The dirt road made our car jump as we traveled to the Millennium Village in Sauri, Kenya. We passed the market where women sat on the dusty ground selling bananas. Little kids were wrapped in cloth on their mothers’ backs, or running around in bare feet and torn clothing. When we reached the village, we walked to the Bar Sauri Primary School to meet the people. Welcoming music and singing had almost everyone dancing. We joined the dancing and clapped（鼓掌）along to the joyful, lively music. The year was 2004, the first time I had ever been to Sauri.
The Millennium Village project was created to help reach the Millennium Development Goals, which were set by the United Nations in 2000. The plan is to get people out of poverty, assure（确保）them of access to health care and help them stabilize the economy and quality of life in their communities. The goals are supposed to be met by 2015; some other targets are set for 2025. But our first sight of Sauri showed us there was plenty of work to do.
On that day in 2004, we followed the village leaders into Yala Sub-District Hospital. It wasn’t in good shape. The rooms were packed with patients who probably wouldn’t receive treatment, either because the hospital did not have it or the patients could not afford it. There was no running water or electricity in the hospital. It is hard for me to see people sick with preventable diseases who are near death when they shouldn’t have to be. I just get scared and sad.
Malaria（痢疾）is one disease, common in Africa, which is preventable and treatable. Mosquitoes carry malaria, and infect people by biting them. Kids can die from it easily, and adults get very sick. Mosquitoes that carry malaria come at night. A mosquito net, treated with chemicals that last for five years, keeps malarial mosquitoes away from sleeping people. Each net costs $5. There are some cheap medicines to get rid of malaria too. The solutions are simple, yet 20,000 kids die from the disease each day. So sad, and so illogical. Mosquito nets could save millions of lives.
We walked over to see the farmers. Their crops started to die because they could not afford the necessary fertilizer（肥料）and irrigation. Time and again, a family will plant seeds only to have an outcome of poor crops because of lack of fertilizer and water. Each year, the farmers worry: Will they harvest enough food to feed the whole family? Will their kids go hungry and become sick?
Many kids in Sauri didn’t attend school because their parents couldn’t afford school fees. Some kids are needed to help with housework, such as fetching water and wood. In 2004, the schools had minimal supplies like books paper and pencils, but the students wanted to learn. They all worked hard with the few supplies they had. It was hard for them to concentrate, though, as there’s no midday meal.
Great changes have taken place in these years. Today, Yala Sub-District Hospital has medicine, free of charge. Water is connected to the hospital, which also has a generator（发电机）for electricity. There are no school fees, and the school now serves midday meals for the students. The attendance rate is way up. All this is encouraging supporters of the Millennium Villages project.
There are many solutions to the problems that keep people poor. What it will really take is for the world to work together to change poor areas forever. When my kids are my age, I want this kind of poverty to be a thing of history. It will not be an easy task. But Sauri’s progress shows us all that winning the fight against poverty is achievable in our lifetime.
小题1:In Paragraph 1, the writer describes the kids’ clothes to show that _________________.| A．local children spent a lot of time outside | | B．local parents were not responsible | | C．local villagers were very poor | | D．local villagers were very friendly |
小题2: What is mainly discussed in Paragraph 3?| A．Medical conditions. | B．Agriculture. | | C．Education. | D．Economy. |
小题3:What does the underlined word “minimal” in Paragraph 6 probably mean?| A．Many. | B．Few. | C．Colorful. | D．Various. |
小题4:Because there was no midday meal in school, __________________.| A．kids lacked energy to study attentively | | B．many kids dropped out of school | | C．kids made more efforts to study hard | | D．many kids had to go back home for lunch |
小题5:This story is mainly about _____________________________.| A．the education in an African village | | B．the schools and hospitals in an African village | | C．the poverty and the progress of an African village | | D．the author’s car journey to an African village |
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