{"id":1502,"date":"2011-08-17T15:52:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-17T22:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2014-05-14T15:30:58","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T22:30:58","slug":"kevins-experience-in-liberia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philborges.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/17\/kevins-experience-in-liberia\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin&#8217;s Experience in Liberia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\"><em>Kevin Castner reflects on his travels to<em>\u00a0document the work of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.foundationforwomen.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Foundation for Women<\/a>\u00a0(FFW) in Liberia with <a href=\"http:\/\/philborges.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Phil Borges<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/whattookyousolong.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">WTYSL<\/a>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<p>My final reflections?\u00a0 This was an actual adventure for me, something I\u2019ve never done and well outside my comfort zone.\u00a0 I missed not being able to \u2018move\u2019, since we always had to be ferried by car due to the location of our hotel.\u00a0 Normally, I learn an area through my feet, but I was told it was too dangerous, etc. and besides we were always busy.\u00a0 Anyway, that is something I\u2019ll change next time.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1507\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/17\/kevins-experience-in-liberia\/picture-139\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1507\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1507\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1507\" title=\"Picture-139\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Picture-139.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1507\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin in West Point Curiosity of WTYSL<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019ve learned a lot.\u00a0 About myself.\u00a0 That I should be careful about judging or drawing conclusions using only my own previous experience as a guide.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen that people, kids in particular, can be extremely happy in extremely reduced economic circumstances.\u00a0 Should we tell them they shouldn\u2019t be happy?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve thought a lot about Mama Liberia and her recent history.\u00a0 I\u2019ve jogged along her ocean beaches, seen her war-ravaged coastline, climbed through the guts of her former #1 hotel.\u00a0 I\u2019ve see her lush tropical beauty and I\u2019ve read about her abundant natural resources, to which the cure\/curse of oil may soon be added.\u00a0 And my thought was and still is&#8230;.how could you screw this up?\u00a0 You had so much and it took such a short time to ruin it, to ruin your country and its progress and your children\u2019s future.\u00a0 HOW COULD YOU SCREW THIS UP?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1509\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/17\/kevins-experience-in-liberia\/_mg_8901-90-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1509\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1509\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1509  \" title=\"_MG_8901-90\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MG_8901-90-500x135.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"135\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1509\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ducor Hotel, once one of few 5-Star hotel&#39;s in Africa, since the war has been extensively damaged.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>But I\u2019ve also thought about the \u2018developed\u2019 world I came from; the United States of America.\u00a0 Liberians could ask us the same question writ larger.\u00a0 About our carbon footprint polluting the world.\u00a0 Our utterly wasteful habits it would be so easy to change.\u00a0 Our obesity.\u00a0 Our over leveraged financial system and white collar criminals.\u00a0 What about Europe\u2019s wars and financial crisis?\u00a0 The Mid-East.\u00a0 The kleptocrats running Russia?\u00a0 The list is endless and includes every nation and region on earth.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1512\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/17\/kevins-experience-in-liberia\/img_0774\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1512\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1512\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1512\" title=\"IMG_0774\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0774.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1512\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The shell of the Ducor Intercontinental Hotel from West Point<\/p><\/div>\n<p>What I take from these reflections is that homo sapiens, here in Liberia or anywhere else, have a lot to answer for regarding its stewardship of our planet.\u00a0 We should do better.\u00a0 And, if Liberia is also a testing ground for empowering women through microcredit and education and changing gender roles then I\u2019ll all for it.\u00a0 The male of the species has had over 5,000 years to prove they don\u2019t deserve to be running things.\u00a0 Let\u2019s give the women a shot!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1508\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/17\/kevins-experience-in-liberia\/img_0750\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1508\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1508\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1508\" title=\"IMG_0750\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0750.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1508\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Leaving Women&#39;s Summit with Hawa, Behsheba and Theresa<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Phil is now off to document another NGO in Liberia. \u00a0Check back soon to learn about the next project and keep a look out at www.stirringthefire.org for media from Phil once he is home!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kevin Castner reflects on his travels to\u00a0document the work of\u00a0Foundation for Women\u00a0(FFW) in Liberia with Phil Borges and WTYSL. My final reflections?\u00a0 This was an actual adventure for me, something I\u2019ve never done and well outside my comfort zone.\u00a0 I missed not being able to \u2018move\u2019, since we always had to be ferried by car&#8230;  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philborges.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/17\/kevins-experience-in-liberia\/\" class=\"more-link\" title=\"Read Kevin&#8217;s Experience in Liberia\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[136,137,215,216],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-documentary-training","tag-foundation-for-women","tag-from-the-field","tag-kevin-castner","tag-liberia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Kevin&#039;s Experience in Liberia - Phil Borges<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.philborges.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/17\/kevins-experience-in-liberia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kevin&#039;s Experience in Liberia - Phil Borges\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kevin Castner reflects on his travels to\u00a0document the work of\u00a0Foundation for Women\u00a0(FFW) in Liberia with Phil Borges and WTYSL. 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