You can't rush community work

难词探意

1. NGO 非政府组织

2. jute /dʒuːt/ n. 黄麻纤维

3. register /΄redʒɪstə(r)/ v. 注册

4. enterprise /΄entəpraɪz/ n. 企业

5. fertile /΄fзːtaɪl/ adj. 肥沃的

“When we were building water pipes for anNGOpreviously, we saw the gap between rural and urban areas. We wanted to do something to narrow such 1._______.We never had an answer until we came to Long Semadoh.We saw the challenges they faced in selling 2._______. So we thought maybe helping them with market linkage can be an answer.

We started with 30kg of rice which we hand-carried and packed intojutebags and sold as Christmas gifts in December 2015. After that we decided to formalize it by setting up Langit Collective. An NGO was out of the question because we don't want to rely on handouts. We just went andregisteredas a socialenterprise, that's it.

A lot of people give us ideas. You must push the farmers, change seeds, and use this and that technology etc. But when you spend enough time with the farmers working the fields, you realize they have their own kind of 3._______. They may not teach us the wisdom simply because they don't know they have it, or how precious it is.

For example, when they observe the interplay of different natural elements, it hits you that the human is the most powerful probe and IOT (Internet of Things). It is only when your feet are stuck in the 4._______, that you begin to observe that this mud is a bit harder and this feelsfertile. You can tell because you've gone to enough fields to know the difference.

You can't rush community work because it is all about relationship building. We started off with only Uncle Liun, Auntie Annie and Aunty Rumie who were crazy enough to believe in us. Once you get a local influencer convinced, your battle gets a little easier because you now have a “mouthpiece”who understands enough about what you do.

From three model farmers, we have expanded to over 40 farmers throughout the valley. Now when the other 5._______ see us, they stop and ask, “How is your yield?” You're finally talking farmer to farmer. And it's such a satisfying pat on the back.

Reading

Check

Fill in each blank with only one word according to the context.

Language

Study

Sentence for writing

We never had an answer until we came to Long Semadoh. 直到我们来到龙塞马多，我们才得到答案。

【信息提取】never/not...until... 意为“直到……才……”。

【句式仿写】一些人在离开家之后才开始想念家人。