VOA标准英语2009年-'Lost Boy' of Sudan Brings Fresh Drinking

By Paige Kollock
New York
17 September 2009

 
Salva Dut
Thirty-four-year-old Salva Dut lives in New York. He was one of Sudan's "Lost Boys" - one of the many thousands of children orphaned¹ during the country's 20 year civil war. For more than a decade, Dut wandered homeless with no news of his family. He wound up in Ethiopia, then Kenya, where he lived in a United Nations refugee² camp for nearly six years, before coming to the United States in 1996.

In this week's Making a Difference series, we meet Salva Dut who is helping³ villagers in his homeland gain access to clean drinking water.

Millions of people across Southern Sudan lack access to safe drinking water. Streams and lakes often are contaminated⁴, causing diarrhea and cholera⁵. But Salva Dut is working to change that.

Through his organization, Water for Sudan, he has raised more than $1 million to help bring clean water to his country's villages - an idea that began with his father.

 
Drinking polluted water has a negative impact on health
"In 2002, I got the news from UNICEF [the United Nations Childrens Fund] that my dad was ill, and had been admitted to the U.N. hospital in southern Sudan. The doctor told him he needed to start drinking clean water. If not, he might get sick again and die early," Dut recalls. "And when I came back to the U.S., I said, 'I should do something to help my father and other people who are in the same situation.'"

With help from fellow church members, schools, individuals and the humanitarian⁶ service organization, Rotary⁷ International, Dut started Water for Sudan, a project that trains villagers to drill and maintain their own community wells. Dut says the organization has built 29 wells.

"I feel amazed, when I go back after a year, what impact we did to [had on] these people. You see they are building the market, you see they are building the school, and [a] clinic is coming in, and so many things are happening around the well," he said. 

Salva Dut says the wells have provided a special benefit for young girls, many of whom would otherwise spend many hours each day fetching water from far away streams. Now that clean water is easily accessible, he says the girls are free to attend school.

"In that part of the world, girls really don't have that value to be allowed to go to school," he says. "They are the last child to go to school. And now, just because of the well there, they have opportunity to go to school. That really touched my heart so much."

Dut spends six months a year in Sudan, traveling the country for his humanitarian work. He meets with village leaders who decide for themselves, which villages should build wells.

 
The program, Water for Sudan, assist villagers in building wells which bring clean, fresh drinking water 
A member of the Dinka tribe⁸, and now an American citizen, Dut says he often feels torn between two worlds.

"It's difficult for me," he says. "I don't know to what culture I belong. And I couldn't fit in any culture at all. When I go there, I think, I feel like, 'Oh, I need to go back to America; it's my home.' And when I'm here, I'm not fitting⁹ in well. I want to go back to Sudan."

One thing Salva Dut says he does know is that he has found his calling. Water for Sudan's goal is to install 40 wells per year, to bring clean, fresh drinking water and a better life to thousands of people.

1 orphaned   

[计][修]孤立

参考例句：

• Orphaned children were consigned to institutions. 孤儿都打发到了福利院。
• He was orphaned at an early age. 他幼年时便成了孤儿。

2 refugee   

n.难民，流亡者

参考例句：

• The refugee was condemned to a life of wandering.这个难民注定要过流浪的生活。
• The refugee is suffering for want of food and medical supplies.难民苦于缺少食物和医药用品。

3 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。

4 contaminated   

把…弄脏，污染( contaminate的过去式 )； 玷污，毒害，腐蚀（人的思想或品德）

参考例句：

• The drinking water has become contaminated with lead. 饮用水被铅污染了。
• The site was found to be contaminated by radioactivity. 发现此地受放射线污染。

5 cholera   

n.霍乱

参考例句：

• The cholera outbreak has been contained.霍乱的发生已被控制住了。
• Cholera spread like wildfire through the camps.霍乱在营地里迅速传播。

6 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

7 rotary   

adj.(运动等)旋转的；轮转的；转动的

参考例句：

• The central unit is a rotary drum.核心设备是一个旋转的滚筒。
• A rotary table helps to optimize the beam incidence angle.一张旋转的桌子有助于将光线影响之方式角最佳化。

8 tribe   

n.部落，种族，一伙人

参考例句：

• This is a subject tribe.这是个受他人统治的部落。
• Many of the tribe's customs and rituals are as old as the hills.这部落的许多风俗、仪式都极其古老。

9 fitting   

n.[pl.]设备，家具，配件，试穿；adj.适合的

参考例句：

• I'm going to a fitting tomorrow.明天我要去试穿新衣。
• The President's address was a fitting end to a bitter campaign.总统的讲话为一场激烈的竞选运动适时画上了句号。