VOA标准英语2010年-Burkina Cloth Reveals Paradoxes in Cou

March 8 is International Women's Day, a national holiday in Burkina Faso. One way of celebrating is by making new clothes from Women's Day cloth that is designed with a new pattern every year. Burkina Faso is Africa's largest cotton producer, but the cloth reveals contradictions in the country's biggest industry.

Anna Boiko-Weyrauch | Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso 08 March 2010

In Burkina Faso's second-largest city, Bobo-Dioulasso, cloth merchant Douda Tassembedo walks up and down the streets selling new designs.  Today he has rolls of cloth for International Women's Day, March 8.  A lot of women are looking, but Tassembedo is having a hard time getting anyone to buy. He says business is slow.  He says people buy one piece, or at most three pieces, each, not too much.  So he says if he makes five sales a day he can get by.

Tassembedo passes by one lady, Salimata Ouedrago, wearing the Women's Day cloth from last year.  She decides not to buy this year's design quite yet.

Ouedrago says in Burkina Faso, March 8 is a day for women to relax and men to take care of everything at home.  Ouedrago says the men go to the market, run errands and then come home and cook.  But she says the March 8 designs are expensive.

The cloth vendor¹ says "good bye" and keeps walking.

In the town of Koudougou, the machines at Burkina Faso's only textile factory, Fasotex, are busy printing cloth for Women's Day.  Even though this cloth is specially² designed for Burkina Faso, only about a third is manufactured in the country.

The Fasotex factory has had trouble making money recently.  It was privatized and reopened in 2006 after losing money as a national business.  Since then, only one small part of the factory has gotten up and running.

Today, Fasotex only prints designs on fabric³, it does not turn the raw cotton into cloth like it used to.  Underneath⁴ the designs, the fabric itself is imported from Benin, even though Burkina Faso is Africa's largest producer of cotton.

Factory director, Elie Grand, says that is because the machines in the factory are outdated⁵.  He says the modern looms⁶ outside the country do the same job six or seven times quicker than the Fasotex machines.  Grand says if they were to make the cloth now, it would be twice as expensive as buying it from outside.

Virtually all of Burkina Faso's cotton is exported.  Of the 400,000 tons of cotton it produced last year, far less than one percent actually stayed in the country.  The rest goes abroad to Asia, Ghana and Europe.  It is sold at a price determined⁷ on the world market.  About 20 percent of the population depends on cotton farming.

On a small farm outside Bobo-Dioulasso, farmer Sogo Sanou is getting his cotton fields ready for planting.

Sanou says that cotton used to be the biggest part of his farm, but now that the price has been dropping, he plants more corn. He goes on to say that with cotton, even if farmers do good work, they will not have anything to show for it.  He says fertilizer is very expensive and they have to borrow money to pay for it.  Sometimes, even after the harvest, Sanou says farmers have to pawn⁸ their belongings⁹ to pay back their creditors¹⁰. 

But some people think cotton producers could make a better profit, if their crops could be used in Burkina Faso.

National Union of Cotton Producers Coordinator¹¹ Leonce Sanon says Burkina Faso has a very weak capacity to turn cotton into fabric.  But, he says, he thinks developing the textile industry would help increase the revenue of the producers.

There are a few efforts to do that.  At the Fasotex factory, General Manager Grand is working on getting a new fleet of machines that would begin weaving cloth out of local cotton by next year. He says it will not be a big part of national consumption, but Grand says it will certainly give other people the idea to do the same thing across West Africa.

Back on the streets of Bobo-Dioulasso, Douda Tassembedo the Women's Day cloth vendor has finally found an interested customer.  She looks at the cloth and they haggle¹² over the price.   She decides to buy some and even says her friend wants some too. Tassembedo makes a sale. He celebrates with a calabash of millet¹³ beer, and then keeps walking.
 

1 vendor   

n.卖主；小贩

参考例句：

• She looked at the vendor who cheated her the other day with distaste.她厌恶地望着那个前几天曾经欺骗过她的小贩。
• He must inform the vendor immediately.他必须立即通知卖方。

2 specially   

adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地

参考例句：

• They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
• The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。

3 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

4 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

5 outdated   

adj.旧式的，落伍的，过时的；v.使过时

参考例句：

• That list of addresses is outdated,many have changed.那个通讯录已经没用了，许多地址已经改了。
• Many of us conform to the outdated customs laid down by our forebears.我们许多人都遵循祖先立下的过时习俗。

6 looms   

n.织布机( loom的名词复数 )v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的第三人称单数 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• All were busily engaged,men at their ploughs,women at their looms. 大家都很忙，男的耕田，女的织布。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The factory has twenty-five looms. 那家工厂有25台织布机。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

8 pawn   

n.典当，抵押，小人物，走卒；v.典当，抵押

参考例句：

• He is contemplating pawning his watch.他正在考虑抵押他的手表。
• It looks as though he is being used as a political pawn by the President.看起来他似乎被总统当作了政治卒子。

9 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。

10 creditors   

n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They agreed to repay their creditors over a period of three years. 他们同意3年内向债主还清欠款。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Creditors could obtain a writ for the arrest of their debtors. 债权人可以获得逮捕债务人的令状。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

12 haggle   

vi.讨价还价，争论不休

参考例句：

• In many countries you have to haggle before you buy anything.在许多国家里买东西之前都得讨价还价。
• If you haggle over the price,they might give you discount.你讲讲价，他们可能会把价钱降低。

13 millet   

n.小米，谷子

参考例句：

• Millet is cultivated in the middle or lower reaches of the Yellow River.在黄河中下游地区，人们种植谷子。
• The high quality millet flour was obtained through wet milling.采用湿磨法获得了高品质的小米粉。