实战口语情景对话 第540期:Life in Togo 在多哥的生活

Todd: Now, Michael, you were in the Peace Corps?
托德：迈克尔，你曾在和平队工作过？

Mike: Peace Corps, yeah.
迈克：和平队，对。

Todd: Can you explain what the Peace Corps is and what you did?
托德：你能介绍一下和平队还有你的工作吗？

Mike: Well, it's an organization, U.S. Government organization that sends young people for the most part, college graduates, to different countries to work as volunteers in either construction or education. I was in education. I was a high school teacher.
迈克：和平队是一个美国政府组织，这个组织会派遣志愿者去其他国家参与建设和教育工作，当然这些志愿者大多数都是年轻人和大学毕业生。当时我参与的是教育领域，我被派去当高中老师。

Todd: Where did you go? What country?
托德：你去了哪个国家？

Mike: I was in Togo.
迈克：我去的是多哥。

Todd: Togo?
托德：多哥？

Mike: It's a little country between Ghana and Dahomey, and the time Benin, Nigeria, West Africa.
迈克：多哥是一个非常小的西非国家，与加纳、达荷美、贝宁和尼日利亚相邻。

Todd: West Africa, yeah.
托德：西非国家。

Mike: And I was a high school teacher. I was an education major at the University of Michigan, and trained as a high school teacher there, but I had to get a complete different training, skills, to work in West African high schools. I mean for one thing, the classes were huge, like a hundred students in a class, and we didn't have textbooks. We just had a blackboard in front of the class and students had notebooks, so you had to really manage the class so that the students always had something to write down, or practive from their notebooks, and you know I had like four or five classes like that every day, and it was a very gruelling job, but very, very exciting work, I mean, I loved it. I just loved it. It was the best thing a college grad could do in my opinion.
迈克：我在那里当高中老师。我在密歇根大学读的是教育专业，接受过高中老师的训练，但是为了在西非的高中工作，我必须要完成不同的训练、掌握一些技巧。因为那里的高中班级人数非常多，一个班大概有100名学生，而且没有教材。通常每个班前面都有一块黑板，学生们会准备笔记本，所以必须管理好课堂，保证学生们在本上记录学习到的知识，每天我要上四五节课，那真是繁重的工作，不过也很刺激，我很喜欢。我真的很喜欢。我认为这是大学毕业生能做的最好的工作。

Todd: What type of experiences do you remember about living in Togo?
托德：你还记得在多哥生活时的经历吗？

Mike: Ah, living in Togo, well, I was a foreigner, right, I was white, I am white, and everybody was African, black, so there was this feeling of always being an outsider and occasionally, not occasionally, often, you know kids would make fun of you for being different, and you know, so it was sort of hard to get used to that. That was one thing I remember. I mean, I remember the beauty of it all, and how in the tropical area, how things grow (right) like it would rain almost every day and then when the rain stopped and the sun came out you could just literally see flowers growing, plants blossoming, you know, that's one thing I really remember.
迈克：在多哥的生活……我是外国人，而且又是白人，而其他人都是非洲人和黑人，所以我一直有一种我是外人的感觉，偶尔……不是偶尔，其实是经常，孩子们经常取笑我和其他人不一样，所以其实很难适应这种生活。这就是我记得的情况。我记得那里的美景，记得热带地区的美和万物的生长，那里几乎每天都下雨，雨过天晴后，你会看到花朵的生长、植物的繁荣，这就是我所记得的事情。

Todd: Man, it must have been really, really beautiful.
托德：天哪，那一定非常非常漂亮。

Mike: It is.
迈克：的确是。

Todd: Have you ever gone back?
托德：你有回去过吗？

Mike: You know, I was just thinking about that the other day, that why, no I haven't gone back. I haven't gone back. I would love to. If I have the opportunity I will, or I have to make the opportunity to go back. It's a very volatile country, though, you know. It's not an easy country to go to just as a visitor. I think you need to have something to do there, (right) like I did, you know, I had a regular routine, and place to live. I don't think I would want to go there as a tourist, but I'd love to go back if I have an inviation to do something again.
迈克：那天我还在想这件事，我没有回去过。我没有再回去多哥。不过我很想回去。如果有机会，我会回去，我会找机会再去多哥看看。那是一个非常动荡的国家，要作为游客去那里并不容易。我觉得最好是在那里有事情做，这样就有规律的生活，而且还有住的地方。我不想以游客的身份去那里，不过如果我受邀去那里参与工作项目的话我很乐意回去看看。

Todd: Alright, thanks Mike.
托德：好，谢谢你，迈克。

Mike: Sure.
迈克：不客气。