VOA标准英语2011--California Congressman Returns to Ethiop

A California congressman¹ and his wife are in Ethiopia to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps² at the place where they served as volunteers in the 1960s.
John Garamendi leans back in his chair as he recalls the life he and his new wife Patti found when they arrived as Peace Corps volunteers in Emperor Haile Selassie's Ethiopia in 1966.
"We were to be English teachers. We wound up teaching the sixth and seventh grade," recalled Garamendi. "Patti not only taught school but set up a women's program, a children's program, a pre-school program, and I started doing community development work."
Previous trip
This is not the Garamendis' first trip back to Ethiopia. They returned in 1984 to help when famine struck the countryside and have been back several times since. Patti came in 1994 as associate director of the Peace Corps when the Ethiopia program was revived after a period of absence during the dictatorial³ Dergue regime.
But this week, 50 years after U.S. President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps, now Congressman John Garamendi of California returned with Patti and the youngest of their six children to the town of Metu for an emotional reunion with friends they made so many years ago.
"It was wonderful to see the progress that the town and community had made," he said. "And one thing the students said as we were gathered there at the school was, you taught us two very important words, a four letter word H-E-L-P, that we were to help each other, and the other was ‘community', that we were a community and we would together do well. And they had indeed."
Peace mission
The California congressman recalls another visit to the Horn of Africa in the late 1990s as part of a peacekeeping mission when the region was engulfed⁴ in war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Garamendi says the mission succeeded largely because both Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki trusted the Peace Corps.
"My team was invited to meet with prime minister of Ethiopia and the president of Eritrea. Why? Because they'd been taught by Peace Corps and they knew our agenda was peace," Garamendi said. "We had no other agenda. So we met with both heads of state talking about the war, talking about what their goals were. And in those communications we saw a path for peace. Those concepts we had discovered in our communication with the heads of state... became the essential elements of the peace negotiations⁵ and the settlement."
Garamendi and his team of Peace Corps veterans were later invited to witness the signing of the Algiers peace agreement that ended the two-year war.
Changing lives
The Peace Corps left Ethiopia a second time during that war, which claimed 70,000 lives, then returned again three years ago. The 75 current volunteers do HIV/AIDS prevention work and agriculture projects. But Garamendi says just as in the early days, Peace Corps people bring a variety of skills to the places where they work and live.
"Now one of the Peace Corps volunteers in [the town of] Bonga has become the IT expert for the region," noted⁶ Garamendi. "He's now traveling not only in Bonga but in other communities around that area helping⁷ with information technology, Internet, repairing computers, setting up programs and the like. He wasn't sent here to do that but that was his interest and now he's become the regional expert on that."
More volunteers
Ethiopia Peace Corps Director Nwando Diallo says there are plans to increase the number of volunteers to at least 200 in the next year or so. That number will include teams of English teachers following the trail John and Patti Garamendi blazed more than 40 years ago.
Congressman Garamendi notes, however, that it is not only the recipient⁸ countries who benefit from Peace Corps work. He points out there are 200,000 American men and women who gained a greater understanding of other cultures, religions and the struggles of peoples through volunteering abroad.

1 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

2 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

3 dictatorial   

adj. 独裁的，专断的

参考例句：

• Her father is very dictatorial.她父亲很专横。
• For years the nation had been under the heel of a dictatorial regime.多年来这个国家一直在独裁政权的铁蹄下。

4 engulfed   

v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was engulfed by a crowd of reporters. 他被一群记者团团围住。
• The little boat was engulfed by the waves. 小船被波浪吞没了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

6 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

7 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。

8 recipient   

a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器

参考例句：

• Please check that you have a valid email certificate for each recipient. 请检查是否对每个接收者都有有效的电子邮件证书。
• Colombia is the biggest U . S aid recipient in Latin America. 哥伦比亚是美国在拉丁美洲最大的援助对象。