美国国家公共电台 NPR Louisiana Kids Return To School, A Bubble Of Normalcy After Massive Floods

Louisiana Kids Return To School, A Bubble Of Normalcy After Massive Floods

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Things are far from normal for people in Louisiana hit by last month's historic flooding. Thousands have lost their homes, their cars, their jobs. But one routine resumed this week in Baton² Rouge³. Students are back in class after a three-week interruption. Here's NPR's Debbie Elliott.

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE⁴: There's a familiar sound in communities around Baton Rouge.

ELLIOTT: Kids are tussling on school playgrounds again even as their families' soaked belongings⁵ lay in heaps along neighborhood streets. Here at Claiborne Elementary in North Baton Rouge, every available space has been converted to a classroom. The campus is now hosting students displaced from Howell Park Elementary.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Visitors we have on the campus - teachers, today you will have to go with your students to the cafeteria.

ELLIOTT: The goal is to keep it normal even though the schools are merged⁶, says host principal Rochelle Anderson.

ROCHELLE ANDERSON: We wanted to make sure that the students walked into the school that was very structured regardless of the disarray⁷. Once you walk through the building, that disarray would somehow diminish.

ELLIOTT: Every class has a room. There's no doubling up. And rules are in place, as Ms. Pham reminds her first graders.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: So do you talk when I do this?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: No.

ELLIOTT: But Anderson says the school's being more lenient⁸ about uniforms and supplies washed away in the flood.

ANDERSON: We'll feed them. We'll clothe them. We'll give them supplies. We'll love them. But more importantly, we're going to teach them.

ELLIOTT: Anderson is displaced herself and lost her vehicle in the flood, one of about a third of staff members in the East Baton Rouge Parish school system affected⁹. Twelve schools are now meeting elsewhere.

ROCHELLE WASHING-SCOTT: Good morning.

ELLIOTT: At Claiborne school, the Howell Park principal, Rochelle Washing-Scott, makes the rounds to make sure her teachers and students are comfortable in the new setting. The biggest issue has been transportation, she says. Most of her students walk to school, but now they're spread out across the region with no place to call home.

WASHINGTON-SCOTT: That's been the painful part of it. So that's why we've been making it such a big deal for a school to be the haven¹⁰, the safe house, the place where at least you know if your baby's here (laughter), they're fine until you figure out kind of what you need to do as far as living arrangements go.

ELLIOTT: The living arrangement for nearly a hundred East Baton Rouge Parish students means passing through this metal detector¹¹ at the River Center downtown, the city's emergency shelter. Sarita Fritzler with Save the Children says the situation takes a toll¹².

SARITA FRITZLER: At first it might be exciting to be living in a shelter, to be meeting, you know, this new surrounding. But then now we're seeing children who are just anxious. Like, what's next? Where do we go next? They've seen people come and go, and they're still here.

ELLIOTT: For the three weeks that school was interrupted, Save the Children had a space in the shelter for kids to play games and have somebody to talk to. Now it serves as an after-school program.

PATRICIA DUNCAN: How was school today?

TALESHA COLEMAN: Good.

DUNCAN: It was good.

ELLIOTT: Worker Patricia Duncan is at a table, molding Play-Doh with 11-year-old Talesha Coleman in her first day back in class. She says they wrote stories about what has happened since the flood.

What was your story?

TALESHA: Me being here.

LOUELLA COLEMAN: That's my little grandbaby. That's Talesha. And you know, I tell her we just keep it positive.

ELLIOTT: Louella Coleman is raising two grandchildren, Talesha and her 6-year-old sister. She's disabled and uses a walker to get around the shelter. She has a wide, warm smile despite her predicament. The family has been living here since August 12 when her rental¹³ house got water and she lost everything.

COLEMAN: I've gotten to the point where I just leave it in God's hand now. That's all I can do.

ELLIOTT: Coleman is glad to have the girls back in school. She calls herself a diehard for education. But things are off to a rocky start because the first graders' bus hasn't made it back to the shelter, and it's now after 6.

COLEMAN: She's not here yet. For them to just have her sitting there at the bus terminal is frightening to me because she's just 6. She's not used to that.

ELLIOTT: The aftermath of the flood means dealing¹⁴ with a lot that people aren't used to. The shelter will be closing next week, and Coleman has yet to find a place to live. Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Baton Rouge.

(CROSSTALK)

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 baton   

n.乐队用指挥杖

参考例句：

• With the baton the conductor was beating time.乐队指挥用指挥棒打拍子。
• The conductor waved his baton,and the band started up.指挥挥动指挥棒，乐队开始演奏起来。

3 rouge   

n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红

参考例句：

• Women put rouge on their cheeks to make their faces pretty.女人往面颊上涂胭脂，使脸更漂亮。
• She didn't need any powder or lip rouge to make her pretty.她天生漂亮，不需要任何脂粉唇膏打扮自己。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• 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。

5 belongings   

n.私人物品，私人财物

参考例句：

• I put a few personal belongings in a bag.我把几件私人物品装进包中。
• Your personal belongings are not dutiable.个人物品不用纳税。

6 merged   

（使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中

参考例句：

• Turf wars are inevitable when two departments are merged. 两个部门合并时总免不了争争权限。
• The small shops were merged into a large market. 那些小商店合并成为一个大商场。

7 disarray   

n.混乱，紊乱，凌乱

参考例句：

• His personal life fell into disarray when his wife left him.妻子离去后，他的个人生活一片混乱。
• Our plans were thrown into disarray by the rail strike.铁路罢工打乱了我们的计划。

8 lenient   

adj.宽大的，仁慈的

参考例句：

• The judge was lenient with him.法官对他很宽大。
• It's a question of finding the means between too lenient treatment and too severe punishment.问题是要找出处理过宽和处罚过严的折中办法。

9 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

10 haven   

n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所

参考例句：

• It's a real haven at the end of a busy working day.忙碌了一整天后，这真是一个安乐窝。
• The school library is a little haven of peace and quiet.学校的图书馆是一个和平且安静的小避风港。

11 detector   

n.发觉者，探测器

参考例句：

• The detector is housed in a streamlined cylindrical container.探测器安装在流线型圆柱形容器内。
• Please walk through the metal detector.请走过金属检测器。

12 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

13 rental   

n.租赁，出租，出租业

参考例句：

• The yearly rental of her house is 2400 yuan.她这房子年租金是2400元。
• We can organise car rental from Chicago O'Hare Airport.我们可以安排提供从芝加哥奥黑尔机场出发的租车服务。

14 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。