English Recordings

'Many big ideas have struggled over the centuries to dominate the planet,' begins the argument by Jonathon Porritt, government adviser and all-round environmental guru.
'Fascism. Communism. Democracy. Religion. But only one has achieved total supremacy. Its compulsive attractions rob its followers of reason and good sense. It has created unsustainable inequalities and threatened to tear apart the very fabric of our society. More powerful than any cause or even religion, it has reached into every corner of the globe. It is consumerism.'
According to Porritt, the most senior adviser to the government on sustainability, we have become a generation of shopaholics. We are bombarded by advertising from every medium which persuades us that the more we consume, the better our lives will be. Shopping is equated with fun, fulfilment and self-identity. It is also, Porritt warns, killing the planet. He argues, in an interview with The Observer, that merely switching to 'ethical' shopping is not enough. We must shop less.
From pictures of Coleen McLoughlin weighed down with designer bags to branding endorsements by the likes of David Beckham, the image of consumerism as a universal aspiration is ubiquitous. Last week 3,000 people stormed Primark's new flagship store on London's Oxford Street before the official opening time, putting two staff in hospital and earning the description by BBC2's Newsnight of 'a plague of locusts'. There are, however, a growing number of dissenting voices such as the so-called 'Froogles', individuals who use the internet to seek a simpler lifestyle, and organisations and websites which urge people to kick the retail habit.
Porritt, chairman of the government's Sustainable Development Commission, has concluded that consumerism is central to the threat facing the planet, cannibalising its natural resources and producing the carbon dioxide emissions which result in climate change.

Our intention is not to rely on handouts, although we're using donations to help us to cover running costs for our first year, until our sustainability initiative kicks in. We're about to build a poultry farm, which will help us to keep the centre running in a sustainable way. In future we're hoping to add goats and sheep. This morning I got news that the centre is being roofed; they have put the zinc on top and are starting with the plastic.
The children's centre will also have a small dormitory for children who have been labelled spirits. In extreme cases, the children will stay at the centre until they are ready to go back to their families. We won't release a child to its family until we believe that the child is no longer in danger.
I feel great about our success in bringing to an end the killing of spirit children, and I feel proud that Elijah, Mary and myself – and all of the community who are now part of Operation Sirigu – have been able to effect such dramatic changes in the communities. We are proud, also, to have received an award at the House of Commons from the International Service for our work.

We give strong support to the women's groups and community leaders to help them move forward. Compensation is given to the concoction men, since mixing poisonous potions and chasing away bad spirits has been their livelihood. We provide microfinance loans so that they can set up alternative means to earn an income.
We also give the women loans so that they too can set up their own businesses, which enable them to better care for their children. We train them in how to manage that money and run a business. It works because we treat each case individually. The women are part of a co-operative, where they support one another and work as a team to pay back their loans. I personally visit the ladies and check on progress and offer advice and further support if it is needed.
The women are happier now. Many of them take part in our ongoing awareness-raising workshops, acting out dramatisations about the spirit-child belief, singing songs and giving guidance at a family level. The women even have a little more power in the community now – they are slowly redressing the balance.
The next step is to build a children's centre in the heart of Sirigu. This is already underway. The centre is a place where children can go to receive medical care and where we can run counselling sessions with parents, so that they are able to accept their child back into the home as a child, not as a spirit. It's also a place where we teach people about microfinance, and where the community can start vocational training – in weaving or seamstressing, for example. All these things are intended to help empower the villagers to provide a safer environment for their children.

The family don't mourn the child as a normal human being. In three days time the concoction man will come back to perform rites – to suck away bad spirits from the house. If the child was a boy he brings four fowls, a guinea fowl and a goat. If it was a girl he brings three fowls and a guinea fowl. The people believe that unless he carries out this process the bad spirits will stay around their house.
Sometimes the women are very sad. It's hard for them to be pregnant for nine months and then be told their child is bad luck and they have to hand it over to be killed. But what can they do? They can't do much in this society because it's the men who make the decisions and say what is happening in the family.
Sometimes, when a family is so poor that they are not able to take care of a child or if the child has become so malnourished that they can't help it, they label the child a spirit child in order to relieve the burden on the family.
The belief can affect adults, too. Last year a 70-year-old lady was killed. She was accused of bringing bad luck to a family. The concoction didn't work on her, however, and they had to use physical means to kill her: they knocked her over the head.
When I first started working with AfriKids and getting involved in the spirit-child phenomenon, I was giving talks and moving from community to community. From there I started hosting workshops with village chiefs, youth leaders and women's groups.
In the workshops, we gave talks, opened the issues up for discussion and introduced the villagers and chiefs to some of the young people who had once been considered spirit children but had survived. It was useful for them to see what successful, healthy people these children had grown up to be.

Until recently in Ghana, children who were born with disabilities or deformities were believed to be harbouring spirits. The way to determine whether they would bring bad luck to the village was to make them drink a fatally poisonous herbal mixture that, if it killed them, would prove that they were possessed. Joe Asakibeem works with an organisation called Afrikids to help improve the lives of children who are vulnerable to these cultural superstitions and drive away the stigma that goes hand in hand with looking different

Children can be labelled spirit children for many reasons. For example, if a mother dies in childbirth, if a child is born deformed or with a disability, or during a particularly difficult period (where there is severe poverty in the home for example) or even if a child is born as a twin or triplet. In certain circumstances the child may be labelled a spirit and in extreme cases the child may be killed. These children are believed to have brought bad luck to their family or community.
It's usually the father who pronounces a child a spirit child. In this part of northern, rural Ghana, it's men who make the decisions, and the mothers don't have much say in the matter. If there has been an unfavourable turn of events in the village, the mother might agree that her child has brought bad luck. Sometimes, when a mother is very sick, they say that the child is trying to kill her.
When it has been decided that a child is a spirit child, the community brings a 'concoction man'; this is a traditional, local healer who treats diseases. He prepares a potion of poisonous herbs, which he gives to the child, and five minutes later the child is dead.
Spirit children are buried in a special place, far from where people are normally interred and well away from the village.

(December 23, 2012)< A Little Bit of Anxiety and My Small Desire>
♣ The entry below is an entry from last year, on January 11, 2011.
• Today I read my entries from December last year, because I don`t have anything to write about today, and I found the following entry.
• It was not changed. I'd like to keep on writing about my feelings / how I feel everyday.
• My method is done “slowly! and "steadily!".”
• Writing a journal entry in English and Chinese is my hobby. I enjoy it!
--(January 11, 2011) ---------------------------
•Hi, everybody!
• How are you on this Sunday afternoon?
• This time I'd like/ I want/ to talk about a little bit of anxiety that I have and my small desire.
• Sure, everyone has their own anxiety and desires.
• I would like to freely express my feelings and thoughts using English here.--> ('here'? 'on here'?)
• I don’t mind even if it’s just a humble and little thing.
-( I don’t care that it just seems like a humble and little thing.)
• Because learning and writing English and Chinese entries (on?) here is my hobby.
• I will keep on writing and expressing my feelings.
• Sometimes, well...Sometimes, I feel disheartened in my lack of improvement in learning English.
• But I tell myself “slowly! with patience!!!” and “ You don’t need to hurry!”.
It is only then that I feel it can grow, slowly and steadily.
• I'll be able to do it someday, if I don’t stop!
• Because it’s a hobby, I don’t need to back myself into a corner and hurry~~
• Please correct my multiple mistakes! Thank you all very much

(December 1,2012) Grooming My Two Dogs ---------------
Using my free time on Saturday, I groomed my two dogs by myself.
After finishing, they looked sleeker and cleaner.It looked like two black, baby bears were turned into a smart gentleman and lady.Even though my back is in pain now, I feel good and a load is off my mind. It looks like I finally completed my old homework.（^_^）~~

(December 22, 2012, noon) <Two Bouquets of Flowers>
•Hi, how are you all?How is your Sunday going? Are you having a good day? Hummm… today I’ve stayed at home for the whole of day, my son went to meet his friend early in the morning.
• What are my husband and two dogs doing? Haha, they are both enjoying a lazy Sunday on a cold winters day with me in our house.Right now, they are like bears hibernating in the winter. Our two dogs Betty and Zzang-ah are spread out on the living room, and my husband is sitting on the sofa watching TV, and I’m sitting at the table try to write today’s entry.
• By the way, how is weather where you are? Here in Soul, it’s really cold today.
•Before I writing today’s entry I had read my entries from •December last year, because I didn’t have anything good to write. It’s also fun to read last years entries.
•While looking at old entries, I found an entry about a birthday bouquet of purple flowers that my son bought for me a year ago. So now I’ll talk about today’s birthday bouquet of flowers.
• The flowers below were bought as my birthday present by my son after he came back home from work, a day before yesterday. So, I took a picture of them with my phone. How are they? When he gave them to me, a lot of flowers were still buds, but today, most of them bloomed. Are they beautiful?
• Oh, yesterday in the evening, my family met at a restaurant and had a nice dinner.. ^.^/ I appreciate my son and husband with heartedly!
(Thanks for reading and correcting. )

♣(Dec. 21st 2011) 《two bo ttles of wine and a bouquet of purple flowers 》~~
• Four days ago, December 21st, was my birthday.
• I`ll try to briefly talk about the dinner I had that day.
• That day my son bought two bottles of wine and a bouquet of purple flowers on his way home from the office, and my husband made seaweed soup for me.
• In Korea, after a mother has a baby she eats seaweed soup for a while,new mothers eat it for about 3 or 4 weeks,since we believe it’s good for the mother`s health and also it helps her breast feed.
-( about 3~4 weeks, since we believe it helps the mother’s health and also it helps her breast feed. )
• We Koreans, also usually eat seaweed soup on birthdays.
• I really don’t know why we eat seaweed soup on birthdays, but it’s good food for health anyway.
• Is it because I remember my mom eating it after she gave birth to me?
• Anyway, the three of us ate seaweed soup and drank wine.
• Thanks to my son and my husband!
• Today’s pictures are the wine and flowers on our dinner table.
• Oh I forgot to take pictures of the seaweed soup.

to slap someone on their back
manky old boot
to fall off one’s broom
to zoom out of one’s pocket
to pant ‘Whew!’
to wipe one’s glasses on one’s sweater
scrubby brown beard
to feel around for one’s glasses
to glower at somebody
to hold up a worn pair of jeans
it’s a minute off
to pull something onwards
ruddy-faced wizard
to squint around at the ground
passageway
to set up precautions
Ron staggered into Harry and he fell over

to sweep over the hilltop
to slam into the ground
to have a bit of a lie-in
genially
to trudge down the dark, dank lane
howl of wind
to heave the large pot over to the table
toffee
owing to the bulky backpack
swirling colour
to rend the still air
to mess around with something
to rub one’s eyes
to bustle out of the kitchen
treacle
to congregate without attracting attention
to hold out the old boot