Young Ghanaians risk all for "better" life
加纳的年轻人不计一切代价追求“更好的”生活
Some migrate within Africa while others take the risky route to Europe
By Efam Awo Dovi
一些移民到其它非洲国家;还有一些走险路去往欧洲。——Efam Awo Dovi
全文中migrate一类词不确定能否翻成“移民”,感觉是非法的,没想好怎么简要地换个词表述出来。不知道一直重复“非法移民”这样,会不会感觉带着点别的情绪或者累赘。不确定表达的还有trip/journey一类。
以下译文加粗部分,除原标题格式外,为存疑。
Every week, in the Brong Ahafo Region— one of Ghana’s major food baskets— vehicles load up with men between 18 and 40 years old. Many, mostly the younger men, hope to reach Europe, while others head for more prosperous countries in Africa. Irrespective of their final destination, they have common aspirations: hopes of good jobs and better lives for themselves and the families they leave behind.
每周,在加纳的重要市集之一,布朗阿哈福区,都会有满载着18岁到40岁男子的车辆穿行。他们之中很多人,尤其是年轻男孩儿,希望能去往欧洲,而其余的则想到更繁荣一些的非洲国家去。虽然目的地不尽相同,他们却都有着同样的目标:希望能得到好一点儿的工作、过上更好的日子来养活他们自己和身后的家庭。
food baskets 查的是菜篮子的意思,此处不知作何处理。
Kofi Twum made that trip years ago. He was only 18 and had lost his father at an early age. His mother, a subsistence farmer, became the sole bread winner of the family. When Twum completed junior secondary school, hehawked yams(山药) to helphis mother. But their living conditions worsened and Twum, fifth among six children, felt the need to work elsewhere.
几年前,Kofi Twum在他只有18岁的时候,就尝试过这个方法了。他在很早的时候失去了父亲。当时他的母亲,不过是个自给自足的农民,成了家里唯一的经济来源。所以Twum初中毕业后就开始卖山药来补贴家用。但他们的生活状况并没有好转。作为家里六个孩子中的老五,他觉得有必要去别处另谋生路了。
“I wanted to go to Italy to be able to support my mother,” Twum told Africa Renewal from his home in the town of Nkoranzain northern Ghana.
在位于加纳北部的恩科兰扎镇,Twum的故乡,他告诉《非洲振兴》说:“那时我想去意大利找份工作来养我的妈妈。”
In 2014, with financial support from his brother, Twum joined a group of 35 young men on a journey through the Sahara Desert to Libya, where they were to take a boat to Europe.
2014年的时候,在兄弟的资助下,他加入了一个35人的小团队,准备穿越沙哈拉沙漠去往利比亚。到那儿之后,再搭船前往欧洲。
However, hopping a crowded boat out of Libya on his third attempt to cross the Mediterranean, he was arrested and deported to Ghana. He arrived empty-handed. Twum, now a street preacher in his 30s, tells Africa Renewal that he still hopes to make it to Europe one day, this time by some other route.
然而,就在他挤在从利比亚出发的船上的时候,他被逮捕并遣返回加纳。这已是他第三次试图穿过地中海去往欧洲了。他身无分文地回到了加纳。Twum现在已经三十多岁了,是个街头传教士。他告诉《非洲振兴》,他还期盼着有一天能到欧洲去,不过不打算走之前那条路线了。
A hazardous journey
危险之旅
Most Ghanaian migrants trying to reach Europe via Libya go through Burkina Faso(布基纳法索)to Agadez(阿加德兹市), Niger. From there they join others from West Africa and other areas who are fleeing conflict and persecution.
绝大多数经由利比亚去往欧洲的加纳移民,都会通过布基纳法索到尼日尔的阿加德兹市去。在那里,他们会和其他从西非和其它地方来的人碰头。那些人,则通常是为了逃离冲突和迫害而背井离乡的。
With the services of middlemen, they travel on overloaded trucks in convoys and part of the way on foot through the Sahara Desert to the Borkou region near the Libyan border. It’s a death-defying experience. Many die from exhaustion and dehydration.
通过中介的帮助,他们会搭上超载的大卡车车队,之后还需要在沙哈拉沙漠中走上一段,到利比亚边境的博尔库地区。那是一场与死神的抗争。许多人或力竭、或脱水,最终在路上死去。
Twum recalls thehuman traffickers and their extortionate demands for money. Also unforgettable was the sight of many lifeless bodies abandoned in the hot Saharan Desert. “Some were leaning on the rocks, they looked like they were sleeping, others were buried in the dust,” he recalled.
Twum又回想起了那些人贩子和他们高昂的要价。还有那些,绝不可能忘记的,被遗弃在炙热的沙哈拉沙漠里的尸体。他回忆道:“他们有的靠在岩石上,看上去像是在睡觉。其他的,则被尘土掩埋。”
Three of his fellow travellers died. “They couldn’t continue the walk. When that happens, we try to encourage them, but after a while you have to leave them, because if you’re left behind you’ll lose your way, and you’ll soon die,” he said. “These were people I knew, we travelled together from Nkoronza. I called their families later from Tripolito inform them.”
与他同行的人中,有三个死了。他说:“他们走不下去了。当这种情况发生的时候,我们起初还会鼓励他们,但过了一会儿,你就必须放弃他们了。因为如果你被大部队抛下,你就会找不到出路,不用多久,你也会死。这些是我认识的人——一块儿从Nkoronza出发的。我之后到特里波利斯的时候再打电话给告知他们的家人。”
Twum’s story is all too common in the Brong Ahafo Region,with echoes acrossGhana and other sub-Saharan African countries.
Twum的故事在布朗阿哈福再平常不过,在加纳和沙哈拉以南的其它非洲国家也是一样。
During the 2011 Libyan crisis and theoverthrowofMuammar Gaddafi, more than 18,000 Ghanaian migrants in Libya wereevacuated, according to theInternational Organization for Migration (IOM)office in Ghana. The actual number of returnees, however, could be higher as some migrants managed to get out of Libya on their own before the crisis worsened.
据国际移民组织(IOM)在加纳的办事处所说,在2011年,利比亚危机和卡扎菲政府被推翻的时期,超过一万八千民的在利加纳移民被驱逐出境。然而,实际的遣返人数可能更多,因为有些人试图在危机进一步恶化之前自己想办法离开利比亚。
The majority of the returnees were sent back to the Brong Ahafo Region, from which they came, according to the IOM, which supported the Ghanaian government in evacuating its stranded nationals.
据IOM的调查显示,大多数被遣返者都回到了他们的出发地,布朗阿哈福。这也帮助了加纳政府撤出了他们的滞留公民。
For many families in Brong Ahafo, having a relative in Europeconfersprestige and the prospect ofremittances. “Every household hopes to have someone in Europe,” says Walter Kwao-Anati, the director of migration at Ghana’sMinistry of the Interior.
对于布朗阿哈福的很多家庭而言,有个亲戚在欧洲就是荣誉的象征,因为你可能收到来自他们的汇款。加纳内政部移民署的主管,Walter Kwao-Anati说:“每个家庭都希望能有个亲戚在欧洲。”
In some cases, he adds, “There iscommunity supportfor relatives to leave, because your family will be looked down upon if no one has left for Europe.”
他补充道,在有些家庭中,“甚至会举家集资送亲戚到欧洲去。因为家里一个在欧洲的亲戚都没有是会被人瞧不起的。”
And there is also the expectation of financial support to the family back home, which helps to improve the family’s living conditions. According to the African Development Bank’s African Economic Outlook 2015 report, remittances, at $64 billion in 2015, remain the most stable and important single source of external finance to Africa.
人们也理所应当地期望这些亲戚汇些钱回来,以改善家里的生活条件。非洲开发银行在2015非洲经济展望报告中提到,2015年这些从欧洲汇给非洲的总额达六百四十亿美元,成为汇入非洲的最为稳定的一项重要资金来源。
But beneath the veil of perceived prestige arebigger national development issues. Kwao-Anati admits that in the case of Ghana, “Poverty is one of the major reasons why people migrate in search of economic opportunities.”
但藏在这样的“荣誉”背后的,是更大的国家发展问题。Kwao-Anati表示,在加纳,“贫穷是人们移民去往别国寻求工作机会的重要原因。”