英文原版对话1000个:890 Habitat for Humanity

Matthew: Hi, everybody. My name's Matthew White and I'm here interviewing Mary Birch-Harmon, who we lovingly call MB. MB, we know you go on lots of trips for Habitat For Humanity¹. Could you please explain exactly what is Habitat?

MB: Sure. Habitat For Humanity is an NGO that's based out of America and it's committed to stopping poverty housing all over the world.

Matthew: All over the world. OK, so normally do you do your work in America or where do you go?

MB: I have gone on many trips in Asia actually. I'm mostly involved with Habitat For Humanity International.

Matthew: So how many trips have you been on?

MB: I've been on six different trips.

Matthew: OK, six trips.

MB: Yeah.

Matthew: And where did you go on the last trip?

MB: I went to Papua New Guinea for two weeks.

Matthew: Two weeks.

MB: Yeah, and I went with ten students and there were three teachers on the trip as well.

Matthew: Students! And how do you convince students to go on these trips?

MB: Well, I'm a member of a campus chapter through a university in Japan and I've been able to go on these trips with the students because they are very committed as well to stopping poverty housing and they've studied a lot about the different countries that we visit and they've studied a lot about how we can help by helping² to build a house.

Matthew: You said you went to Papua New Guinea last time.

MB: Yeah.

Matthew: Can you tell us a little bit about what that experience was like?

MB: Sure. We had a wonderful time. We were there for two weeks and we were working on a wooden house. In the previous trips we never had used wood before so this was a new experience for the students and for myself and it was lot of work. It was a lot of hard work but we were able to finish most of the house. We didn't complete everything, but we worked as hard as we could and we put a lot of love into the house and it was a lot of fun.

Matthew: So do you have... I mean, how do you... You're building a house. Do you have some special construction skills?

MB: No, I don't. I'm an unskilled laborer³, but when you go on a Habitat trip they have skilled laborers⁴ there, or skilled people there that teach you how to build, so we do very simple tasks and we try to help the local people or the family build their house.

Matthew: When you say simple tasks, simple can be different for different people. What's a simple task?

MB: Well, like we learn how to mix cement which means that you have to mix it using the cement sand as well as water as well as rocks or you learn how to plane wood which is to make it very smooth, or you learn how to hammer a piece of wood for a wall or for flooring or anything like that. Simple meaning a job that anyone could learn how to do.
 

1 humanity   

n.人类，[总称]人(性)，人道[pl.]人文学科

参考例句：

• Such an act is a disgrace to humanity.这种行为是人类的耻辱。
• We should treat animals with humanity.我们应该以仁慈之心对待动物。

2 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

3 laborer   

n.劳动者，劳工

参考例句：

• Her husband had been a farm laborer.她丈夫以前是个农场雇工。
• He worked as a casual laborer and did not earn much.他当临时工，没有赚多少钱。

4 laborers   

n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工

参考例句：

• Laborers were trained to handle 50-ton compactors and giant cranes. 工人们接受操作五十吨压土机和巨型起重机的训练。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. 雇佣劳动完全是建立在工人的自相竞争之上的。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言