Wolf Price: Photos of War, Happiness, and Women's Rights
[Foreword: I met Wolf Price through friends in Silicon Valley. His story is a Shantaram of its own. We come from completely different backgrounds, myself from the world of technology startups and he from documentary film making and travel. We hit it off and became friends and slowly I began to learn more about his passions, goals, and desire to build something sustainable for the women of Nepal. In short form..... He traveled the world, settled in Nepal for a 24 month stint, saw a problem with women’s rights and education, and used his skills to try to to solve it. He’s one of the ten most interesting people I’ve met thus far in my short life. I asked him to collect photos with short captions to describe his journey. Wolf spends his days in between California and Nepal focused on bringing Nepali women access to education. Enjoy. ]
By Wolf Price
The Start of my World Travels. Morocco and Europe.
I had gone to Europe for 6 weeks when I was 17, the summer after my junior year, all with my own money. After getting back to the USA, I graduated high school a semester early and returned to Europe for 3 months. Moroccan street merchants in Spain urged me to take the short ferry to Africa. Suddenly, my mind was blown. Sitting on rooftops in Fes experiencing the developing world for the first time was unforgettable. I was hooked on anything that was worlds away from my world in Palo Alto. Before Morocco, Europé had been crazy, but now my craving for unfettered adventure really exploded. I met an american traveler, the only traveler I had met younger than me. She had recently come from Asia and looked at me with something magical in her eyes and said ”You must go to Nepal.” After getting back to the States and being completely free for the first time in my life, I booked a 8 month round trip ticket to Asia, in the name of education and photography.
Cambodian Excursion
Before Nepal I spent about 2 months in Thailand and Cambodia. Above is a picture of a Coke sponsored warning about landmines. Cambodia was a great place but I learned some heavy lessons about suffering considering most people had lost at least one immediate family member due to a recent genocide I had never heard of, which was more a relevant symptom of a lack luster US History education than my own passions for discovering these facts.
When I made it to Nepal, I really had the time of my life. I was teaching a hybrid of English, Art, Science, and Math. They threw me in front of a class and the children copied everything I wrote and repeat everything I said.
After Nepal, I headed for India and got to see some amazing inventions like this backyard sugar refinery.
Bangladeshi Detour
The 8 month trip only got more amazing. I had just turned 19 in India when I headed to Bangladesh to do volunteer work documenting a non profit in Rural Bangladesh for a month. The boys in white are laborers standing at the entrance of a school they can’t attend. All the other kids are trying to get to class.
Glen Cheriton, my oldest creative partner was my partner on the project in Bangladesh. We attended a womens' Rally on International Womens' day (march 8th) and we both gave a speech after I took this picture.
Bangladesh was a good time. Living the country, moving around on these cool flatbed bikes. I woke up at sunrise everyday and did yoga. We hated the food so we ate french toast for most meals which was an option for some reason. After a month we headed south for a tour, and things got a bit more tense.
Witnessing a brutal beating As we left a small island at the southernmost tip of bangladesh a small boy started to get publicly beaten with a stick. The police (see far left) demanded I stop taking photos but my thought was ”fuck you –you’re on camera.” Honestly, I thought they would stop beating him if I took pictures, but they didn't stop. Our boat pulled away form the dock while they were still beating him.
Biking from Palo Alto to Mexico
After such a legendary coming of age journey in Asia I really had to raise the bar, so I biked from Palo Alto to Mexico and continued by bus and boat overland to just beyond the equator although my goal was to reach cape horn during the 6 months I had designated.
My friendly Neighbors while living in a house directly on the beach in a village in Panama as an apprentice building an earth bag Eco-dome.
Getting attacked by a Glue Addict
It took 7 days at sea but I made it to Colombia by boat from Panama and it was pretty satisfying. Colombia was great except for when I got punched in the face by a glue addict in the street, he got tackled by cops and I slipped away. I had to do it quickly, since I could have gotten deported for not having my passport.
I <3 Ecuador
This pic from an off the map location in Ecuador is still one of my favorite photos.
Escaping a Danger Zone in Georgia
I was heavily addicted to adventure by this time and had the crazy notion to go to Georgia, but 2 weeks before I went, war broke out with Russia. I stubbornly went anyway. In all fairness I did end up needing to be rescued by a stranger from the street when I was stranded due to closed roads and shell shocked attitudes. I was taken to a small village and treated like a hero because of USA helping Georgia obtain NATO membership. To escape Georgia, I disguised myself as a journalist in a car and was able to get past 2 military road blocks because of a PRESS tag printed on a sheet of paper in the windshield, but the people who brought me along as a journalist also turned out to be faking it. They had just printed the PRESS pass themselves. There were Russian tanks on the road and blown up vehicles. We stopped at the bomb sites in Gori as part of our disguise – a year later I found out that several journalists had been shot during that conflict.
The landlocked region I’d never heard of, Nagarno Karabakh
After escaping Georgia, I ended up hitch hiking around Armenia with 2 Russians I met couch surfing. They took me to a country I had never heard of: Nagarno Karabakh. The photo is from that obscure country. Our sleepover was in a cave that’s home to the worlds largest arcealogical neanderthal discovery.
Stockholm, Bangkok, Nepal, and India
I met Ada in India and we decided to go to Mongolia together to work on a documentary. We met up a few months later and spent 8 months travelling from Stockholm overland to Bangkok and then flying to Nepal and off to India by land.
Big Mountain Trek
While in Nepal we did the famous trek around Annapurna traveling 140 miles in 3 weeks reaching as high as 5416m( 17,769 feet). This photo is looking towards the entrance of Mustang, after crossing the pass the day before. Our entire group had altitude sickness besides me and Ada had it so bad she couldn’t see or walk and therefore could have easily died or gotten braindamage. She was laying on the ground crying in pain without hope to go any further. I explained to her stopping was not an option and she had to get up and say “Fuck yea” as a mantra. It worked and she survived.
Hacking lines in India
My favorite India Hack: instead of standing in crowded ticket lines for hours at hellish train stations just to discover the train is sold out… just board the train you want- sit on the ground like this and within an hour the ticket inspector arrives and if you just act casual, they'll rush you to a specially reserved sleeper class spot.
Short Lived Distraction
After the wild documentary journey around Asia, I was offered the chance to lead the hippie community on a 150 acre jungle reserve. To me it was an offer I couldn't refuse but I lost all my savings trying to build and furnish a house and managed to return to USA through Belize and the Yucatan. I was extremely hungry throughout this part of the trip.
Meeting Francis Ford Coppola
Once back to palo alto, still broke, I was taken in by an entreprenuer in Palo Alto. She fed and housed me for 6 weeks while I worked for her. She taught me how to function in a civilized manner after living off the grid. We went to a party in SF and I had a moment with Francis Ford Coppola. He wished me luck on my path as a filmmaker. After moving with the entrepreneur to Sonoma county I found a place to live. I worked diligently for weeks on a Kickstarter campaign with the Nepal footage from the Asia documentary journey. On December 26th my Kickstarter campaign ended and I had raised over $12,000. I went from broke to feeling relatively rich on my way to Nepal in a matter of weeks with new equipment (I had been buying D5100’s and T3is from Walmart, Best Buy and Target and returning them in perfect condition for full refunds when I had to pay rent).
Growing my passport
I had to get pages added to my passport because the 50 pages were completely full with stamps ontop of eachother or squeezed into corners. This is my passport after getting an additional 50 pages.
Heartbreak in Nepal
I was in Nepal for 10 weeks trying to get an update after 2 years away from Prathi, whom when I met at 18 in 2010. She expressed a passionate message regarding her desire to help humanity through medicine but that she would likely not be able to study. I finally found out that she had in fact been married and was pregnant with her 2nd child. I was in a state of shock. I decided to delay my documentary for a year to develop a fund for girls like her, as an agenda far above documentary timeline. Awareness is worthless without action. So the first 18 year old woman I met with the intelligence I had seen In Prathi, I personally sponsored $250 for her to obtain computer training for 1 year. As a trade she wrote me this essay.
Return on Investment: Priceless
Months after putting her in the computer school I got this letter from her and more recently this facebook conversation with the account I set up for her when I was there in April 2012.
Me and the CEO of American Apparel.
On a whim.... I put the film on hold and dedicated my time to creating an endowment fund to sponsor girls like Prathi who had lost her one chance to use here historical literacy to change the world. My assistant found the phone number to the CEO of American Apparel online (he had posted it himself) and I started calling him. He answered my calls but when I asked if he had time to talk he kept telling me to call back in 30 minutes, then he would say to call the next day. After 3 days I decided we better go to LA and try to get facetime. We drove all night and when we arrived he gave us a meeting later that night. As we sat down with him he dug into his Big Mac and argued with his assistant in favor of giving his dog chicken nuggets. As I explained the time sensitive issue for the first literate and educated girls in Nepal he become more and more engaged. he had a lot of questions which I addressed with clarity. After watching my film he had tears in his eyes and seemed to be a bit shocked. Dov mentioned that the immigration and Gay campaign was nothing compared to this issue of women's empowerment in Nepal. When he suggested free shirts for the cause I countered that actually a product partnership would be ideal due to the urgency. So he agreed to make a campaign that would give 100% of proceeds to the endowment fund.
Bringing Change
When I left Sarada's Village, my friend’s 94 year old grandmother said ”go and get lots of money.” Ive never had more focus and determination to get those girls and 1000’s of others like them into computer focused education programs. I've worked hard to fulfill the wish of the grandmother. Since getting back to the USA I have established major alliances with Robert E Levin, my executive consultant, and American Apparel which is contributing 100% of proceeds of a shirt we designed together. Speck Products donated $10k of crucial documentary equipment including a Macbook Pro Retina and a Canon 5DmIII.
Rainstorm Entertainment, the Hollywood based production company, signed on as the Executive Producer of ”Within The Four Walls," my documentary about the struggle for secondary education for the first generation of literate women in Nepal
-Wolf Price
If you want to support Wolf’s work in Nepal, please feel free to share this article, make a donation, or buy a shirt through the links below.
Shop the Beyond Four Walls T-Shirt --> http://shopaa.org/STH9WO Learn more about Beyond the Four Walls --> http://www.beyondthefourwalls.org/ Like Beyond the Four Walls on Facebook --> https://www.facebook.com/BeyondTheFourWalls
Intro video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pf9Xe4HdxAY
Donate: http://www.beyondthefourwalls.org/p/donate.html
A special thanks to: Jerome Choo, Simon Lapscher, and David Warren for suggestions, critiques, and ideas on this article.