Welcome toTHIS IS AMERICAin VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus. And I'm Steve Ember.

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Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus. And I'm Steve Ember.

In 2003 we did a program on the Penobscot Indians in Maine. Today we revisit the tribe to report on some new possibilities for their economic future.

The Penobscot Indian Nation is among hundreds of Native American tribes recognized by the federal government. These tribes have treaties with the government. Those treaties establish special rights for America's remaining Indians as nations within a nation.

The Penobscot Nation has about 3,000 members. Five hundred or so live on Indian Island in the Penobscot River in Maine. Most others live in different parts of that small state in the Northeast.

Cross the bridge from the mainland to Indian Island, and you enter the heart of the Penobscot Indian Nation. Homes stand along with trees of all kinds. The island is not far from the Great North Woods.

During the warmer months, Indian Island is very green. In winter, there is snow. Temperatures can drop far below freezing.

Many years ago, the Penobscot Indians began to lose their traditional ways to support themselves. Dams went up along the Penobscot River where they fished. As manufacturing arrived, some fish and animals along the river disappeared. Many of the Indians could find work only in low-paying industries. Others could not find jobs at all.

Poverty has been a common problem for years for American Indian tribes. Now, many have found a way to earn money and reduce their dependence on federal aid. They operate casinos on, and in some cases off, tribal lands. These operations collected eighteen-and-a-half thousand million dollars last year.

That is the estimate of the National Indian Gaming Association. It was a 10% increase from the year before. The group says Indian casinos have created more than half a million jobs, three out of four held by non-Indians.

But in 2003, voters in Maine rejected a proposed casino that the Penobscot Nation and another tribe wanted to operate. That casino would have been off what is officially recognized as tribal land.

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The Penobscot Indians have tried other ways to earn money. One idea has been to sell traditional Indian canoes made by hand. But a tribal official says each small boat takes several people 400 hours.

Now, the Penobscot may get more chances for factory work. The Maine Technology Institute has awarded $200,000 to the Penobscot and four other tribes in the state.

An agreement among state officials, the tribes and a Maine manufacturing group made this award possible. The director of the Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership says the Defense Department might provide the Indians with factory work.

And there are other economic hopes. The Penobscot may open a non-traditional kind of drug store to sell medicines imported from Canada. Maine is on the border with Canada. Medicines, even American-made drugs, often cost far less in Canada than in the United States.

The Penobscot would order prescription drugs from Canada under a plan announced by Maine Governor John Baldacci. So far, drug safety officials in the United States government have rejected similar plans by other states. But some states and cities are not honoring the government's wishes. They are suggesting that their citizens buy medicines over the Internet from Canada.

Technically, it is illegal for Americans to go to Canada to bring back medicine. Yet many older people do just that.

Maine Senator Olympia Snowe and senators from other states have proposed a measure in Congress. It would permit the purchase of medicines from Canada and other nations.

The United States government has said it could not guarantee the safety and effectiveness of imported drugs. But the drugs would be inspected under this proposed legislation.

The proposed mail-order business in Maine is part of an effort by that state to reduce the cost of prescription medicines. Maine says it will campaign to get poor people to use the service once the Penobscot store is ready.

The poor receive government help with medical costs. The state health department says the plan, if successful, could save millions of dollars during the next two years.

The Penobscot would sell the medicines to individuals and drug stores in Maine. Under the governor's plan, those stores would sell the drugs at reduced prices. Drug stores argue that this plan would rob them of profits.

The Penobscot would operate the store on Indian Island. An old storage building is being improved for this purpose. The nearby community of Old Town, Maine, will ask the state for $400,000 for the restoration.

Penobscot Chief Jim Sappier says the tribe will not make a lot of money. But he says the plan will create jobs. Forty Penobscot could be working in the drug store within a year.

The possibility of a new industry is not the only good news. There is a plan to re-connect the Penobscot River with the Atlantic Ocean. This connection had always provided the Indians with excellent fishing and hunting. Then came development and manufacturing.

Last June the Penobscot River Restoration Project received almost $1,000,000 in federal money. The goal is to improve more than 800 kilometers of river and the area into which it drains. Removing dams will let Atlantic salmon back into the river along with ten other kinds of fish.

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For now, members of the Penobscot Indian Nation go on with their lives much as usual. Children go to the elementary school on Indian Island. Young people attend events at the Boys and Girls Club. Not long ago, some local volunteers collected more than $3.000 for the club. To raise the money, they jumped into a pool of water in temperatures of minus 21 degrees Celsius.

If you visit Indian Island, one of the first buildings you see is the Penobscot Nation Museum.

As you step through the door, you feel as though you have entered the past. A world of traditional culture surrounds you. You pass walking sticks and ceremonial clubs. There are also snow sticks. People use these to play a game in the snow. Tribal artists have carved beautiful designs into the objects in the exhibits.

You see baskets made of sweet grass and from trees that grow on the Penobscot land. There are drums and jewelry -- necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings. And there are moccasin shoes made of animal skin and trimmed with beads. The objects in the museum describe a way of life that began thousands of years before European explorers arrived.

Much of the Penobscot homeland once extended north to what is now Canada. Today many Penobscot Indians live in the same area where their ancestors lived.

In earlier spring times, the Penobscot followed the river to the Atlantic coast. They caught salmon and other fish. And they caught shellfish. When fall came, they hunted elk, moose, deer and smaller animals along the river.

Members of Indian nations are United States citizens. They have most of the same duties and responsibilities as other Americans. But they also make rules for themselves.

A tribal council governs the Penobscot reservation and provides local services. A chief, called a sagama, heads this group.

The word Penobscot is usually defined in English as "a rocky place." There is a traditional story that the people tell about their creation.

Long ago, a group of people lived along a stream. Then a huge frog came and drank most of the water in the stream. The people began to suffer. But after a while, a hero with great power made himself into a giant. This man pulled up a big pine tree and struck the frog.

The frog exploded. The water inside fell into the hole left by the pine tree. It became a river. This river had a place where the water ran over big white rocks. The people took their name from that place. They were the Penobscot Nation.

Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. Internet users can learn more about the Penobscot at penobscotnation.org. I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Faith Lapidus.

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus.

And I'm Steve Ember. Today we tell about companies that provide after-school programs for the children of their employees.

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Many American companies believe it is very important to keep their best workers. It can cost a lot of money for companies to hire new employees and train them. When an employee leaves after working at one company for many years, that company loses the value of the employee's knowledge and experience.

So American companies are trying many different ways to keep their top employees. Companies compete to offer special services or benefits to their employees. This helps companies keep good workers and gain new ones.

Some companies offer employee services that are creative and different.

For example, one company offers classes during the work day in exercise, golf, yoga and foreign languages. Other companies have special programs to help their employees pay less for services like travel, buying clothes and even buying a house.

Many companies are trying to help employees take care of their children or older family members. There are programs to give new mothers more time at home before they must return to work. Some employers allow people to work special hours or even to work by computer from offices in their homes. Working from a home office is called "telecommuting" or "working virtually".

People who do this want to be at home with their children. Or they may not like driving a long distance to work when there are many cars on the road.

Sometimes companies offer special programs to take care of children.

More than three million American children between the ages of six and twelve are home everyday after school without adult supervision.

Many older children also are home alone after school. A report from the National Institute on Out-of-School Time says that only half of the sixteen and seventeen year olds in the United States have useful activities after school.

Many experts believe that young people have too many chances to get in trouble if they do not have useful activities after school. These experts say good after-school programs for older children can help them become better leaders, better communicators and better problem-solvers.

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Bright Horizons is a company that provides child care services to big American companies. Bright Horizons talked to employees at thirty-three different companies around the United States. More than two-thirds of these employees said their most important problem is finding good child care that they are able to pay for. Bright Horizons now provides many different kinds of child care services to companies. It has three times as many programs now as it did two years ago.

Many American companies are offering their own programs for the older children of their employees. A large American company called Abbott Laboratories is in Abbott Park, Illinois. In two thousand one, Abbott spent ten million dollars to build one of the largest centers in the United States to care for children. A special room called "The Lodge" offers programs for school-age children. Whenever these children are not in school, they may come to the center. It is in the same area where at least one of their parents works.The older children learn about nature, do science experiments, play games and take special trips.

Abbott Laboratories also created a program called "Summer of Service". This program is for teenagers who are too young to work but too old for traditional summer camps. The teenagers work on projects that are fun but also provide a service to their community.

Abbott Vice President Sharon Larkin also says over the next ten years, eighty-five percent of the employees in the United States will be working parents. Right now, she says ten million workers are single parents. Ms. Larkin says it is important for companies to be friendly to families and children.

She says communities must invest in learning and development for young people today so they will be successful in the future.

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American business leaders say there are many good reasons to provide child care services for their employees. They say it is easier to hire new employees when the company offers child care services. The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported that employees who do not have to worry about their children work harder. And they do not miss work as often. One researcher reported about the cost of employees not being able to go to work because of problems with child care. The cost to American businesses is three thousand million dollars every year.

Bright Horizons says ninety-eight percent of the employees who use one of its child-care programs would have taken time off from work if the child care program did not exist.

Many parents also come late to work or leave early because of problems caring for their children. When employers offer services to care for children, absences are reduced by twenty to thirty percent.

Ford Motor Company is one of the biggest American companies that provides services to families. Ford and its labor union, the United Auto Workers, created Family Service and Learning Centers in two thousand one. The centers have classes for parents. They also have programs for teenagers and older children before and after school.

Many automobile factories operate twenty-four hours a day. So child care services are offered twenty-four hours a day in some cities. Ford Chairman William Ford says, "Social issues are business issues. Businesses will only be as successful as the communities and the world they live in."

David Terrell works at a Ford factory in Dearborn, Michigan. He says his fifteen-year-old daughter Sheena wants to be a news reporter. Mr. Terrell hopes his daughter will be able to work on a community newspaper for teenagers at the Ford Family Service and Learning Center in Dearborn. Another Ford employee in Dearborn says the young people and adults will be able to work together at the new Center to solve neighborhood problems like too many illegal drugs.

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Another big American company has a different way of helping employees. The computer company, IBM, helps to pay for camps during the summer when schools are not open. These camps are offered for several weeks at the beginning and end of the summer. The camps offer many different activities for children who are eight to twelve years old. Children may attend for a week or only a few days. The cost to parents is low because IBM pays some of the cost.

A banking company called PNC Financial Services also provides programs for the children of its employees. PNC provides something called "back-up" care for young people up to age fourteen. Parents may use this service for twenty days a year when schools are not open and they do not have other child care services. PNC has centers for older children in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

These centers have computer areas, places where young people may eat or play games and kitchens where they may cook. There also is a stage where children can create video and theater presentations. PNC Vice President Kathy D'Appolonia says the only problem is that parents and children want to use the centers for more than twenty days each year.

PNC also has people who will talk to parents on the telephone about problems they may be having with their children. Ms. D'Appolonia says the problems are sometimes simple and sometimes very serious. But she says employees work harder for the company if the company works hard to serve the needs of the employees. American businesses are finding that if they invest in their employees, they are also investing in the success of their companies.

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This program was written by Karen Leggett and produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Faith Lapidus.

And I'm Steve Ember. To send us e-mail, write to [e-mail]. To find us online, go to voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA, in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus.

And I'm Steve Ember. Come with us today as we visit some people who lead a simple life: the Amish in Pennsylvania.

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A visit to parts of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is like a trip back in time.

People live in simple farmhouses. Family members, including small children, all work in the fields. Crops are planted and harvested without modern farm technology.

Most Amish people are easy to recognize. The women make their own long, dark-colored dresses. They cover their hair with white cloth hats, called prayer caps. They do not wear jewelry. The men grow long beards. They wear black clothing and dark hats.

About sixteen thousand to eighteen thousand Old Order Amish live in Lancaster County. This area is also known as Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

"Dutch" is a name for people from the Netherlands. Many of the Amish, however, came from Germany. It is often said that they were called "Dutch" because English colonists could not say the correct word, Deutsch. But language experts note that people in England often used the term "Dutch" as another word for "German."

The Amish live much like their ancestors did. Modern things like electricity, central heating and indoor water pipes are not considered necessary.

The Amish do not drive cars. Instead, they travel in buggies pulled by horses.

A group of Old Order Amish recently won a legal battle against the state over safety markings on these wooden vehicles. Pennsylvania requires buggies to carry a red warning sign that can be easily seen in car lights. But the Old Order Amish do not have to observe that law.

The group is called the Swartzentrubers. They hang a light from the driver's side door of their buggies.

In any case, even a red sign might not have helped ten Amish people injured in Somerset County recently. A car that may have been speeding struck their buggy -- during daylight.

You meet many Amish people in Lancaster County. It is a popular place for visitors. Between now and November, even more are coming. Lancaster County is marking the twentieth anniversary of a famous American film, "Witness." Many people learned about the Amish and their ways from this movie by director Peter Weir.

Some Amish, however, said the story misrepresented them.

Harrison Ford plays a city policeman. He stays with an Amish family as part of an investigation. A tour shows where the different parts of "Witness" were filmed. The Lancaster Cultural History Museum also has an exhibit about the movie.

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"You have no right to keep us here.

Uh…yes I do. Your son's a material witness to a homicide.

You don't understand. We want nothing to do with your laws.

Doesn't surprise me. Lot of people I meet are like that."

One of the scenes in the movie shows a barn-raising in which men from the community put up a farm building.

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"Hurry up now…we have a barn to raise and a day to do it."

The barn-raising in the film looks real -- because it was. Local workers played the parts of the Amish in the movie and built a barn. But the filmmakers brought in heavy equipment so they could speed up the work.

Fifty years ago, a musical play about the Amish life was first seen on Broadway. "Plain and Fancy" is still being performed today. The musical is now being performed in the Midwestern town of Nappanee, Indiana.

"Plain and Fancy" is the story of what happens when two people from New York go to Pennsylvania to sell a farm to an Amish man. Throughout the play, the audience sees the differences between the city people and the Amish.

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The Amish heat their houses with wood stoves. And they get their water from wells.

Many Amish people do not use the telephone. They do not want to be connected to the outside world. But some earn money by cooking lunch or dinner for visitors. Visitors can join a family for a meal that includes meat, potatoes and vegetables grown on their farms. If the guests have any room left in their stomach after all that, they can have a sweet, rich dessert.

The Amish and other groups in Lancaster County, including Mennonites, are known as the Plain People. Many came to the United States from Germany and Switzerland in the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds. They were expelled or chose to leave because of religious oppression.

Most of them settled in Pennsylvania, where they were promised religious freedom. Lancaster County officials say about fifty thousand Plain People currently live there. That is about ten percent of the population. But not all Amish people live in Pennsylvania. There are settlements of Amish in twenty-two American states and in Ontario, Canada.

Some people have expressed concern about the growing number of businesses in Pennsylvania Dutch country. The people worry that this will interfere with the Amish way of life. Sometimes, visitors stop near an Amish family and take their picture -- an act that angers the Amish.

As you tour Amish country, you will see small, well-kept farms of about twenty hectares. The Amish are known for their success at farming. Amish farmers produce as much corn, peanuts, tobacco and other crops on each hectare as other farmers. But they always have been more concerned with protecting the land than with producing huge crops. The Amish also raise farm animals such as cows, pigs, horses and chickens. Each family takes care of its own farm.

But the community works together to do big jobs. People also gather for religious services. The services are in German. At home, the Amish speak a form of German.

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The Amish believe that hard work is important and enjoyable. They do not believe in depending on the world outside their community. Almost every Amish man can build a house, make furniture, and raise crops and animals. Almost every Amish woman can preserve food, make clothing and covers for beds called quilts. Quilt-makers all over the world recognize the beauty and complexity of Amish quilts.

Young Amish women make the dresses they wear for their marriage ceremonies. These dresses are blue, instead of the white that is traditional for many other Americans. After their weddings, the women wear these dresses to church. And when they die, tradition calls for them to be buried in their wedding dresses.

Most Amish families have seven or eight children. Traditionally the children do not leave home until they marry.

The Amish live by rules they believe are explained in the Bible, the Christian holy book. For example, they believe that Christians must always treat other people with love and gentleness. They believe it is wrong to fight wars. They do not become soldiers or police officers.

These religious beliefs sometimes have brought the Amish into conflict with American law. For example, Amish men refuse military service during wartime. Instead, they are permitted to perform some other kind of public service.

Many Amish refuse to send their children to public schools. Instead, they have their own community schools. The Amish pay taxes, but they do not usually vote in elections. They refuse help from the federal government.

The Amish permit few differences among their own people. They are different from most other Americans, and happy to be that way. And their way of life is what brings visitors to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, year after year.

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Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Faith Lapidus. Please join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

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