or the year.

24:01
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

24:03
George Gavrilis
And maybe Afghanistan's a little bit like that, too, like we really fucked up.

24:07
Laura Tedesco
Maybe? Yeah. Yep.

24:13
Laura Tedesco
And I'm going to tell you another story. This was in 2012. I didn't live in Kabul anymore. So I would go every two or three months for visits, and in one of the visits I made, five senior diplomats wanted me to take them on like a field trip to some cultural sites.

24:33
Laura Tedesco
One of the places we went was a mausoleum in Kabul. A mausoleum is a place where usually a very important person is buried, but it can also house the graves of many important people.

24:44
Laura Tedesco

And the graves in this particular mausoleum were in a crypt room of this very large structure in Kabul. And they're in the flooring of the crypt. There's maybe eight or 11 burials in the crypt. They are slightly raised. So imagine a plot where an individual would be buried, and it's raised brick, so a half step of raised bricks, so you can see clearly where the graves are. There's also a little path in between each of them where you can walk comfortably. 

25:21
Laura Tedesco
And I was in there with these five or six very senior suited diplomats. And they are walking on top of the burials, oblivious to where we are and what is there.

25:39
Laura Tedesco

We were being hosted by two senior Afghans, who I knew quite well. I was mortified at the lack of awareness, the cultural insensitivity, people leaving their sunglasses on inside and talking to an Afghan while they're still wearing their sunglasses. 

25:56
George Gavrilis
That's rude in every culture, so they should know better. 

25:59
Laura Tedesco
Some do. But enough don't. It's arrogant. It is a detriment. And it's just a general lack of curiosity. 

26:09
George Gavrilis 

Hey, what do you do? Do you say anything? Like in the mausoleum, to the diplomat, do you say kindly get off the sacred grave?

26:17
Laura Tedesco
I did not say it at that time because I was too insecure in my job— not insecure in the knowledge of my job, but insecure in Oh, I shouldn't say something to some senior diplomat— they're going to complain about me and what if I get fired or reprimanded because I was, you know, a wuss...

26:36
George Gavrilis
But what about the Afghans that were the ground keepers or the religious dignitaries, did they say anything? Or they were so used to this kind of treatment?

26:43
Laura Tedesco
They'd been at the rodeo a few times, they'd seen people probably do far worse. The Afghans who were our hosts at this mausoleum didn't say anything. I remember looking at them with a pained expression on my face. Like, I'm so sorry.

27:03
George Gavrilis
Shall we call it a day? 

27:05
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

27:06
George Gavrilis 

Shit, Laurie. I'm sorry. It's really rough about your friend.

27:14
George Gavrilis
You've been listening to Monuments Woman with Laura Tedesco. I'm your host George Gavrilis. Don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. To stay in touch, also follow us on Instagram, at the_monuments_woman. Join us next week when we dive deeper.

27:30
George Gavrilis
This show is produced by Christian D. Bruun and May Eleven Projects. It is recorded by Audivita Studios, and edited by Shaun Hettinger and Greg Williams. The theme song is This Love by Ariana Delawari, featuring Salar Nader.

Ep 9: Folks Are Scared — Mes Aynak, Part 3 of 3 

Topics Covered in this Episode 

Laura correcting her memory

Mes Aynak in the fourth and fifth centuries

Afghans at Mes Aynak

News of Afghan colleague in trouble

Afghanistan now: what happens to Laura's work?

National Museum of Afghanistan Mes Aynak exhibition

The National Museum then and now

The fate of Mes Aynak versus Bamiyan buddhas

Hope for Mes Aynak

Outlook

Mes Aynak relevance today

U.S. diplomats in Kabul

Recorded on June 18, 2021