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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.
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.
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.
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.
The 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
饥饿童年
在肯尼亚，旱灾是周期性的。以往，每隔十年就会有一次旱灾，而现在旱灾似乎来得更加频繁，持续的时间也更长。
1951年，我在马查科斯出生。从我母亲口中得知，那一年发生了严重的旱灾。我妹妹出生于1961年，我清晰地记得当时天气恶劣，饥荒在整个地区内肆虐。我无法告诉你我有多少次没有吃东西便去睡觉。“我就那样去睡觉，”我们这样来形容上床睡觉前根本没有东西吃的状况。我已数不清“我就那样去睡觉”的天数，也无法形容那种饿着入睡、知道醒来时仍然没有食物可当早餐是怎么样的感觉。
饥饿是一种不可原谅的疾病，因为它是最容易治愈的一种疾病。早上醒来，朝东、西、南、北各处张望，但是找不到任何可以咀嚼的绿色食物的感觉是毁灭性的。
旱灾期间，所有东西都变得又黄又干。我会沿路行走，搜寻地面上有没有别人吐出的甘蔗渣。如果能找得到的话，我会拾起来嚼，丝毫不觉得难为情。
饥饿使人丧失人性。它可以达到那样一种境地——你不知道能怎么生存下去，你也不知道你会为一颗玉米粒而做出什么事情来。
旱灾不仅仅影响农场主及其农作物，它影响着每一个人。只要你想想看，收割期，农场主雇佣当地农场工人帮助收割农作物。但是，如果没有农作物可收割，不单是农场主会失去收入，他们可能雇佣的劳动力也会失去收入。这是一种会影响到整个群体的连锁反应。没有多少人有食物，而有钱购买食物的人更少。
我父母为了养家糊口想尽了一切办法。父亲每天早早就提着一个小篮子去乞讨或者赊借食物，到晚上十点左右才回到家里。而母亲找了一天食物都无所收获后，会尝试鼓励我们，告诉我要让锅里的水一直沸腾着，这样，父亲一回家，我们就可以很快地把他带回的任何东西煮熟。
我会一直让火烧着，让水沸腾着。怀着在那天晚上能吃上东西的希望，我会一连几个小时看着水慢慢地减少。通常，我父亲会沮丧地空手而归。而我就那样去睡觉了。
对一个年幼的小孩来说，没有食物会在他的心里留下创伤。你会看见父母脸上的恐惧，那种因为无法抚养孩子而感到的绝望。你也会感到害怕，因为父母无法养育你。你的胃空空如也，即便口渴喝水，你也会觉得头晕。你恶心得只想呕吐，但是没有东西可吐。如今，看到东非正面临另一场旱灾，我就会想起这点。我想到了所有像曾经的我那样饱受折磨的小孩。我们看到饥饿的可怕景象，但恐怕最糟糕的尚未到来。
我们正承受着十分严重的压力。此时此刻，饥饿对肯尼亚的影响还未广为人知。我们所有人都应该紧密团结起来，一起对抗这极其容易治愈的疾病。世界上的任何一个孩子都不应该就那样去睡觉。
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.
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.
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.
The 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
饥饿童年
在肯尼亚，旱灾是周期性的。以往，每隔十年就会有一次旱灾，而现在旱灾似乎来得更加频繁，持续的时间也更长。
1951年，我在马查科斯出生。从我母亲口中得知，那一年发生了严重的旱灾。我妹妹出生于1961年，我清晰地记得当时天气恶劣，饥荒在整个地区内肆虐。我无法告诉你我有多少次没有吃东西便去睡觉。“我就那样去睡觉，”我们这样来形容上床睡觉前根本没有东西吃的状况。我已数不清“我就那样去睡觉”的天数，也无法形容那种饿着入睡、知道醒来时仍然没有食物可当早餐是怎么样的感觉。
饥饿是一种不可原谅的疾病，因为它是最容易治愈的一种疾病。早上醒来，朝东、西、南、北各处张望，但是找不到任何可以咀嚼的绿色食物的感觉是毁灭性的。
旱灾期间，所有东西都变得又黄又干。我会沿路行走，搜寻地面上有没有别人吐出的甘蔗渣。如果能找得到的话，我会拾起来嚼，丝毫不觉得难为情。
饥饿使人丧失人性。它可以达到那样一种境地——你不知道能怎么生存下去，你也不知道你会为一颗玉米粒而做出什么事情来。
旱灾不仅仅影响农场主及其农作物，它影响着每一个人。只要你想想看，收割期，农场主雇佣当地农场工人帮助收割农作物。但是，如果没有农作物可收割，不单是农场主会失去收入，他们可能雇佣的劳动力也会失去收入。这是一种会影响到整个群体的连锁反应。没有多少人有食物，而有钱购买食物的人更少。
我父母为了养家糊口想尽了一切办法。父亲每天早早就提着一个小篮子去乞讨或者赊借食物，到晚上十点左右才回到家里。而母亲找了一天食物都无所收获后，会尝试鼓励我们，告诉我要让锅里的水一直沸腾着，这样，父亲一回家，我们就可以很快地把他带回的任何东西煮熟。
我会一直让火烧着，让水沸腾着。怀着在那天晚上能吃上东西的希望，我会一连几个小时看着水慢慢地减少。通常，我父亲会沮丧地空手而归。而我就那样去睡觉了。
对一个年幼的小孩来说，没有食物会在他的心里留下创伤。你会看见父母脸上的恐惧，那种因为无法抚养孩子而感到的绝望。你也会感到害怕，因为父母无法养育你。你的胃空空如也，即便口渴喝水，你也会觉得头晕。你恶心得只想呕吐，但是没有东西可吐。如今，看到东非正面临另一场旱灾，我就会想起这点。我想到了所有像曾经的我那样饱受折磨的小孩。我们看到饥饿的可怕景象，但恐怕最糟糕的尚未到来。
我们正承受着十分严重的压力。此时此刻，饥饿对肯尼亚的影响还未广为人知。我们所有人都应该紧密团结起来，一起对抗这极其容易治愈的疾病。世界上的任何一个孩子都不应该就那样去睡觉。