Troubletown II

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00:00
George Gavrilis
This episode was recorded some weeks before the Taliban entered Kabul.

00:08
George Gavrilis
When we talk about Afghanistan, we act as if it's some bizarre outlier, some exotic, violent place. In reality, Afghanistan represents what much of human history is about and certainly human political history, which is that land changes hands, often violently, populations move, loyalties change, empires crumble, Buddhist sites become mosques. The very nature of modern-day archaeology is to preserve something for posterity, so that it never changes again.

00:43
Laura Tedesco
You're making a really great point, George. And there's something very present-day that this touches on.

00:49
George Gavrilis
Well, meaning that the Taliban fighters that you showed me the picture of today, who are standing inside the Noh Gumbad mosque— We see them as a threat, as an aberration, but in some ways, they too are part of history, and that will be part of the mosque's history, ten, 20, 100 years down the road.

01:10
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.

01:27
Laura Tedesco
I just was interrupted by a phone call. I saw the phone number, and I was like, I gotta take this one. It was someone calling me to ask me if I could expedite a visa for somebody. I can't expedite a visa, but I'm getting messages every day from Afghans asking for help to get out. And I have no help to offer. Nothing tangible.

01:49
George Gavrilis
At this point, everybody's headed for the exits.

01:54
George Gavrilis
The government keeps talking about all of these translators that they're getting out of the country, but they're only talking about a couple thousand people. And there's been tens of thousands of them over the years.

02:04
Laura Tedesco
Well, the numbers vary, and they're sometimes misreported in the press, but it's anywhere from six- to 12,000 individuals. I haven't seen a precise number written in Sharpie, but it's a lot.

02:17
George Gavrilis
Six- to 12- in any given time, or over the course of the 20 years that were working with us?

02:23
Laura Tedesco
Oh, it's far more than that over the course of the 20 years. Those are the individuals at the moment who are in a kind of limbo.

02:31
George Gavrilis
The Taliban is clearly organized enough right now that they probably have a longer institutional memory, including people that haven't been working as translators for a few years. They have access to who these people are, where they live, where they're moving around.

02:44
Laura Tedesco
Oh, sure, sure.

02:45
George Gavrilis
So I'm worried about a lot of people.

02:47
Laura Tedesco
Yeah. Yes, me too. Me too, George.

02:50
George Gavrilis
It's hard to go under the radar in a country like Afghanistan, when neighbors know each other. And people don't easily forget that somebody worked as a translator five years ago or even 10 years ago. And you never know when the wrong person will hear that.

03:05
Laura Tedesco
That's the access point for the Taliban getting that information. They have this deep reach in the social fabric of communities.

03:14
George Gavrilis
They are assassinating pilots in Afghanistan.

03:17
Laura Tedesco
Yeah, I saw that …

03:19
George Gavrilis
Harrowing, it was absolutely harrowing.

03:20
Laura Tedesco
Yeah…

03:21
George Gavrilis
Right.

03:21
Laura Tedesco
There's hardly a word to describe it in that—

03:24
George Gavrilis
No.

03:24
Laura Tedesco
—the pilot's son was there.

03:26
George Gavrilis
That's right. The pilot fell over his son as he was being killed.

03:31
Laura Tedesco
Yeah…

03:31
George Gavrilis
I can't imagine something like this.

03:34
George Gavrilis
It also makes me think about many of my friends in Afghanistan. I'm sure you feel the same way. I'm very fond of a friend. She lives in Kabul. She works in a high profile job. She doesn't take her child out, because that's how worried she is about her family being targeted and her son being killed, when somebody is trying to kill her.

03:58
Laura Tedesco
I hope she can get out. I hope she can leave.

04:01
George Gavrilis
She's not the kind of person to leave, though. That's the thing.

04:04
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

04:05
George Gavrilis
She's committed to her country.

04:06
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

04:08
George Gavrilis
She might be the last person to even think about leaving.

04:11
Laura Tedesco
I know a number of people like that. She's doing a service, but she can only do that service to her country if she's alive.

04:19
George Gavrilis
Yeah.

04:21
Laura Tedesco
Otherwise, she'll die a martyr for sure.

04:23
George Gavrilis
Yeah.

04:24
Laura Tedesco
Her work effectively ends.

04:26
George Gavrilis
I feel fortunate, but I also feel tremendous guilt to live in a place that for all its political problems and gun violence, is relatively secure. And I don't think twice about taking my son out to a playground.

04:40
Laura Tedesco
Right.

04:41
George Gavrilis
Not everybody in the U.S. has that luxury, but a lot of people do. It's really upsetting to think of an entire nation where many parents feel that they can't take their kids out to play, without a risk of becoming collateral damage of a bomb or rocket attack or a shooting.

05:00
Laura Tedesco
It's not just taking them out to play. Those other activities of daily life, just going to the market to pick up the last thing you forgot to get the last time you were there, or maybe walking to a neighbor's house to inquire, check in on them. Every action comes with such risk.

05:23
George Gavrilis

Hey, Laurie, switching gears here for a moment. So why is Kabul "Troubletown"? Why is it known as Troubletown?

05:30
Laura Tedesco
That's a name that I came up with to describe Kabul.

05:37
George Gavrilis
You came up with it?

05:37

Laura Tedesco
Oh—

05:38

George Gavrilis
Okay, I thought it was a thing.

05:40
Laura Tedesco
No.

05:40
George Gavrilis
It's just your thing.

05:42
Laura Tedesco
That was my nickname for Kabul. It took several months for me to come up with that. If I were emailing friends or family back home while I was there, I would in the greeting of the email, "Greetings from Troubletown!"

05:55
George Gavrilis
I think I remember a couple emails from you like that.

05:57
Laura Tedesco
You might have, and I referred to Afghanistan as Troublestan. I don't know, it was maybe a way to bring some levity. I like to come up with little nicknames for places and people and things. And so that was my nickname for Kabul. You can't use that expression because some people wouldn't get it. They'd be like, what— I thought it was named Kabul. Why are you calling it Troubletown? But for some, I would refer to it that way.

06:26
Laura Tedesco
The U.S. Embassy decided we would launch a billboard campaign across Afghanistan, in all the major airports and along the major highways, that featured monuments of the country. It might have been Ghazni that was the genesis of the idea since it was soon to be the Islamic cultural capital of Asia.

06:48
Laura Tedesco
There was a billboard placed at the end of a prominent road in Kabul called Darul Aman Road, and it runs north and south and it leads right to the former palace— king's palace, Darul Aman Palace, which has since been restored. It was not restored when I was living in Kabul.

07:07
Laura Tedesco
Because I could see that billboard every time I would drive to the National Museum, I always felt  excited or tickled. It was a visual representation of some effort that I was involved in to bring awareness to Afghanistan's heritage.

07:23
Laura Tedesco
One day I noticed the billboard was gone. The billboard was there, but the picture had changed. Now it was advertising powdered milk for babies. I knew we were still paying to have the billboards displayed.

07:37
Laura Tedesco
I called our partner: Hey, I was just at the end of Darul Aman Road, and the billboard's changed, but our campaign isn't over yet. Oh, no, no, you really must be mistaken. That billboard is still there. No, I was just there today. And it's no longer there. No, no, madam. I'm sure you're mistaken.

07:58
Laura Tedesco
He sent me a photograph that had been taken weeks prior of the billboard in place. Here's a picture. The billboard is still there. Clearly, he was pulling the wool over my eyes, or trying to. I had to laugh, because it was just so classic.

08:16
Laura Tedesco
There was nothing that we could do about it anymore. And the Afghan implementing partner I was working with was doing his level best to convince me that what I saw was not real.

08:26
George Gavrilis
How often would you encounter things like that in your work?

08:29
Laura Tedesco
At least once a week.

08:35
George Gavrilis
This was well over 10 years ago, at the time I was doing border control work, and I remember leaving the airport— a customs official asked if I wanted to buy hash.

08:46
Laura Tedesco
That sounds about right.

08:47
George Gavrilis
Sounds about right. Yeah.

08:49
Laura Tedesco
Yes. Were you tempted?

08:50
George Gavrilis
Hell, no. Because while I was very interested in border control, I was not interested in the Afghan prison system.

08:58
Laura Tedesco
[laughing] Yeah, you would have had a story there.

09:07
George Gavrilis
"Troubletown"— you say it affectionately despite all the trouble you had there.

09:11
Laura Tedesco
Sure. Yeah. There's always an element of affection, and maybe now that it's a bit in my rearview mirror, and I don't have on the horizon another visit to Kabul, I think of it maybe with some nostalgia.

09:25
George Gavrilis
You're still sad about the possibility that you may never go back?

09:29
Laura Tedesco
As I said before, sad isn't quite capturing what I feel— I haven't landed on the best descriptive word. Is it nostalgic? That doesn't seem to capture it either. I'm still thinking about that. I'm reflecting.

09:46
George Gavrilis
What do you think the Afghans call us? If we call Kabul "trouble town," what do they call some place in the U.S. over there?

09:54
Laura Tedesco
Oh, man, that is a good question. I would love to know. I don't know. Afghans in general, the ones that I got to know a little bit, have fantastic senses of humor, just sharp and biting. I would imagine they've got some good nicknames for the Americans and foreigners they know and knew. I can imagine there's some real good ones floating around. They're not going to be particularly…

10:20
George Gavrilis
No…

10:21
Laura Tedesco
...flattering…

10:22
George Gavrilis
...they're expletive-filled.

10:23
Laura Tedesco
They may be. Yeah, yeah.

10:29
George Gavrilis
When we first talked about Kabul, one of the things that you said was that you didn't fall in love with the place the way I did, at least, right away. It took a while.

10:38
Laura Tedesco
Yeah, yeah.

10:39
George Gavrilis
So what was daily life in Kabul, as you settled in?

10:43
Laura Tedesco
I can talk about the daily life for me as someone working in the American Embassy in Kabul, which would have been a different daily life than, say, Americans or foreigners who were living outside of this enormous compound of the American Embassy. So I can only talk about my daily life, you know, from that limited experience.

11:07
Laura Tedesco
It was very much work-focused. Work was the reason that I was there. It was what occupied probably ten to 12 hours a day, which was fine. There were other activities to do, which weren't really my scene. It was all about work six— six and a half days a week. You know, you wake up, make a cup of coffee, go into the office.

11:29
Laura Tedesco
My commute was only a few hundred feet of walking from the metal box where I lived, to the office. And the commute to get a burger or a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch at the cafeteria was also only a few hundred feet. So everything was in this relatively confined space.

11:51
Laura Tedesco
I was slow to make friends. That was partly by choice, you know, I was maybe more reserved. I was a little slow to have a social circle. But eventually I did, surely— some of whom I'm still quite good friends with now. And there was definitely downtime in the evenings. My downtime was not very productive. I hardly watched TV, although we had TV with cable, you know, so I could watch whatever shows were playing.

12:19
Laura Tedesco
I tried reading— generally I'm a reader at night. But I found that I was so exhausted at the end of most days, that I didn't have the focus to sit down and enjoy a book. I was reading all day for work, emails and information and news. I think the only book I read for maybe nine months that I was there was Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential. So very much a departure from the subject matter—

12:52
George Gavrilis
Totally.

12:58
George Gavrilis
Surely you had some good meals off base because Afghan food is out of this world.

13:05
Laura Tedesco
It is. It is delicious. Because the food at the U.S. Embassy at that time was hideous. In 2010, it was so bad that I developed a rash from the food. I had to go see the Embassy doctor and show a rash that had developed on both of my arms and he's like, Oh, yeah, that's from the oil they cook the food in.

13:25
George Gavrilis
I think I got that from eating Long John Silver's when I was a kid. Do you remember Long John Silver's?

13:29
Laura Tedesco
Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. Right along the lines of that.

13:33
George Gavrilis
I have to ask you, is there just one canteen or one large cafe in the Embassy? Or are there tiers where if you're a certain level of person or certain diplomat or VIP, you get access to a better restaurant, better food? How does it work?

13:47
Laura Tedesco
No, no. There were a couple of cafeterias fully outfitted and available to anyone and everyone. You didn't have to have a particular access or rank. The ambassador would eat in the same cafeteria as everybody would. And there was an abundance of food, no shortage, you could eat as much as you wanted. Quality food at that time was not part of what was being served.

14:09
George Gavrilis
So you got to see high-level ambassadors shoving tater tots and Doritos down their throats?

14:15
Laura Tedesco
Sure, sometimes. The Ambassador also had his own cook, and he would have been hosting people in his apartment. The cook for the Ambassador was quite talented. The food there in the residence would have been quite a bit better than what was being served to the thousands of Americans living on the compound.

14:36
Laura Tedesco
Some of the diplomats and people working at the US Embassy had kitchens in their apartments. I, however, did not have that. I lived in a box. I remember I could boil water and I could pop popcorn. That's right. I did have a microwave in my room. Yeah.

14:53
George Gavrilis
So you made that small, small, small container that you call home smell like popcorn once in a while?

14:58
Laura Tedesco
I did. Yes. Yes.

15:04
Laura Tedesco
Improbably, the food that makes me think of Kabul, first and foremost, is the French food that I would enjoy weekly, and sometimes more than weekly, with the French archaeologists with whom I was colleagues and collaborators and maybe friends also, I think friends. When it was possible to move around Kabul freely, I would, as often as possible, go have dinner with my French archaeology friends.

15:38
Laura Tedesco
The French archaeologists lived in a residence separate from the French Embassy. They had their own compound with an enormous library and a lovely sun porch and a beautiful garden. There was a chef for that house. He happened to be Afghan but he had been the former chef for a previous French ambassador, so had learned how to cook very nice French meals.

16:03
Laura Tedesco
Philippe Marquis, the director of the French archaeological delegation, was well-known in Kabul for bringing in his own cheese. Each time he went back home to France for a vacation, he'd come back with a suitcase of cheese, and these platters would come out in the evenings with exquisite French cheeses. So while not Afghan food, that food very much is such a sweet and welcome memory of food I ate in Afghanistan.

16:32
Laura Tedesco
I did have Afghan food out at restaurants. Was it fine Afghan food? I don't know. I wasn't going to the five-star restaurants in Kabul, more Bistro-style places. The best Afghan food I've ever eaten is by Afghans I happen to know who live in the United States who have cooked exquisite meals when I've been a guest in their homes.

16:54
Laura Tedesco
I will tell you about a very interesting meal that I ate in Kabul entirely by surprise. And I probably could have gotten fired, if anyone had known at the time that I did go to this particular restaurant.

17:11
George Gavrilis
Why?

17:13
Laura Tedesco
At the U.S. Embassy, when you ask to go somewhere that's off of the Embassy compound, you have to get permission. Certain places have to have been checked in advance and on a list of cleared places to go. In 2010, the time period I'm talking about, that list of cleared places was pretty big, shrinking, but still, there were quite a few options.

17:37
Laura Tedesco
One day, I went to Kabul University for a meeting with Nancy Dupree. I was going to meet with Nancy, it was my first occasion to meet her in person. I was nervous, because she's such a legend, as an American woman who had a great influence on preserving Afghan heritage, and decades of lived experience in Afghanistan, and in Peshawar, but mostly Afghanistan.

18:03
Laura Tedesco
And I was sharing some ideas about assistance the U.S. Embassy wanted to offer to the National Museum. I knew that if she gave a thumbs down to some ideas I was kicking around about ways to support the National Museum, then it wasn't going to go anywhere. I wouldn't have tried to do it without her blessing.

18:27
Laura Tedesco
I went to Kabul University where she was working, and had her own Center, which is a topic for another time. And Nancy said, let's go to lunch. You can drive with me. I couldn't say no.

18:42
George Gavrilis
You can't say no to Nancy Dupree.

18:44
Laura Tedesco
I'm so glad that I didn't say no.

18:47
George Gavrilis
Yeah.

18:48
Laura Tedesco
I made a very risky choice at that time. I'm going to guess October, early November of 2010. I had been dropped off at Kabul University and she's showing me her center which was under construction at the time. And she says let's go to lunch. I hopped in the backseat of her little beat-up Toyota Corolla, and she had her own driver. We went not very far, but in the vicinity of Kabul University.

19:15
Laura Tedesco
She took me to a Korean restaurant. I found it so improbable. How did a Korean restaurant end up here? It was fantastic food, and a very modest place. After we ate, I jumped in the backseat of her car, went back to Kabul University, called the U.S. Embassy and asked them to come pick me up as if I had spent the entire time at Kabul University.

19:40
George Gavrilis
Wow.

19:41
Laura Tedesco
I don't think I've ever told anyone that story.

19:43
George Gavrilis
Well, you chose a very public forum to reveal that, didn't you?

19:47
Laura Tedesco
I did. I guess they can't fire me now for something I did 11 years ago. Maybe they can.

19:52
George Gavrilis
There's got to be a statute of limitations, right?

19:54
Laura Tedesco
Yeah. I'll never go back to Kabul now.

19:56
George Gavrilis
[chuckling]

20:01
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.

20:17
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 13: Troubletown II — Daily Life in Kabul

Topics Covered in this Episode 

Taliban terror in the news
Translators, pilots, friends
Kabul as "Troubletown"
Billboard campaign
George at Kabul airport
Daily life in the US Embassy Kabul compound
Food at the US Embassy Kabul
Food at the French archaeologists' residence
Lunch with Nancy Dupree

Recorded on July 9, 2021