2007年VOA标准英语-In Senegal, Rotting Mangoes Signal Wasted Econo

By Naomi Schwarz
Dakar
05 July 2007

As the height of mango season approaches, tons of the succulent fruit arrive in the Sandika mango depot¹, in eastern Senegal, from villages across Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and southern Senegal. Mangoes are plentiful² in the region, but as Naomi Schwarz and Alpha Jallow report, observers say the full economic potential of the fruit is not being realized.

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Abdoulie Gueye (left) sells mangoes wholesale

In an open-air market near a railway station in Tambacounda, Senegal, discarded mangoes litter the ground, and the smell of decaying mangoes taints⁴ the air.

Abdoulie Gueye says he sells magoes wholesale and retail⁵. He says the market is very dirty, and during the rainy season it fills with mud and flies.

Mango season lasts roughly from May to August, the wet season in this part of West Africa.

Although mangoes are not native to the region - the first mango trees were introduced in the early 1800s from India - today they grow in abundance.

And they have become a cash crop. Many mangoes are exported to Europe. Vendors⁷ also buy mangoes and sell them in local markets and cities.

Khadia Coumba Diallo is one such vendor⁶.

She says she comes to the Sandika depot to buy mangoes to sell elsewhere. But she says if conditions do not improve at the depot, people will not want to buy from there any more.

The Sandika depot highlights a key problem in the mango business.  Across the region, including in Mali, Guinea, Senegal, and Guinea-Bissau, so many mangoes are produced in these few months that they cannot be exported or sold immediately.

They then collect in depots⁸ like Sandika, which are nothing more than central locations with makeshift stalls and some plastic tarps covering the dirt ground. They do not have facilities, such as refrigerated cases, to store the mangoes.

Many mangoes rot before being sold

As a result, many rot before they can be eaten or sold.

Many observers say the wasted mangoes represent a wasted opportunity for economic growth.

Isatou Diallo, who works as a civil servant in Tambacounda, says while mangoes are rotting in Senegal, growers in other countries are producing them and exporting them to Senegal and other places. 

But for most Senegalese, the imported mango juice is too expensive to drink.

There are small-scale operations in the region to produce dried mango and mango jam, but they tend to be sold only locally and do not make a significant dent⁹ in the overabundance of mangoes.

Diallo says she would like to see factories in Tambacounda to turn mangoes into juice and other products.

Building such factories, she adds, would bring development to Tambacounda, which currently has no factories.

1 depot   

n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站

参考例句：

• The depot is only a few blocks from here.公共汽车站离这儿只有几个街区。
• They leased the building as a depot.他们租用这栋大楼作仓库。

2 plentiful   

adj.富裕的，丰富的

参考例句：

• Their family has a plentiful harvest this year.他们家今年又丰收了。
• Rainfall is plentiful in the area.这个地区雨量充足。

3 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。

4 taints   

n.变质( taint的名词复数 )；污染；玷污；丑陋或腐败的迹象v.使变质( taint的第三人称单数 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏

参考例句：

• Meat taints readily in hot weather. 天气炎热，肉容易变味。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This disease of money and greed taints other people. 别人会为了贪财争赃而丧心病狂。 来自辞典例句

5 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

6 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。

7 vendors   

n.摊贩( vendor的名词复数 )；小贩；（房屋等的）卖主；卖方

参考例句：

• The vendors were gazundered at the last minute. 卖主在最后一刻被要求降低房价。
• At the same time, interface standards also benefIt'software vendors. 同时，界面标准也有利于软件开发商。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

8 depots   

仓库( depot的名词复数 )； 火车站； 车库； 军需库

参考例句：

• Public transportation termini and depots are important infrastructures for a city. 公交场站设施是城市重要的基础设施。
• In the coastal cities are equipped with after-sales service and depots. 在各沿海城市均设有服务部及售后维修站。

9 dent   

n.凹痕，凹坑；初步进展

参考例句：

• I don't know how it came about but I've got a dent in the rear of my car.我不知道是怎么回事，但我的汽车后部有了一个凹痕。
• That dent is not big enough to be worth hammering out.那个凹陷不大，用不着把它锤平。