The Girls Get Their Bikes

Today, Coach picked up the 5 brand new racing bikes for the girls national team.  Thanks to Liv/giant, the girls have 5 racing bikes to compete on, with another 7 arriving this fall.

After Ky arrived from the States as our ‘bike mechanic’, she immediately got to work on assembling the bikes.  She got a chance to ride briefly with the girls on a training ride on one of the trucking roads out of Kabul, and to sit in on several of the interviews to meet the Coach and the girls and better understand our program and these amazing girls.

Two days later, we invited the girls over to the guesthouse/bike shop to get fitted.    They arrived in typical Afghan fashion for the bike fits.

Streets Finale Show at Sound Central Festival

The finale show in Afghanistan for the Streets of Afghanistan exhibition will kick off tomorrow at the Sound Central Festival. The festival is in its third year, and is the brainchild of Kabul filmmaker/photojournalist/rockstar Travis Beard.  The festival started as the first Central Asia alternative music festival and each year has grown to include street art, film, and break out sessions outside of the main stage.

                                        SCF Founder, Travis Beard, gets excited about this year’s line up

The festival kicks off with a women’s only day, inviting upwards of 500 schoolgirls and orphans to attend to listen to music, watch a film by Afghan American singer/songwriter/filmmaker, Ariana Delwari, and learn about contemporary art.  In the courtyard girls can learn to skateboard, bike ride, and experience art.  The goal is to engage young Afghan girls that wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to be exposed to art and contemporary music and sport.

Next up is where they begin to really rock – three days of rock, alternative, punk, rap, and everything in-between as Sound Central rocks Kabul on two stages.  This is not for the expat scene, Sound Central is open to the public and about engaging Afghan youth in contemporary and alternative music, while highlighting the music scene in this region and beyond with bands from Afghanistan and its neighbors like District Unknown, Kabul Dreams, Tears of the Sun and many more.

Home grown Kabul boys, District Unknown, rock Afghanistan regularly

Photography, Voice, and Hope in Afghanistan

The Streets of Afghanistan was a project based in hope.  Using photography as voice, and art as activism, we set up a series of street art installations in Afghanistan.  Red Reel was with us to document five of the seven exhibitions.  We can now share with you the beauty of the country, the reactions of those that saw the exhibition, and the place that art has in conflict zones.  It was such an honor to bring this exhibition to Afghanistan and to share it with Afghans.  We return in the spring for a finale exhibition in a secret location, and then distribute the photographs to orphanages, girls schools, women’s groups, Kabul stadium, and the Mayor’s office as a thank you for his office’s support of this public exhibition in the Kabul locations.  Thank you everyone that supported this project, we couldn’t be prouder.

Afghan Dreamers – A Book Project Needs Your Help to Launch

    Musician and filmmaker, Ariana Delwari

                                                                                                                                            photo credit:  Jawad Jalali/ Afghan Eyes

Afghanistan is probably best known in the West for its poverty, oppression, terrorism, and ongoing conflict.  It’s not untrue, but its not all that it is.  Against this backdrop, are the dreamers and visionaries.   Artists, musicians, innovators, activists, media moguls, and politicians.  Just like any other country – the dreamers and the free thinkers are often those whose stories are quieter than the stories of violence and anger that shout more loudly.  That doesn’t make them less powerful.

Gear Drive for National Cycling Teams of Afghanistan

Its time for a good old fashioned gear drive.  Cycling gear that is.

After mountain biking in Afghanistan for the past three years, usually the only bikes I see are simple Pakistani made commuters bikes, ridden around the country on dirt roads and highways by men and boys of all ages.   This is a country that does not allow women to ride bikes, something I have challenged by continuing to mountain bike throughout different areas of the country and starting conversations.  Thus the bike has been a continuing thread throughout the story of Mountain2Mountain, leading up to our newest program launching this summer, Strength in Numbers, which uses the mountain bike as a vehicle for social change with women that have survived gender violence here in the US.

Mountain2Mountain Founder Shannon Galpin Featured in ‘American Dreamers’

The recently released American Dreamers book features an essay by our very own Shannon Galpin. What is American Dreamers? An initiative of Sharp Stuff, American Dreamers “is for those who believe in brighter futures. Gathering the optimists, mavericks, and mad inventors who believe we can create a better world, American Dreamers is a guidebook for optimism and an art book for inspiration.”

Shamsia – an Afghan Graffiti Artist

Ask westerners living in Afghanistan what they think about the country’s future  and you get a variety of answers, most cynical.  But the best response I heard was two weeks ago over a coffee at Kabul’s Flower Street Cafe,  ”The people are sweet and the country’s a mess”.

Shamsia epitomizes the ‘people are sweet and the country’s a mess’ like few others.  An artist and faculty professor of fine arts at Kabul University, she has a soft disposition and gentle face with large brown eyes and an easy smile that makes her seem even younger than her 23 years.  After knowing Shamsia virtually for two years, I finally got to sit down with her at the artist refuge, The Venue in Kabul where one of her murals is a work in progress on an interior wall, to discuss her vision of art in Afghanistan and beyond.

Hipstamatic Biking in Kabul

6:00am in Kabul.  A light rain was falling, but Georgian photographer, Mikhail Galustov and I agreed, rain or no rain, let’s go for a bike ride.  Our destination?  Kabul’s historic Darulamon Palace.

Streets of Afghanistan Exhibitions a Success

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.”  - Joel A. Barker

Against the odds, Mountain2Mountain completed 5 public exhibitions and 2 photo stagings at historic sites over the past two weeks in Afghanistan.

The first was a staging at Kabul’s historic Darulamon Palace.

Streets of Afghanistan By the Numbers

What does it take top produce a handful of full-scale public photo exhibitions in Afghanistan? We broke it down by numbers.

Bags checked all the way to Kabul: 32

Number of bags that made it safely to Kabul: 32

Hours spent waiting in Dubai airport: 22

Hours spent sleeping on Dubai airport floor: 3.5

Porters that it took to transport bags from airport to bus: 5

Photo exhibits produced: 4