时间:2019-01-17 作者:英语课 分类:2018年NPR美国国家公共电台7月


英语课

 


LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:


The Island of Vieques is part of Puerto Rico, but it is set apart, too, a short distance off the big island's eastern coast. Vieques is an isolated 1 place known for its remote beaches and for the decades during which the U.S. Navy used those beaches for bombing runs and training exercises. It's an island that has long been a hard place to stay for locals but a good place for visitors. Now, nine months after Hurricane Maria, as Connecticut Public Radio's Jeff Cohen reports, that dynamic is even more at play.


JEFF COHEN, BYLINE 2: In the windy shade near the ferry terminal is a small square with a tower in the middle. It's called Plaza 3 Hijos Ausentes - the plaza for absent children. It's a place to honor those who were born in Vieques but who chose to leave or who had to.


ELDA GUADALUPE CARRASQUILLO: It's always been an issue in Vieques.


COHEN: That's Elda Guadalupe Carrasquillo. She's a municipal legislator, a middle school science teacher, and she's lived here since she was a child.


CARRASQUILLO: Normally, our kids - right? - we have our children here and then they go out to study and it's very few that, can come back and work here. So they did this monument to honor that they lived in Vieques and they are called sons and daughters of Vieques although they're not here now. They're absent.


COHEN: Puerto Ricans have left their main island for decades in search of opportunity. Vieques is no different, but it's more remote than its bigger neighbor. In good times, it isn't always easy living here. Now, it's worse. Take, for instance, electricity. The underwater power connection that used to bring power from Puerto Rico may be out of service for four years. Robert Rabin isn't from here, but he's lived here for 40 years and runs, among other things, the island's community radio station. He says Vieques' history also distinguishes it from mainland Puerto Rico.


ROBERT RABIN: We're still suffering the impact of over half a century of military control that blocked natural, normal development, leaving the people of Vieques, you know, years behind in terms of economic capacity, economic development, social development.


COHEN: So tourism is what there is, and when it hurts, the whole island hurts. But he also knows that he, a guy who came here to write a college thesis and stayed, could be seen as part of the problem. It's a contradiction, he says, he lives with. Lin Wetherby is a real estate agent here. She's fended 4 off her share of speculators, one offering $50,000 in cash for five houses. What's important to her and to homeowners is that the properties she's working with, often at the higher end of the island's market, hold their value after the storm. And based on her evidence, it appears they may be.


LIN WETHERBY: I had four contracts at the time Maria hit us and pretty much figured maybe I'd get two of them to close. And we're actually going to close all four.


COHEN: Wanda Bermudez is a Vieques native. I met her on the back patio 5 of her mother's downtown home surrounded by wind chimes. She likes tourism but not necessarily the kind that leads to a land grab.


WANDA BERMUDEZ: OK, yeah, we need tourists, but we don't need them to stay.


COHEN: Bermudez says the real estate market skyrocketed after the Navy left. Fifteen years later, she was hoping Maria would have provided a correction to the recently hot market, making it more affordable 6 for locals. None of her cousins can own their Vieques homes. That all said, if the island's complicated history has created some unavoidable tensions, she feels them, too. She fears locals will get pushed out by market forces. And even with all of that, she just sold a beachfront home to an island outsider who could buy it - almost top dollar.


BERMUDEZ: I'm guilty as charged. Here I am. I sold to an outsider.


COHEN: Bermudez says the whole situation is emotionally hard, even more so because the things she loves most about Vieques are still in recovery. There are no ripe mangoes here. The shade trees at the beach are stripped of their leaves. And at least for her, it feels like it's going to take a long time for the island to grow new fruit. For NPR News, I'm Jeff Cohen.



adj.与世隔绝的
  • His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
  • Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。
n.署名;v.署名
  • His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
  • We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。
n.广场,市场
  • They designated the new shopping centre York Plaza.他们给这个新购物中心定名为约克购物中心。
  • The plaza is teeming with undercover policemen.这个广场上布满了便衣警察。
v.独立生活,照料自己( fend的过去式和过去分词 );挡开,避开
  • He neatly fended off a jab at his chest. 他利落地挡开了当胸的一击。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • I fended off his sword thrust with my spear. 他一刀砍来,我拿枪架住。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
n.庭院,平台
  • Suddenly, the thought of my beautiful patio came to mind. I can be quiet out there,I thought.我又忽然想到家里漂亮的院子,我能够在这里宁静地呆会。
  • They had a barbecue on their patio on Sunday.星期天他们在院子里进行烧烤。
adj.支付得起的,不太昂贵的
  • The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
  • There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。
学英语单词
abu gabra
altarer
azotites
banjuleles
be on the high horse
be rife with
best density
bestefforst
bouviness
bucket board
Casas de Haro
chi-ikes
clean legs
coastland
cold infusion
Colorado County
come off work
cooking quality
corpen
descending difference
diagonal bracing
disabled car
disequalising
disialo-ganglioside
disk-type pinion cutter
displacement-length ratio
East Coast of the United Kingdom
engine in situ
epigrams
erection with cableway
extrinsic prime implicant
family cetorhinidaes
family of semi-norms
flat lens
full-flow end-of-line smokemeter
gastrocutaneous pores
gauge microsize
generator pump
goal-scorer
Goschen Str.
got left
Hartia obovata
hibernating glands
hierarchical subdivision
highway transport vehicle
hotel deck
hyalospongia
immersion freezing system
incroachments
industrial typology
intestinal malignant tumor
Jiaoxi Township
kaoliang
karaz-a-karak
lead metal frame
long tin
magnetic quantity sensor
marginal productivity of capital
Mendigorria
mould shooter
mtfa
multivalued dependency
myocardial ischaemia
N-2-acetylaminofluorene
nucleon recoll
outerlead bonding
outsole stitching machine
over-vote
packbag
pailleur
passband width
percentage of compaction
peripheral cell
phase equilibrium constant
photogelatin processes
phytosexology
Pilzein
plectonephridia
prodigiosorin
production possibility
pumpback reflux
quakka
rh-negative blood types
saber-rattling
secondary tidal wave
skin microbiology
smalto
sognfjord
somethinged
sorted ore
spreadability
Tabajara
thioencarb
toe-curling
tossing up
transfer risk
Tuberculum ossis scaphoidei
two-line octave
variola haemorrhagica
vasconcellos
wages in cash
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