美国国家公共电台 NPR--In Uvalde, a woman in clown colors makes kids smile

In Uvalde, a woman in clown colors makes kids smile

Transcript¹

UVALDE, Texas — One week after the school shooting here, locals and out-of-towners stop by a makeshift memorial in the town square to lay flowers, light candles and say prayers.

Under a blue canopy² to block the hot South Texas sun, a woman wearing the face paint and bright colors of a clown calls out. Her apron³ says Bippy's World, the clowning business she operates in Houston.

"Would you like a snow cone⁴, popcorn⁵, cotton candy? Or do you want all three?" she asks 4-year-old Israel Sanchez.

He's with his grandmother Amy Nu?ez from Austin, passing through on their way back from Del Rio, to the west of here. She wanted to pray for the kids. "Every prayer counts," she says.

"I have six grandkids, and it got to me," says Nu?ez. "That's why I'm here." She points to her grandson. "He's the youngest, and he's getting ready to go to school, so, yeah, it's very emotional for me."

Behind the face paint of Bippy the Clown is Deturice Dunbar, 55. She's here in Uvalde because gun violence has touched her own family and she felt God called her here to serve.

"He told me I had an assignment to be here," she says. "When these type of things happen, the politicians come out, the news media — but nobody comes for the kids. It was such a tragedy. I just wanted to give them just one moment where they can come over and smile and be a kid again."

She's also here because she knows the pain of a parent waiting to know about her child's condition after a shooting. Her daughter was wounded in New Orleans in February — shot twice by the girlfriend of her son's father.

"She lived, thank God," she says. But the experience shattered Dunbar, whose grandson was in the car at the time.

"By the grace of God, I'm still here, because I almost lost my mind," she says, "because I wanted to know what happened when nobody could give me no answers."

She rushed to the New Orleans hospital where her daughter was being hurried into surgery.

"I said, 'Can you wait? I just want to see her.' One of the bullets had severed⁶ the main artery⁷ in her right leg. She had no feeling, no blood flow," Dunbar says, choking on her words. "I remember sitting in that waiting room just saying, 'God, please.' "

And so she dwells on the image of the Uvalde parents who waited in fruitless agony to be reunited with their children.

"They never got to see their child. And to know that your child needed you, and you wasn't there. ... Think about the mom who's sitting at home saying ..., 'I should have been there to protect her.' That's how we feel as parents. But we're not the Savior — we can't save the world — but we feel like we should be able to save our children."

For Dunbar, being a clown is her ministry⁸: answering God's call to minister to "the young in age and the young at heart, and put smiles on their faces." And her calling to serve has been met by warm hospitality in Uvalde: A local woman has offered Dunbar a place to stay while she's here.

"When all everything is said and done and this community is still here, it's a lot of brokenness. It's a lot of pain. It's a lot of hurt," she says.

She wants something to change in this country, whether stationing a National Guard member outside every classroom or the automatic reporting of anyone who tries to buy hundreds of bullets, or ...

"I don't know," she says. "I just know that the answer is not to continue to do nothing."

She hands Israel a pink cloud of cotton candy larger than his head, and he selects a frisbee⁹ from her array of toys to take home with him to Austin. The smile on his face is enormous.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 canopy   

n.天篷，遮篷

参考例句：

• The trees formed a leafy canopy above their heads.树木在他们头顶上空形成了一个枝叶茂盛的遮篷。
• They lay down under a canopy of stars.他们躺在繁星点点的天幕下。

3 apron   

n.围裙；工作裙

参考例句：

• We were waited on by a pretty girl in a pink apron.招待我们的是一位穿粉红色围裙的漂亮姑娘。
• She stitched a pocket on the new apron.她在新围裙上缝上一只口袋。

4 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

5 popcorn   

n.爆米花

参考例句：

• I like to eat popcorn when I am watching TV play at home.当我在家观看电视剧时，喜欢吃爆米花。
• He still stood behind his cash register stuffing his mouth with popcorn.他仍站在收银机后，嘴里塞满了爆米花。

6 severed   

v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂

参考例句：

• The doctor said I'd severed a vessel in my leg. 医生说我割断了腿上的一根血管。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We have severed diplomatic relations with that country. 我们与那个国家断绝了外交关系。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 artery   

n.干线，要道；动脉

参考例句：

• We couldn't feel the changes in the blood pressure within the artery.我们无法感觉到动脉血管内血压的变化。
• The aorta is the largest artery in the body.主动脉是人体中的最大动脉。

8 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

9 frisbee   

n.飞盘(塑料玩具)

参考例句：

• We always go to the park on weekends and play Frisbee.我们每个周末都会到公园玩飞盘。
• The frisbee is a light plastic disc,shaped like a plate.飞盘是一种碟形塑料盘。