Droughts are 1)cyclical in 2)Kenya. Before, they came every 10 years, but now they seem to be hitting us more often and for longer periods of time.

　　在肯尼亞，旱災(zāi)是周期性的。以往，每隔十年就會有一次旱災(zāi)，而現(xiàn)在旱災(zāi)似乎來得更加頻繁，持續(xù)的時間也更長。

　　I was born in 1951 in 3)Machakos. From what my mother tells me, that year there was a serious drought. My sister was born in 1961, and I clearly remember the terrible weather and the 4)prevailing hunger throughout the region. I can’t tell you how many times I went to bed without eating. “I slept like that,” is how we described it, which means we went to bed with nothing to eat. I can’t count the number of days when “I slept like that,” or describe the feeling of going to sleep hungry knowing I’d wake up and there would still be no food for breakfast.

　　1951年，我在馬查科斯出生。從我母親口中得知，那一年發(fā)生了嚴(yán)重的旱災(zāi)。我妹妹出生于1961年，我清晰地記得當(dāng)時天氣惡劣，饑荒在整個地區(qū)內(nèi)肆虐。我無法告訴你我有多少次沒有吃東西便去睡覺�！拔揖湍菢尤ニ�覺，”我們這樣來形容上床睡覺前根本沒有東西吃的狀況。我已數(shù)不清“我就那樣去睡覺”的天數(shù)，也無法形容那種餓著入睡、知道醒來時仍然沒有食物可當(dāng)早餐是怎么樣的感覺。

　　Hunger is an 5)unforgivable disease because it is the easiest one to cure. It is 6)devastating to wake up in the morning and look east, west, south and north and see that there is nothing green that you can chew. During a drought everything goes yellow and dry. I would walk the roads and search the ground to see if someone had spat out a bit of chewed-up 7)sugar cane. I am not ashamed to say that I would re-chew what I would find.

　　饑餓是一種不可原諒的疾病，因為它是最容易治愈的一種疾病。早上醒來，朝東、西、南、北各處張望，但是找不到任何可以咀嚼的綠色食物的感覺是毀滅性的。

　　Hunger is 8)dehumanizing. It gets to a level where you do not know how you will survive and you will do anything for a simple kernel of corn.

　　旱災(zāi)期間，所有東西都變得又黃又干。我會沿路行走，搜尋地面上有沒有別人吐出的甘蔗渣。如果能找得到的話，我會拾起來嚼，絲毫不覺得難為情。

　　1The thing about drought is that it does not just affect farmers and their crops; it affects everyone. If you think about it, during harvest time farmers hire local 9)farmhands to help with their crops. But when there are no crops to harvest, not only does the farmer lose his or her income, so do the laborers the farmer would have hired. There is a 10)ripple effect that affects the whole community. Few have food and even fewer have money to buy food.

　　饑餓使人喪失人性。它可以達(dá)到那樣一種境地——你不知道能怎么生存下去，你也不知道你會為一顆玉米粒而做出什么事情來。旱災(zāi)不僅僅影響農(nóng)場主及其農(nóng)作物，它影響著每一個人。只要你想想看，收割期，農(nóng)場主雇傭當(dāng)?shù)剞r(nóng)場工人幫助收割農(nóng)作物。但是，如果沒有農(nóng)作物可收割，不單是農(nóng)場主會失去收入，他們可能雇傭的勞動力也會失去收入。這是一種會影響到整個群體的連鎖反應(yīng)。沒有多少人有食物，而有錢購買食物的人更少。

　　My parents did everything they could to feed us. My father would leave early in the morning carrying a little basket to beg for food or ask for food 11)on credit. Each night he would return home around 10p.m. My mother, after a fruitless day attempting to find food, would try to encourage us by telling me to keep the water in our pot boiling so that when my father arrived we could quickly cook any food he brought in the already prepared water.

　　我父母為了養(yǎng)家糊口想盡了一切辦法。父親每天早早就提著一個小籃子去乞討或者賒借食物，到晚上十點左右才回到家里。而母親找了一天食物都無所收獲后，會嘗試鼓勵我們，告訴我要讓鍋里的水一直沸騰著，這樣，父親一回家，我們就可以很快地把他帶回的任何東西煮熟。

　　I would keep the fire burning and the water boiling. As the hours passed I would watch the water level slowly go down, along with the hopes that we would eat that night. More often than not, my father would arrive frustrated and empty-handed. And I would sleep like that.

　　我會一直讓火燒著，讓水沸騰著。懷著在那天晚上能吃上東西的希望，我會一連幾個小時看著水慢慢地減少。通常，我父親會沮喪地空手而歸。而我就那樣去睡覺了。

　　It is a 12)traumatizing situation as a young child to be without food. You see the fear in the faces of your mother and father, despairing that they cannot feed their children. You feel afraid, too, because your parents can’t provide for you. Your stomach is so empty that even when you are thirsty and you take water it makes you dizzy. You get so 13)nauseated your body wants to 14)vomit, but you haven’t eaten. I think about this now as East Africa faces another drought. I think about all the children who are suffering as I did. We see terrible images of hunger, but I fear that we have not yet seen the worst.

　　對一個年幼的小孩來說，沒有食物會在他的心里留下創(chuàng)傷。你會看見父母臉上的恐懼，那種因為無法撫養(yǎng)孩子而感到的絕望。你也會感到害怕，因為父母無法養(yǎng)育你。你的胃空空如也，即便口渴喝水，你也會覺得頭暈。你惡心得只想嘔吐，但是沒有東西可吐。如今，看到東非正面臨另一場旱災(zāi)，我就會想起這點。我想到了所有像曾經(jīng)的我那樣飽受折磨的小孩。我們看到饑餓的可怕景象，但恐怕最糟糕的尚未到來。

　　We are experiencing really serious stress. At the moment, the 15)magnitude of the hunger facing Kenya is not well known. It 16)is incumbent on all of us to band together and fight this very curable disease. No child on earth should ever have to sleep like that.

　　我們正承受著十分嚴(yán)重的壓力。此時此刻，饑餓對肯尼亞的影響還未廣為人知。我們所有人都應(yīng)該緊密團(tuán)結(jié)起來，一起對抗這極其容易治愈的疾病。世界上的任何一個孩子都不應(yīng)該就那樣去睡覺。