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Zahra Karimi Nooristani, 18, cautiously works her way down a rock face high above Kabul as her coach, Farhad Jamshid, guides her.

It is hazardous for his top female student to be rappelling here, not only because of the steep drop, but because she is using a frayed, nine-year-old rope handed down from the men's mountaineering team.

Another danger she faces is the prospect of her neighbors finding out she's climbing at all.

Afghanistan is a mountainous country, but scaling the peaks for sport is a new concept here. Mountaineering is considered an odd pastime for men, let alone women whose modesty Afghan society demands be protected at any cost – even death.

Zahra says her father, who carves gravestones for a living, has told her he is prepared to move the family to protect her and her three sisters, who are also budding climbers. He and his daughters are adamant they be allowed to practice their new skills.

The dedication of the Nooristani girls and the devotion of their father inspires Marina Kielpinski LeGree — the force behind the girls' training. In the image below, she's sitting with Afghan colleague Faisal Naziry (center), and Malang Darya, a well known Afghan climber (far left).

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

LeGree, a 36-year-old resident of Norfolk, Va., who has spent years shepherding development projects in northeastern Afghanistan, directs a non-profit called Ascend that funds and organizes not only the training, but leadership classes for the Nooristani sisters and a handful of other Afghan girls recruited to be mountain climbers.

LeGree says her goal is to create a crop of Afghan heroines passionate about improving their country and who inspire other women here to break barriers.

"It's a profound thing that's been missing for a while in Afghanistan throughout the war and chaos and everything else," LeGree says. "It doesn't mean the housewife who is in her compound in Kandahar is going to go start climbing mountains, but she will know another Afghan woman did it and that message is really important."

Credit: Alyson Hurt/NPR

The new team's ultimate test will come later this year, when Ascend takes the young women to the remote, northeastern corner of Afghanistan to scale the country's highest peak. Mt. Noshaq. Only two Afghans have ever made it to the 24,580-foot-high summit and they were men. One was Darya.

But the climb itself may prove less difficult than organizing a viable team.

Afghanistan's national mountain climbing federation, which claims authority over the women's team and coaches, has refused to formalize an agreement with Ascend. Its board has demanded the American NGO turn over all funds and gear to them. That's something LeGree and her Afghan employees refuse to do because they fear the money could be misappropriated. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani recently ordered audits of all Afghan sports federations on suspicion of corruption.

The federation's demands are hardly unique. Some Afghans assume "when an ex-pat becomes involved in a project they may have lots of money," says Naziry, Ascend's operations manager. "The money becomes their priority."

In Ascend's case, the roughly $30,000 LeGree says has been spent so far has largely come from her own pocket.

LeGree also had a hard time finding Afghan girls who can commit to the rigorous training and the eventual climb, so the current Mt. Noshaq team only came together last fall.

The 12 members are a diverse ethnic and socio-economic mix. They are also from the national Taekwondo and mountain climbing teams. The new joint team trains at Kabul's main sports complex, called Ghazi Stadium.

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Building up the girls' strength and stamina is a top priority. They are supposed to train for 90 minutes three or more times a week in this Spartan gym with no bathroom or showers. In keeping with Afghanistan's conservative heritage, they train in loosely fitting track suits and most of the girls cover their hair with headscarves or caps while exercising.

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

While the federation has on occasion paraded the girls in front of Afghan television cameras, Ascend has taken pains to keep them out of the limelight. The NGO has blocked its Facebook page in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, plus kept the date of the Mt. Noshaq climb secret to try to protect the girls from the Taliban or other extremists here who might try to harm them.

The risk isn't keeping the four Nooristani sisters away. The coaches say they come to training more than any of the other girls.

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

There is Rabia (top left), 17, who's still in high school; Zahra (top right), the high school senior; Farnaz, (bottom left) 20, who has applied to go to medical school; Niloofar (bottom right), 21, who has applied to midwifery school.

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Zahra is painfully shy, but also fearless, and her trainers say she is the team member most likely to make it make it to the top of Mt. Noshaq.

The sisters live with their parents and other siblings in two rooms in a hilly, impoverished, Kabul neighborhood called Chehel Sotoon or Forty Columns. It's widely said to be home to Muslim extremists who fly the black flags of the self-described Islamic State.

The women of this ultra-conservative neighborhood rarely leave the mud-walled compounds in which they live.

The girls describe mountain-climbing as liberating. "There's freedom up there," Rabia says with a nervous giggle, adding that she's amazed at how much stronger she feels than when she began training last fall. Back then "my lungs were burning," she says. "The first time up was really hard. Someone had to pull me up the mountain by my hand."

The girls say their role model is their cousin, Sediqa Mayar Nooristani, 22. She became something of a celebrity after learning to climb when she was 14, when European mountaineers were training her father and other Afghan men.

She now heads the national mountain climbing federation, but rarely trains with the Ascend team, which is why you don't see her in these pictures. But she does go on most practice climbs and says she plans to scale Mt. Noshaq.

In the Chehel Sotoon neighborhood, few know the four sisters are training to be mountain climbers. If anyone asks where they go every day, the family says they are taking English classes. The girls have no workout clothes other than the blue tracksuits and sneakers Ascend bought them.

"We know they partially come because we feed them and provide transportation and that's totally fine with me," LeGree says. "That's how lots of scrappy athletes developed. They want it. Any day, give me people who want something and are willing to work for it and we can provide them (with) everything else."

And as LeGree discovered, the Afghan women's team needs everything, including food.

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Ascend arranged with several local restaurants to send lunches with fresh vegetables and lean meats to the girls after their workouts. The daily, $5 per climber investment has dramatically improved attendance at the training sessions.

All 12 girls showed up and wolfed down the spinach stew and roasted chicken. It was the first meal that day for many of them. They eat inside the mountain climbing federation office at Ghazi stadium, where pictures of the men's team adorn the wall.

LeGree says the space is not ideal, given the steady stream of interruptions by male federation members. She wants to keep the girls focused on their training, so she is searching for a house or apartment to accommodate them.

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

But for now, training continues in earnest at Ghazi Stadium, where they sprint up the bleachers and rappel down 23-foot-high walls.

One of the trainees is Ascend Program Coordinator Nargis Azaryun, who says the stadium visits are bittersweet. When she was a young child, the Taliban used the facility for public executions – most memorably of women.

She thinks of the Taliban's victims every time she enters the gates.

Azaryun recalls being frightened the day the Taliban fell in 2001. To celebrate, a male cousin put a burka on a broom and lit it on fire. Azaryun says she was convinced the militants would return and punish them.

Fourteen years later, the 22-year-old college student revels in pushing boundaries. Pictured below, she is one of the few women in Afghanistan who drives and refuses to wear a headscarf.

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

She's sort of den mother to the girls, whom she joins on a bus that takes them to one of the team's weekly practice ascents on the outskirts of Kabul.

"It feels amazing," she says of the climbs. "It feels like you are just born and you have a chance to conquer the world."

But the team is missing every kind of apparel and equipment needed to scale a mountain, something LeGree says she's desperately trying to rectify.

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

At this army base, the girls line up before the hike in everything from sneakers to cheap knockoffs of brand-name hiking boots purchased at the "Bush Bazaar (named for the former U.S. president)," a market that once traded in goods acquired from the U.S.-led coalition. Some of the girls aren't even wearing socks.

But shabby shoes and falling snow don't stop the girls. They take less than two hours to hike up the trail-less slopes. Once on top, they pose for selfies and dine on kebabs – rappelling is out because of the bad weather.

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

LeGree joins them on the hikes when she's in the country, and is visibly fond of the girls. But she's not sure any of them will reach the summit of Mt. Noshaq.

She says rag-tag practice climbs aren't enough. She's also frustrated that most of the girls aren't showing up to every training session.

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Sandra Calligaro for NPR

Sandra Calligaro for NPR

"I've been worried from the very beginning about a baseline of physical fitness because technical skills or not, you are not going to be getting up that mountain if you are huffing and puffing," LeGree explains. "And there's a strong possibility that at least half of them just won't be able to get to the top."

The Afghan Mt. Noshaq climber, Malang Darya, put the odds even lower, predicting only a third will make it.

That's why LeGree has decided to recruit six new girls from Wakhan region, where Mt. Noshaq is located. They are expected to arrive in Kabul to begin training next month.

Editor's Note: The mountain climbing federation office at Ghazi Stadium in Kabul — where the girls were eating their meals — was destroyed early Sunday in a fire caused by a wood-burning stove. The men's and women's teams both lost equipment in the fire, but no one was hurt.

Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR's Berlin correspondent, was previously based in Afghanistan.

Sandra Calligaro is a photographer who frequently works in Afghanistan. You can see more of her work here.

Afghan women

Afghanistan

If pushing a cart up and down the lengthy aisles of your neighborhood supermarket — past dozens of brands of packaged cereal and crackers lit by fluorescent lights — feels overwhelming and soul-sucking, you're not alone.

But there's some good news: The days of shopping this way may be numbered.

Here's why: Traditional grocers are increasingly losing market share — some 15 percent in the last 10 years — to more nimble competitors like smaller markets, convenience stores, farmers markets and even dollar stores. That, along with the rise of online food shopping, is forcing the old-school grocers to innovate in ways that should yield a better overall experience for consumers down the road.

"The bottom line is that for the supermarket to survive and prosper and grow, it's going to have to offer more services," says Phil Lempert, a consumer behavior analyst who tracks these trends on his site SupermarketGuru.

He spoke about the "grocery wars" and where the sector is headed in the next 10 years earlier this month at SXSW. (We couldn't make it to his panel, so we got him to bend our ear afterward.)

The Salt

'Old-School' Food Shopping Feels New As U.S. Cities Revive Public Markets

Lempert illuminated for us five ways in which grocery chains are evolving (that don't involve fluorescent lights).

Some companies are adapting faster than others. But Lempert says most big grocery chains have realized that if they're going to win back some of the shoppers who've drifted away, they're going to have to get a lot more creative and flexible.

1. The "groceraunt:" Maybe you've seen delis and cafes flanked by seating areas pop up in national chains like Safeway and Whole Foods. But what about a full-service restaurant?

Meet the "groceraunt," where the food is supposed to be tempting enough to get you to sit down to a meal before or after you pick up the milk and eggs. At Market Grille, the restaurant inside several locations of the Hy-Vee chain in the Midwest and Great Plains, you can order sushi, steak, brunch and maybe even on-tap apple cider.

In Illinois, the Mariano's grocery chain now features an oyster bar and a barbecue stall, which the Chicago Reader described as "supermarket barbecue that's better than it should be."

And in the Twin Cities, the Lunds and Byerlys chain has its Minnesota Grille, along with a Lunds & Byerlys Kitchen with "prepared food offerings, a wine and beer bar, a tailored selection of groceries and more all in one space."

2. Smaller stores: The average grocery store size started shrinking from about 45,000 square feet three years ago, after decades of increasing year after year.

As we've reported, part of that trend is about the return of green grocers to cities: new versions of the neighborhood market or bodega that stock mostly high-end and local foods in spaces smaller than the produce section of the supermarket.

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Each Peach Market in Washington, D.C., is one of a growing breed of small, urban greengrocers. Maanvi Singh/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Maanvi Singh/NPR

Each Peach Market in Washington, D.C., is one of a growing breed of small, urban greengrocers.

Maanvi Singh/NPR

Why is this format taking off? Turns out, consumers may not actually want to have to choose between 10 brands of olive oil that are all pretty much the same (and unlikely to make us happier, a la The Paradox of Choice). Rather, it may be more pleasing to choose between two bottles that are distinct in quality, flavor or price.

The big retailers have noticed these small markets encroaching on their turf, and are making moves to get smaller, too. According to Lempert, Wal-Mart, Lunds and others are prototyping smaller stores. And Cincinnati grocery-store chain Kroger has been experimenting with a 7,500-square-foot format in Columbus, Ohio, that's a sort of hybrid between a supermarket and a convenience store.

3. More services: Lempert notes that many consumers don't need or want all their food under one roof anymore — they're willing to go from the farmers market to the wine shop to the butcher.

How can grocery stores stay relevant then? Maybe by hiring a really good fishmonger.

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Big grocery chains like Kroger are beginning to experiment with smaller format stores, says Lempert. Nicholas Eckhart/Flickr hide caption

itoggle caption Nicholas Eckhart/Flickr

Big grocery chains like Kroger are beginning to experiment with smaller format stores, says Lempert.

Nicholas Eckhart/Flickr

Most chains sell meat and fish that's been filleted and sliced and wrapped up off-site. But more are starting to install skilled butchers and fishmongers to cut meat right there in the store. They're also hiring trained chefs, sommeliers and registered dieticians to guide shoppers to healthier choices. Lempert points to Hy-Vee Market, which has hired several chefs trained at the Culinary Institute of America to cook its prepared food, and two dieticians that lead weight management programs.

4. Catering to millennials: Corporate America is smitten with millennials, who seem to be leading food trends. And grocery chains are no different.

According to Lempert, the big chains are trying entice millennials with the foods they want — local, craft and fermented foods, and big international flavors (i.e. kimchi) — when they want them. Millennials also want "connection and community," which stores can foster with seasonal events, tastings and cooking demos, Lempert says.

The Salt

Ordering Food Online? That'll Be More Calories, Cost And Complexity

5. More ways to get your groceries delivered: Another thing about millennials: They may want to avoid the store entirely and have their groceries dropped off.

To keep them and other online shopping enthusiasts as customers, grocery chains are partnering with tech companies like Instacart, Google Express, Amazon and Uber, which send couriers to stores to pick up groceries and then deliver them within an hour.

And while most consumers will continue to go to the store to select their tomatoes and bread themselves, Rosenheim Advisors reported in December 2014 that the food tech sector is booming. "More than $1.6 billion was invested [in 2013] into food-related tech companies, up 33 percent from $1.2 billion in 2012," it noted.

Will all these efforts win customers back? That's unclear, says Lempert. "To be successful, a retailer has to know its consumer. And these days, every neighborhood is different. The days of every store having an identical assortment of food are over."

grocery delivery

grocery stores

We learned Monday morning what will become of The Daily Show on Comedy Central after Jon Stewart departs: it will be hosted by Trevor Noah, a 31-year-old South African comedian who joined the show as a contributor in December of last year, where he opened with a joke about fearing the police in the United States more than the police in South Africa. We won't know much about the shape of the new (or at least different) show for a while, but there are a few things to chew over in the wake of this news.

1. Noah has a couple of demographic characteristics not in common with Stewart or with much (but not all) of the rest of late-night comedy: he's young (only 31), he's biracial, and he's not American. He's also a guy who does a lot of comedy about race in his own standup, as in a set from London where he talks about how the marriage of his parents (as well as his birth) was actually illegal, and how his mother had to drop his hand and pretend not to be his mother in front of the police. ("I felt like a bag of weed.") It's not just the fact that Noah is biracial that makes him feel like a choice relevant to the moment; it's the fact that he's a performer who does a lot of very pointed material about race who's taking over the show at a time when Stewart, too, was spending a lot of time talking about it.

Picking Noah also means the show's coverage of the upcoming presidential election — historically some of its most-discussed work — will be headed up by someone who isn't an American. That would have seemed like more of a headline, perhaps, prior to the ascendancy of John Oliver, who not only was a star on The Daily Show, but has now established himself as a commentator on American politics over on his own show on HBO, Last Week Tonight.

2. It might seem surprising that they would have Noah take over after such a short time with the show, but they undoubtedly vetted him pretty thoroughly before they added him in the first place. In a lot of ways, it's probably smart to pick somebody who is of the show, but not too much of the show. Had they chosen one of the veteran correspondents who was so closely associated with Stewart's version of The Daily Show, the old host's absence might have felt more glaring. This pick provides some continuity but also a solid break between the old and the new, and perhaps some chance at making it his own.

3. Coverage of The Daily Show has historically treated it as a pure expression of Stewart's sensibility, despite the fact that he's supported by a staff of writers and producers. (Honestly, it's a common problem with visible hosts and their invisible collaborators.) With Noah being so much younger and newer to the scene than Stewart has been for many, many years — and so much less familiar to much of the audience — we may see a shift toward the show being treated as less of a tour de force and more of a collaboration, which probably represents it more honestly, particularly while he's getting himself established.

4. Speaking of writers, it will be interesting to see whether the existing writing staff sticks around without Stewart. Having to populate that writers' room with new people would represent both a huge challenge and a huge opportunity.

5. And finally, for perspective's sake, it's important to remember that Jon Stewart today is an institution, but Jon Stewart when he took the show over from Craig Kilborn in early 1999 was not. David Letterman was coming off a canceled daytime show when he got into late night, and Conan O'Brien was a little-known camera presence when he got Letterman's old job. The goofy idea of clear trajectories — that informed, crowdsourced, listicled speculation ought to be able to produce the most logical person to occupy every job based on publicly available lists of accomplishments and pro/con rundowns — is one that we're probably lucky people don't actually pay attention to.

A Bangladeshi blogger has been hacked to death in the country's capital, Dhaka, and police have arrested two students at an Islamic seminary in connection with the slaying. Washiqur Rahman's killing comes a month after a deadly attack on another blogger in the capital by Islamists.

Rahman, 26, was attacked at 9 a.m. (local time) by three men who used meat cleavers, a local police official told the Dhaka Tribune. He was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival, the newspaper reported.

The newspaper said Rahman was apparently targeted for his writings about Islam. Two of his alleged attackers were arrested, and a third suspect fled.

The Tribune reported that Rahman's Facebook page contained posts that opposed what he called irrational religious belief. It said one of the Facebook groups he belonged to was called Atheist Bangladesh.

Rahman had apparently expressed solidarity on Facebook with Avijit Roy, the Bangladeshi-American blogger who was hacked to death Feb. 27 in Dhaka for "crime[s] against Islam." On Facebook, Rahman had posted #iamavijit after Roy's killing.

Blogger Rajeeb Haider was hacked to death on Feb. 15, 2013, for apparently the same reason.

Muslims make up about 90 percent of the country's 166 million people.

Bangladesh