Q&A with Laura Tedesco and George Gavrilis

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00:04

George Gavrilis

So thanks to our producers' campaign to solicit questions from listeners, we have a very, very healthy list of questions.

00:12

Laura Tedesco

Yeah, we do. I'm looking at them now.

00:15 

George Gavrilis

Let's see how many we can do.

00:17

George Gavrilis

Why did you both agree to create the podcast?

00:21

Laura Tedesco

You go first.

00:22

George Gavrilis
My reason goes a little something like this. I very much love our producers. When they recommend we do something, or they recommend you watch something, or you listen to something, I typically do it. When they recommended that you and I get in touch and become friends, we did it. We got to know each other. When they said that, you know, there's a lot to your life, you'd be good at a podcast, I took them at face value.

00:49

George Gavrilis
But the main reason I wanted to do the podcast is knowing what I already knew about you. I felt that the work needed to be recorded for posterity, there needed to be a record of everything you had done, and everything your colleagues and all your partners had done on the ground. The work matters, and Afghan culture and heritage matters.

01:08
Laura Tedesco

Mm-hmm.

01:09
George Gavrilis

That's a big picture reason.

01:11

Laura Tedesco

That's lofty. My reason was the chance to work with you all, from the beginning, you know, the producers, and you. And that was it. It was like, Okay, we're gonna have a fun project. And you've all dragged me along throughout the whole process. I would say I felt a little like I was, you know, resisting, putting my heels in a little bit. But I'm here, we're here, it was the chance to work with all of you. That's been the best part. Part B of my answer is, you know how I love social media?

01:45
George Gavrilis

Mm-hmm.

01:46
Laura Tedesco

And it was a chance to be very active on social media.

01:51

George Gavrilis

Well, you and I both hate social media, I think.

01:53
Laura Tedesco

Yeah, I am being sarcastic.

01:55

George Gavrilis

Right. Although I'd become a little bit more open—

01:57
Laura Tedesco

You have.

01:58
George Gavrilis
—and I'm putting myself out there more, especially on LinkedIn. But it lends to that, it lends to LinkedIn.

02:09

George Gavrilis
Here's the second question. I'm sure you prepare somewhat for each episode, but conversations are clearly unscripted. How do you gauge the interest of your audience? You joke about having 12 listeners. When recording, are you envisioning family members, professional colleagues, history buffs, friends, bosses, former bosses, pundits, or just a faceless crowd of listeners? Great question.

02:24

Laura Tedesco
Alright, I think that is a good question. Um, it's been mostly a faceless crowd of listeners, but I've been very conscious that I wanted anything I said to be 100% accurate. So I kind of worried a little bit about the deep specialists who might tune in. This was a little bit validated for me after the first episode, I got a comment from somebody who was like, you were wrong about Alexander the Great, he wasn't killed. And I'm like, Oh, all right. It was mostly I didn't know what to envision in the listeners, all 12 of them. Sometimes, though, I did have to keep in mind, people at the State Department who might listen, that I stayed within the boundaries of what I could talk about, but you had my back on that.

03:14

George Gavrilis

I didn't envision anyone, you know how they say, like, if you have stage fright, and you're acting on stage, picture everyone in their underwear or totally naked? I did the totally naked part. I couldn't picture anybody. I didn't want to picture anybody because I thought that that would make me nervous, and would take away from the fact that I was just looking to you and talking to you. And I really wanted the feel to be two friends talking to one another about a serious thing. And so, and so that's kind of how I did it. And we did joke a lot about having 12 listeners. And it's funny because when people wrote me about the podcast, they usually start with Hey, I'm one of your 12 listeners. I, too, am a non-Buddhist. So I'm glad that that got a little bit of traction.

03:55
Laura Tedesco

Yeah, yeah.

04:00

George Gavrilis
Laura, you are a cat lady. How did you manage for nearly two years without a cat in your shipping container?

04:08

Laura Tedesco

I managed just fine because I would occasionally coax one of the many stray cats on the U.S. Embassy compound into my shipping container. Not for long term, maybe just a few hours.

04:22
George Gavrilis

What did you feed them?

04:24
Laura Tedesco
I didn't feed them. They were well fed all over. There were feeding stations everywhere at the U.S. Embassy. So when I needed a little cat fix, I would coax one in and then push it out after a few hours. I managed just fine.

04:44

George Gavrilis

You were in Afghanistan for over one year initially without returning to the U.S. How did you stay blonde?

04:50

Laura Tedesco

I actually did come home to the U.S. at Christmas time for two and a half weeks and I saw my colorist.

04:59

George Gavrilis

Very nice. Okay.

05:02

George Gavrilis

What are your favorite Afghan dishes?

05:04

Laura Tedesco

Mantu. Yeah. Easy, easy, easy. Mantu, any kind. Mantu, mantu, mantu. What about yours?

05:13

George Gavrilis

Cool Cool. My favorite Afghan dish is any korma, which is basically an onion tomato stew base. And then it can have any sort of meat or even spinach. Love it. Any korma is great.

05:30

George Gavrilis

Do you know any Mullah Nasruddin jokes? And maybe say who that is.

05:34

Laura Tedesco

I do, but they're off-color jokes for the podcast, a little bit dirty. Okay.

05:42

George Gavrilis

Because I don't know his dirty ones. I only know his kind of funny slapstick ones. I should say that Mullah Nasruddin in my part of the world in Turkey and Greece, he's known as Nasreddin Hodja. And he lived in the 1200s. He is attached to a lot of Sufi traditions. He was a philosopher, made a lot of social commentary. In Turkey, they consider him having been born in Central Turkey but I know that in Central Asia they say no no no, he was actually born in Bukhara. So with a little bit of that context, tell us a Nasreddin Hodja joke, or Mullah Nasruddin joke.

06:16

Laura Tedesco

I don't actually know any. I just made that up.

06:20

George Gavrilis

I'll tell you my favorite. But it also happens to be one of the more commonly known ones.

06:24
Laura Tedesco

Is it dirty?

06:25

George Gavrilis

No, it's not dirty. It's just typical Nasreddin humor. So. So Nasreddin Hodja lives in this village, right, and one day the neighbor says, gosh, I need a donkey. I'm gonna go borrow Nasreddin's donkey. And the neighbor walks up to Mullah Nasruddin's house and knocks on the door. Mullah Nasruddin opens the door and the neighbor says, hey, I really need your donkey to, you know, get some of my goods to the market and sell them. Can I borrow your donkey today? But Nasruddin didn't really want to give up his donkey that day. And he didn't like that neighbor very much anyway. So he's like, Oh, I already loaned out the donkey to somebody else. And just at that moment, the donkey brays and the neighbors says, wait a minute, the donkey's here in your house. And Nasruddin goes, who are you going to believe, me or the donkey? You know, that's the kind of tenor and tone of the Mullah Nasruddin jokes.

07:24

George Gavrilis

Are there any titles for episodes that you decided not to use? Boy, are there ever.

07:31

Laura Tedesco
Yes, there are.

07:32

George Gavrilis

Do you remember any?

07:33

Laura Tedesco

Yeah, I do. I think we were gonna call the Episode 5 Better Than Sex—

07:40

George Gavrilis

The Mes Aynak episode.

07:42

Laura Tedesco
—one of the Mes Aynak episodes. Yeah—

07:44

George Gavrilis

Yeah, I think it ended up being called Caravan of Kuchis?

07:48

Laura Tedesco

Yeah, I think so. We had to tone it down.

07:51

George Gavrilis

And then the follow up episode on Mes Aynak, I wanted to call it Hot Mess Aynak, but you would not permit that.

07:57

Laura Tedesco

No, I would not. I think we were also going to call Episode 26 Pedal to the Metal.

08:05

George Gavrilis

Yeah, and instead it ended up becoming Matt Damon @aol.com.

8:11

George Gavrilis

We have some travel questions, too. Has your extended travel experience led you to a packing strategy? Do you only take carry-ons?

8:20

Laura Tedesco

No, can't take carry-ons because I can't fit enough stuff in. So, example. Usually will travel to multiple places, different climates, let's say, in the middle of winter in Kabul, it's actually quite hot. I need more space. Need more different kinds of shoes. It can't all fit into a carry-on. What about you?

08:40

George Gavrilis

Whether I take a carry-on or check-in luggage, I have a ruthless packing strategy. I approach packing kind of like a tetris game. Generally I like to travel light, even if I'm checking something in, I don't want to bring too many things. This isn't so much what I'm bringing, but how I'm packing it. I try to fit things logically in a part of the suitcase that they belong in, so that I know if I have to open and pull something out on the fly, I kind of know, generally, where it is.

09:09

Laura Tedesco

Ok, very organized.

09:12

George Gavrilis

Tip number one, never start packing your suitcase before you have laid out the entire inventory that is going in the suitcase. Number two, it sucks to pack shirts or pants that wrinkle and then you show up and everything is just kind of super wrinkled and tattered. Here's what you do. Those bags that dry cleaning comes in, never throw those bags out. And then when you pack, for example, dress shirts, fold them into nice rectangles and slip one inside the dry cleaning bag. Slip another one on top of that, slip another on onto the lower half of the dry cleaning bag, and fold them on top of each other. And it's kind of shocking sometimes that you travel halfway around the world and your bag looks like it's been blown to smithereens. Then you open it up and inside the dry cleaning bags, everything is kind of wrinkle-free and pristine.

10:08

Laura Tedesco

Good to know.

10:09
George Gavrilis

Try it.

10:10
Laura Tedesco

Yes.

10:15

George Gavrilis

Laura, what's your preferred airline?

10:18

Laura Tedesco

Preferred airline— Hmm. I'm going to defer that question.

10:25

George Gavrilis

Okay. The State Department told you not to answer that?

10:30

Laura Tedesco

Yes, strictly forbidden. Although I have very much a preferred airline, I'll keep that one to myself.

10:38

George Gavrilis

That's fine. That's fine. I'll tell you what is not my preferred airline, and that is Kyrgyzstan's former Air Traffic. Who came up with that name for an airline? I flew them a couple times. Definitely not my favorite.

10:53
George Gavrilis

Next question. Do you have a tried and true method to cope with jet lag?

10:56

Laura Tedesco

Oh, I do indeed. It involves six milligrams of melatonin, not more, no more than a glass of red wine, and forcing myself to stay awake till at least 10 pm. Usually can get over jet lag of an eight or nine hour time difference, sometimes a 10 hour time difference within two or three days.

11:19

George Gavrilis

What are your top three museums in the world to visit for culture in history?

11:24

Laura Tedesco

The ones I haven't visited yet. You know what is a dark horse museum that I love? It is the Museum of Dubai.

11:35
George Gavrilis

Why?

11:37
Laura Tedesco
For such a cosmopolitan international city that Dubai is, they have this museum about the history of Dubai, that is straight out of 1975. It's got dioramas, stuffed figures doing seafaring and purling and examples of Bedouin life activities that would be what life was like in Dubai before it became this enormous international city with highrises and everything air-conditioned. I learned so much about the history of Dubai from this not very modern museum. I recommend that museum to anybody who goes to Dubai. Don't be discouraged by the dioramas, enjoy the display and learn something. The information is very accessible. So that's one of my favorite museums. My second favorite museum in the whole world is the Tenement Museum in New York City. Lower East Side. Love it, love it, love it. Must go.

12:37

George Gavrilis

I'll just mention one. I was blown away by the National Museum of History and Archeology in Dublin—

12:45
Laura Tedesco
Oh.

12:48
George Gavrilis
—because of the Viking artifacts—

12:49
Laura Tedesco

Yeah.

12:50
George Gavrilis

—the early Christian artifacts—

12:51
Laura Tedesco

— The Bronze Age, yes. Oh my god.

12:53
George Gavrilis

But more than anything, the wing with the bog body. They have these spectacular bog bodies that were taken out of these, you know, swampy, cold bogs in Ireland. Incredibly preserved, thousands of years old, where they were even able to pull out hair follicles. You can see the pores on their skin. You can see the wrinkles around what's left of their eyes. And they even did forensics on the content of their stomachs to figure out what it was like back then. What a museum.

13:30
George Gavrilis

Assuming peaceful conditions, in which country would you like to spend a few months to visit historic sites, enjoy cultural immersion, get to know the landscape, either for work or pleasure?

13:41

Laura Tedesco

And there's so many. Okay, I've never been to Morocco. Send me to Morocco for a few months, I would love to explore that. This is not a country, part of a country. Sicily is endlessly fascinating. That those are just two off the top of my head.

14:02

George Gavrilis

Very cool.

14:03

George Gavrilis

And we have a number of pretty substantive and serious questions as well. Why don't we jump into some of those?

14:08
Laura Tedesco

Yep.

14:09
George Gavrilis

And this is exclusively for you. It seems for Laura, this became much more than just a job. She really fell in love with Afghanistan. I want to know what makes it so special that it feels so different from any other heritage site she's worked on?

14:25

Laura Tedesco

I don't know how to answer this, actually. I think it's just a kind of general commitment and passion I try to bring to work that I do. And it just so happens that the last 10 plus years, my work has mostly focused on Afghanistan. And so I've just directed that kind of intention of how I do my work to there. But as we've talked about, it's a difficult place to love.

14:55

George Gavrilis

Well, one of your first digs was on Cyprus. If you had spent 10 years on Cyprus doing this kind of work, would you have the same intense feelings that you do now about Afghanistan, for example. Or Armenia?

15:09

Laura Tedesco

Yeah. It's hard to say there's maybe something about what feels so at risk in Afghanistan that makes the work or my impression of the work a little more precious-seeming. This is really hard to answer. Um, I don't know, I have to give that more thought.

15:29

George Gavrilis

Hmm. I can't answer it from the perspective of archeology, but I can answer it from the perspective of Afghanistan that there are so many similarities with Armenia, of a country and a place and a people that have been in an in-between space between empires, and they've seen so much tragedy. When you have countries where imperial borders are going back and forth, and people are dislocated. And there's empires rising and falling and cities rising and falling, and so much destruction, there is something really special about working to unearth that heritage that has remained, and preserving it. And the more you find, the more excited you get, because you realize that even destruction can't, and even violent wars and dislocations and imperial collapse can't definitively erase humanity's traces. And I find that really special about Afghanistan.

16:28

Laura Tedesco

That's profound. I can't add to that. That's a great answer, George.

16:33
George Gavrilis
Thanks.

16:40

George Gavrilis

What does Laurie think is the most important site or thing that should be preserved in Afghanistan?

16:48

Laura Tedesco

I mean, it's very difficult to answer, but it would be the National Museum, because within the walls of the National Museum, are examples of the breadth and diversity of Afghan heritage. So if we could save that museum and what's in it, then we would be saving examples of evidence and artifacts and all kinds of expressions of the mix of Afghan heritage.

17:26

George Gavrilis

There's another just one thing, question, actually, two more. Laura, if you could take home one piece or one artifact from Afghanistan, whether in a museum or not, what would that be? And I have a comment here in my notes from our producer. Uh, this would be illegal.

17:44

Laura Tedesco

No, no, she's right, she's right. I've never bought a silk carpet from Afghanistan. I've always wanted a silk one. I have like 20 Afghan carpets, but none of them is silk. If I were to go back, and I could come home with one thing, I would buy a super high end, handmade silk carpet.

18:11

George Gavrilis
What is the one, and you can only pick one highlight from your work in Afghanistan over the years? And what is the one, you can only pick one, lowlight from your work?

18:25

Laura Tedesco

Okay, yeah, this is tough. You could only pick one? Okay, highlight, maybe my first helicopter ride to Ghazni, I would say because a helicopter doesn't fly at a very high altitude. So you get this, like, beautiful view of the landscape. And it was very eye opening to me. A lowlight. This isn't my work specifically, although it directly impacts my work. It's got to be the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on August 15. Yeah, I'm still reeling from that.

19:01
George Gavrilis

And we have a listener who wrote that, that they have not listened to all the episodes yet till they're not sure if we've already answered this, but it's about Bamiyan. Laura, have you been there? What does Bamiyan, the area around the Buddhas, look like now? And what can possibly be done going forward?

19:24

Laura Tedesco

I have never been to Bamiyan for reasons that we've never actually talked about. It's a little bit of an absence for me. I always wanted to go, but I could never justify asking to go to Bamiyan and all the resources it takes for me to move around Afghanistan, you know, like security and transport. You have to really have a justification that is directly tied to your work.

19:50

Laura Tedesco
And it would seem that Bamiyan would directly tie to my work. But it didn't, because there were so many other countries, the Italians and the Koreans and the Japanese, who were deeply involved in the preservation of Bamiyan, you know, had such international attention, that the United States took more of a position with respect to cultural preservation. The United States— State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul— we're going to put some attention on sites that are not getting so much attention by other international donors.

20:25

Laura Tedesco
So that's why I never went to Bamiyan. I don't know what the place looks like now. The niches where the Buddhas stood are empty, as they have been for almost 21 years. And what can be done with the remnants? Well, really, nothing can be done with the remnants of the Buddhas that were there. Sort of replicas could be put in their place, but that's probably not advisable. Have you been to Bamiyan, George?

20:52

George Gavrilis

No, I've not. I've not.

20:54

Laura Tedesco

So yeah. Maybe one day I'll get there.

20:59

George Gavrilis

Laura and George, you talked about what you would take if you had to flee your home with one suitcase. Now that some time has passed, can you answer the question again, perhaps more seriously, what is that one thing you might take? I answered that in some detail because I was struggling with what I would do if I were in that kind of a situation, and I think I caught you off guard by asking you the question at the time.

21:28

George Gavrilis
And, and you had jokingly said, my face cream. I don't feel like it was necessarily a joke for you to say that because, well, I'm going to tell you a short story. Back when I was in college, Yugoslavia had fallen apart, and the civil war was raging in Bosnia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia. There was a huge outflow of refugees, particularly from Bosnia and some of the parts of Croatia. And refugees had flooded cities like Zagreb, for example.

22:00

George Gavrilis
And I remember reading a book called Balkan Express by Slavenka Drakulić, Croatian author who writes on a lot of social issues. And she had talked about a Croatian refugee who had left her home to go to Zagreb, with very few things that she was able to carry, and she was being criticized by people in Zagreb, for bringing a pair of high-heeled shoes. Like, why do you need that you're a refugee? And what the refugee's response is, like, I'm still a human being, with things that I care about, and things that I need to bring that may seem unimportant to you at this point. But they are what I need to anchor myself in my future. So, how do you answer the question now that you have a little bit more time to think about it?

22:53

Laura Tedesco

I'm just trying to imagine like, you have a situation where you really can only grab one thing. I have a folder of precious letters that I've received over the years, from my mom, from siblings, from just various people who've been important in my life. And so if I had to take one thing, it would be that file folder of old letters, and the face cream.

23:20

Laura Tedesco
But the face cream, I mean, yes, I said that in a joking way, because I really didn't know what to say when we were recording that and we were riffing on that question, but it's something small, it's easy to carry. And it would perhaps just provide a sense of normalcy to me in what would be a very abnormal circumstance, like maybe a little bit of comfort, that I could use this cheap face cream that I use all the time. Maybe it would just be like the woman who brought her high heeled shoes.

23:53

Laura Tedesco

Here's one, George, what did you all learn about each other by doing this podcast together?

24:00

George Gavrilis

Well, I learned something that I needed to learn, which is that I learned this from you, Laurie, which is that I can't take care of other people, if I don't take care of myself first.

24:12
Laura Tedesco
So true.

24:13
George Gavrilis
And you helped me see that in a way that I wasn't seeing before this. That's something that was kind of an unexpected discovery, thanks to spending so much time with you. And you know, the other thing is that I got to learn more about our respective sensitivities. Your sensitivity is, is rightfully and expectedly, that we can't go for the jugular when it comes to U.S. policy in the here and now because—

24:38

Laura Tedesco

It's not what our podcast was ever about anyway. Yeah, I think we had laid that out early on, that was not what we were doing. It wasn't to critique decisions that were beyond our control. There's enough people out there in the world who want to critique stuff. So I will leave it to the others to do that.

25:04

Laura Tedesco

So George, here's a question for you. You have a small child, would you be willing to go work in an active war zone? Do you have a very understanding spouse?

25:17

George Gavrilis

It depends how active the war is. If it was like Afghanistan has been, yes. Syria, during the height of the Civil War, not necessarily, because that was just way too dangerous. Do I have an understanding spouse? I used to. I think that now that we have a two year old, that understanding has fizzled, and rightly so. I have higher risk tolerance than other people. I will tell you a funny story. The person with the least risk tolerance is my mother, who frets anytime I visit a country that she's not readily familiar with, or has been to herself.

25:54

George Gavrilis

For example, she would get worried enough when I would go to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. And those are, you know, totally safe countries. When I went to Afghanistan, I only told her as I boarded the plane in Dubai. I wanted to minimize her grief as much as possible. When I came back, and I was in touch with her the whole time, but when I came back, her response was, my eye exploded. And that was like a typical Mediterranean mother's guilt that she lays on the kid, which is that your life choices are killing me. So that is yet another consideration, in addition to I have a two year old now, but I still have a high risk tolerance. And I think you do too.

26:37

Laura Tedesco

Yes, I do. I won't go over the speed limit when I'm driving, but I will go to Afghanistan.

26:44

George Gavrilis

Right.

26:48

George Gavrilis

Jamal texted a question. With the increasing pace of globalization, does Laura as an archeologist see diversity in the world vanishing? Do we run the risk that everything is becoming the same? What historical patterns does she see?

27:05

Laura Tedesco

Wow. Um, that's a big question. Do I think diversity is vanishing? No, I don't.

27:13

George Gavrilis

Why?

27:14

Laura Tedesco

Well, I have to really give more considered thought to that. But my intuitive gut response to that is like, No, I don't think so.

27:24

George Gavrilis

Are we running the risk that the world is becoming the same or very similar due to globalization?

27:29

Laura Tedesco

I am one who is already inclined, just from training in anthropology, etc, to want to look at what is unique and different in groups. And why those differences are there, not as separators but more as unique traits. I'm already predisposed to identify diversity. I don't think it's going away and maybe it's just re-shaping or taking different forms.

27:59

George Gavrilis

I differ a little bit in my perspective in that, I mean, here in the U.S., for example, we're in a period of our history where we're having some pretty serious fights and battles over our identity and our vision of a country. One of the things that has come with these political and social battles, is that we are becoming more sensitive about our diversity and more respectful about broader diversity out there, whether it's about race or gender, and you know, and so on.

28:32

George Gavrilis
Sometimes I think what we are experiencing here about that is a blip in an overall trend, which is that slowly but surely, we are all hurtling towards the future, where life is going to look like the crew of the Starship Enterprise, where we all have different features, and maybe different coloring. And maybe we play different roles. And yet, we all have to kind of have 90% of who and what we are be the same, so that we can function together on a starship called Earth. I worry that over the long run, we're going to lose some of the things that make different cultures, different people truly unique. And that'll be something that archeologists in a thousand years are gonna have to sort through and decide if that's what happened to us.

29:23

Laura Tedesco

Interesting.

29:29

George Gavrilis

How would you describe this period, culturally speaking, in which we find Afghanistan? Is it post colonial reconstruction? Is it a pre Civil War era? Is it the demise of a civilization overtaken by something undetermined?

29:43

Laura Tedesco

Right. I don't know how to answer that.

29:48

George Gavrilis

Right now, any of these can be the possibility of Afghanistan. It could be that we are talking about the country on the eve of yet another civil war, if the Taliban isn't able to rule the place with stability and capacity. It could be a sign that for generations to come, there will be a lot less modernity and Western influence in Afghanistan. So the demise of a certain kind of civilizational influence, you know, at the expense of the Taliban's brand of Islam.

30:19

George Gavrilis
I love the phrase post colonial reconstruction. Because when we say reconstruction, we tend to think of what the US was doing after 9/11. But the Taliban in their eyes are now reconstructing the country in a post colonial way, because they see us as having done something colonial. And so it's a really profound question that we can't answer here definitively. But I think that Afghanistan can right now be all of these, or none of these. What is the Taliban's vision over the long term for the country? And that vision will determine the path this country takes and which one of these happens to be the case. What do you think?

31:02

Laura Tedesco

If their position of power persists—which is an open question. I like this option of post colonial reconstruction and thinking about the idea of what postcolonial means and to whom, and that the Taliban may have their own view of what reconstruction of Afghanistan looks like. That's a really complicated question. And I'm not trying to just deflect it because I don't know how to answer it, but I need days to think about a thoughtful answer.

31:30

George Gavrilis

It's a reminder that history marches on, you know, and that we, too, are a blip in human history. And that's the irony that as an archeologist, as a heritage specialist, you're trying to arrest the ravages of time in preserving a monument. And yet history marches on.

31:49
Laura Tedesco

It does.

31:50

George Gavrilis

And so one day, what we leave behind, archeologists are going to be rummaging through it and trying to answer questions about what we were doing and what we were trying to accomplish.

32:02

Laura Tedesco

I've always said, half jokingly, that the archeological legacy of 20 years of US and Allies occupation of Afghanistan will be plastic water bottles, and HESCO barriers.

32:16

George Gavrilis

Wow. But that's half joking. But it's also half profound.

32:25

George Gavrilis

If the Monuments Woman podcast can give us cliff notes on what one needs to know about our government, the effects of cultural dissemination after war, its entangled follow-through of cultural restoration, the better we can teach the current generations and the next generations how to understand and how to care about Laurie's experience and story. The fundamental question this listener is asking is, what should our takeaway be of your experience over the past 10 plus years?

33:00

Laura Tedesco

Just from my perspective, and I'd welcome your perspective on this, George, is that fundamentally, recognition of the significance of culture both as a tool for bridge-building, for understanding people, it can also be used in bad and wrong ways. But that the consideration of culture writ large, that includes heritage, that includes lived culture today, needs a seat at the table, in all discussions, in all consideration, in all foreign policy development, in all war planning. I think that's the basic takeaway.

33:40

George Gavrilis

And it's a beautiful way of saying it, right? Because you've said in a couple of occasions in the podcast, that culture must have a seat at the table. Because culture is what binds people together.

33:54

Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

33:55

George Gavrilis
I've observed as Kabul fell on so many people left, that one of the things many Afghans pined for, were these kinds of cultural things that they wouldn't be able to access anymore. Whether it was the instruments they left behind the National Academy that they used to play, you know, beloved folk songs, or artifacts at the National Museum that they worried about being left behind. You know, those kinds of things. Or in the case of Jamal, who talked to us about his mother's love of poetry.

34:24

Laura Tedesco

Yeah. I think so.

34:27

George Gavrilis

Let's end with a light hearted question, if you will. I fear that we have gotten too heavy.

34:22

Laura Tedesco

Let's lighten it up.

34:23

George Gavrilis

Okay.

34:38

George Gavrilis
Oh, it's about our theme song. This Love. "This Love," was written by Ariana Delawari, a really wonderful Afghan American artist, singer, performer. People should check out one of her older albums, Lion of Panjshir, where she also sings Afghan folk music in Dari and Pashto and it's really great. So the question is, "This Love" is such a great theme song. What other songs would you consider using for the soundtrack?

35:05

Laura Tedesco

David Bowie, Young Americans.

35:08
George Gavrilis
Ooh.

35:10
Laura Tedesco

Jimi Hendrix, but I don't know the name of the song. So scratch that. You go.

35:15

George Gavrilis
This Love is a gorgeous theme song. There's, like, for example, Rattlesnake by St. Vincent, to channel some of the animals that appeared in our podcast. Paper Planes by M.I.A. Tomorrow Never Knows by Danielle Dax, her version, not The Beatles' version. Daniel DAX is a wildly, wildly underappreciated 80s artist, and people should check out her version of Tomorrow Never Knows and anything else she's done. Ornaments of Gold by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Things Fall Apart by Christina, which is actually a Christmas song, but it is so apt for Afghanistan.

35:52

Laura Tedesco
Christina Aguilera?

35:54

George Gavrilis

No, just Christina. She was another 1980s female singer—

35:59

Laura Tedesco
You're dating yourself.

36:00

George Gavrilis

—that just disappeared. What a bummer. I'm dating myself. Hey, that's cool. I'll also add to that, Wild Horses.

36:07

Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

36:08

George Gavrilis

—by The Rolling Stones. Condition of the Heart by Prince. Can't Do It Like Me by Shawnna, who's from my hometown, Chicago. And I think I would probably also add— Yes, yes. Okay. Zemestoon, which means winter in Dari or Farsi— Zemestoon, by X band, an Iranian band. And, gosh, you know, last but not least, and this is about your household and Franck in particular. Voulez-Vous by ABBA.

36:37

Laura Tedesco

[laughing] All right on that theme, how about anything by Motley Crue?

36:47

George Gavrilis

I'll take it. Yeah, but if it has a soundtrack and it starts with This Love, yeah, let's end it with Motley Crue.

36:57

Laura Tedesco

Okay, we think we're done.

36:58

George Gavrilis

Well, yeah, I think we are, and Hey—

37:03

Laura Tedesco

Thanks, George.

37:04

George Gavrilis
Thank you. Thank you — Yeah, what a journey huh?

37:10

George Gavrilis

I think it's very appropriate to thank all of our listeners who have spent a lot of time with us. We're thankful that you lent an ear to Laura's story, to the importance of the work. And if you like the podcast, we hope that you're going to tell other people about it. We hope that you're willing to write a review and just please spread the word. We've been not doing very much marketing, if at all. And we hope to have even more people discover it and listen to it. So thank you to all of you for being part of our story.

37:47

George Gavrilis

This show has been produced by Christian D. Bruun and May Eleven Projects. It was recorded by Audivita Studios, and edited by Shaun Hettinger and Greg Williams. The theme song This Love was written by Ariana Delawari, featuring Salar Nader.

Q&A with Laura Tedesco and George Gavrilis

Topics Covered in this Episode
1) Why Laura and George agreed to create the podcast
2) How they gauge the interest of the audience
3) How did Laura manage for nearly two years without a cat in her shipping container
4) How did Laura manage to stay blonde in Afghanistan for over one year
5) Their favorite Afghan dishes
6) Mullah Nasruddin jokes
7) Titles for episodes they decided not to use
8) Packing strategy from extended travel
9) Preferred airline
10) Tried and true method to avoid jet lag
11) Top three museums in the world to visit for culture and history
12) Assuming peaceful conditions, in which country to spend a few months
13) How Afghanistan differs from other heritage sites
14) The most important site or thing to preserve in Afghanistan
15) The one piece to take home from Afghanistan
16) Highlight and lowlight from the work in Afghanistan over the years
17) Update on Bamiyan
18) What to take if Laura and George had to flee their home with one suitcase
19) What did Laura and George learn about each other by doing this podcast together
20) George's willingness to go work in an active war zone today with small child
21) Is diversity in the world vanishing?
22) This period in Afghanistan: post colonial reconstruction, pre civil war era, the demise of a civilization overtaken by something?
23) Takeaway of Laura's experience of last decade
24) Other songs to consider for the soundtrack

Recorded on January 26, 2022