AMERICAN MOSAIC - Country Music: Lee Ann Womack Is the Big W

AMERICAN MOSAIC¹ - Country Music: Lee Ann Womack Is the Big Winner at CMA Awards
By Lawan Davis, Katherine Gypson and Nancy Steinbach

Broadcast: Friday, November 25, 2005

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HOST: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.

I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week:

We hear some award-winning country music …

 
Lee Ann Womack 
Answer a question about rescue and recovery teams …

And report about the building of new houses on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Habitat for Humanity

Last week, Habitat for Humanity International carried out a project in Washington, D.C., called "America Builds on the National Mall. Faith Lapidus tells us about this effort to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.

FAITH LAPIDUS: In August, Hurricane Katrina destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses in the Southern United States. The storm left more than one million people without permanent shelter. Last week, volunteers built the walls for new houses for fifty-one of these homeless families.

They did so in a very special place – near the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington.

 
Habitat for Humanity volunteers construct a house frame in the shadow of the Washington Monument
The volunteers were from Habitat for Humanity, an independent organization. It has been building homes for poor families in the United States and around the world for the past twenty-nine years.

Habitat for Humanity has built more than two hundred thousand houses in almost one hundred countries. Volunteers are people who give their time and skills to build these houses.

For this special project, Habitat for Humanity groups in each state were chosen to come to Washington to build a house. Each day, groups of volunteers from four states built the frames for four houses. At the end of the week, the fifty-one houses represented each of the United States and the District of Columbia. The houses were carefully packed for shipping² and placed on large trucks. The trucks took the houses to communities along the Gulf³ Coast area of the United States.

Kelle Shultz is the director of one of the busiest Habitat for Humanity groups in the state of Tennessee. She traveled to Washington with twenty volunteers from her office. Miz Shultz first became interested in Habitat for Humanity when a friend invited her along on a trip to build houses in Nicaragua. When she got back to the United States, Miz Shultz applied⁴ to become the director of her hometown Habitat for Humanity office. She says the trip was a life-changing experience for her.

Miz Shultz hopes that the "America Builds on the National Mall" project will also be a life-changing experience for the fifty-one families who will receive the houses. However, it will be a very long time until all of the families displaced by Hurricane Katrina will have homes.

Rescue and Recovery Teams

HOST: Our question this week comes from a listener in Vietnam. Pham Hong Hai wants to know about urban rescue and recovery teams. American rescue and recovery teams assist after explosions, earthquakes, storms and other natural disasters in many parts of the world.

 
A search and rescue worker inspects damage after an earthquake
The Fire and Rescue Department of Fairfax County, Virginia is one of two groups the United States government sends to help in disasters in other countries. It is also one of twenty-eight organizations deployed⁵ in disasters across the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

One recent example is their work following powerful storms that struck the Gulf Coast area of the United States in August. Severe flooding destroyed parts of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Urban rescue and recovery workers treated injuries, rescued survivors⁶, and provided food and water to people who had to leave their homes.

In October, a huge earthquake struck northern Pakistan. A small team from Fairfax County was sent to coordinate⁷ rescue efforts.

Fairfax County, Virginia and the Metro-Dade County Fire Department in Miami, Florida first formed urban rescue and recovery teams in the nineteen eighties. These teams were trained especially for rescue work in fallen buildings.

Commanders plan the operations. Technical and structural⁸ experts work to make rescue attempts safe for the rescue workers. Searchers look for victims, alive or dead. Rescuers try to pull the victims from the wreckage⁹. Medical workers treat the injured.

Dogs do an important part of the work of urban search and rescue teams. Dogs can move into areas that are too small or too dangerous for people. They use their sharp sense of smell to find victims. Then they signal their success to their handlers. Some dogs are taught to bark when they make a discovery. Others lie down.

Urban rescue and recovery teams continue to provide assistance to communities after disasters. The teams provide security to the area. They also help people to rebuild their communities.

CMA Awards

The American Country Music Association presented its yearly awards last week in New York City. This was the first time the awards ceremony was held outside Nashville, Tennessee, the home of country music. Pat Bodnar has some of the award-winning music.

PAT BODNAR: The biggest winner of Country Music Association Awards this year was Lee Ann Womack. She won three awards for musical event with George Strait, album of the year and single of the year. The single was on Womack's award-winning album, "There's More Where That Came From." It is called "I May Hate Myself In The Morning."

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Another big winner this year was Australian singer Keith Urban. He won two awards — male singer of the year and entertainer of the year. Here he sings from his latest album, "Be Here." The song is called "Days Go By".

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Jerry Douglas was another Country Music Association Award winner this year. He was named musician of the year. Douglas plays an unusual stringed instrument called a dobro with the group Union Station. We leave you now with Jerry Douglas playing the song "When Papa Played The Dobro."

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HOST: I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program.

Our show was written by Lawan Davis, Katherine Gypson and Nancy Steinbach. Caty Weaver¹⁰ was our producer.

Send your questions about American life to [email protected]. Please include your full name and mailing address. Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA's radio magazine in Special English.

1 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

2 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

3 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

4 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

5 deployed   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Tanks have been deployed all along the front line. 沿整个前线已部署了坦克。
• The artillery was deployed to bear on the fort. 火炮是对着那个碉堡部署的。

6 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

7 coordinate   

adj.同等的，协调的；n.同等者；vt.协作，协调

参考例句：

• You must coordinate what you said with what you did.你必须使你的言行一致。
• Maybe we can coordinate the relation of them.或许我们可以调和他们之间的关系。

8 structural   

adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的

参考例句：

• The storm caused no structural damage.风暴没有造成建筑结构方面的破坏。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities.北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

9 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

10 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。