譯／陳韋廷
These barren plains of sand and stone have always known lean times: times when the rivers run dry and the cows wither day by day, until their bones are scattered under the acacia trees. But the lean times have always been followed by normal times, when it rains enough to rebuild herds, repay debts, give milk to the children and eat meat a few times each week.
Times are changing, though. Northern Kenya, like its arid neighbors in the Horn of Africa, become measurably drier and hotter, and scientists are finding the fingerprints of global warming.
這些平原沙石滿布而且貧瘠，對於河流乾涸、牛隻日漸消瘦直到暴骨於相思樹下的艱苦時期，早已司空見慣。然而這些艱苦時期過後，總有正常時期接著而來，降下足夠的雨水讓人們得以重建畜群，償還債務，給孩子們奶喝，每周能吃上幾次肉。
然而，情況正在改變。肯亞北部一如它在非洲之角地帶的乾旱鄰國，顯然已變得更為乾燥炎熱，而科學家已發現全球暖化的痕跡。
According to recent research, the region has dried faster in the 20th century than at any time during the last 2,000 years. Four severe droughts have walloped the area in the last two decades, a rapid succession that has pushed millions of the world’s poorest to the edge of survival.
Amid this new normal, people long hounded by poverty and strife have found themselves on the front line of a new crisis: climate change. More than 650,000 children under age 5 across vast stretches of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are severely malnourished. The risk of famine stalks people in all three countries; at least 12 million people rely on food aid, according to the United Nations.
近來研究指出，這個地區在20世紀之中乾涸的速度，是2000年來最快的。過去20年裡，四場嚴重乾旱令這個地區遭受重創，而乾旱緊湊的接連發生也將此區域數百萬全球最貧窮人口推向生存邊緣。
在此一新常態中，這些長期受貧窮和衝突困擾的人們發現，自己身處於面對氣候變化此一新危機的最前線。在肯亞、索馬利亞與衣索比亞廣大地區內，有65萬多5歲以下兒童嚴重營養不良。聯合國指出，飢荒威脅著這三個國家的人民，至少有1200萬人依賴糧食援助生存。
A grandmother named Mariao Tede is among them. Early one recent morning, on the banks of a dry stream, with the air tasting of soot and sand, Tede stood over a pile of dark embers, making charcoal. A reed of a woman who does not keep track of her age, she said she once had 200 goats, enough to sell their offspring at the market and buy cornmeal for her family. Raising livestock is traditionally the main source of income in the region, because not much food will grow here.
Many of her goats died in the 2011 drought, then many more in the 2017 drought. How many were left? She held up five fingers. Not enough to sell. Not enough to eat. And now, in the dry season, not even enough to get milk. “Only when it rains I get a cup or two, for the kids,” she said.
名叫瑪麗奧．特德的祖母就是其中之一。最近某個清晨，在一條乾涸溪邊，特德站在一堆黑暗餘燼旁製作木炭，空氣中瀰漫著煙塵和沙子的味道。搞不清楚自己年紀的她說，她曾經養過200隻山羊，數量足以在市場上販賣牠們的小羊，為家人購買玉米粉。傳統上，飼養牲畜是該地區主要收入來源，因為這裡長不出多少糧食。
她的許多山羊在2011年的乾旱中死亡，之後更多死於2017年的乾旱。被問到剩下多少隻時，她舉起五根手指頭。數量少到不夠賣，也不夠吃。而目前正處乾旱季節，連取奶都不夠。她說：「只有在下雨時，我才能拿一兩杯給孩子們喝。」
The most recent drought has prompted some herders to plunder the livestock of rival communities or sneak into nature reserves to graze their hungry droves. Water has become so scarce in this vast county — known as Turkana, in northwestern Kenya — that fetching it, which is women’s work, means walking an average of almost 7 miles every day.
最近這次乾旱促使一些牧民掠奪了敵對社區的牲畜，或是潛入自然保護區讓他們飢餓的牲畜吃草。在這個位於肯亞西北部、面積廣大名叫圖爾卡納的郡裡，水已變得如此稀少，而取水這項女性的工作則意味每天平均要走近7英里的路。
※說文解字看新聞
暖化導致氣候變遷且讓極端天氣更為頻繁劇烈，除極地融冰速度加快面積加大外，乾旱加劇也是明顯現象，而東非的非洲之角當屬近年全球旱情最嚴重的地區，缺水導致大量牲畜死亡和糧食減產，令當地暴露在嚴重的饑荒危機之中。
非洲之角是非洲大陸最東地區，因呈犀牛角狀突出而得名，包含肯亞、衣索比亞、索馬利亞與吉布地四國，文中以arid形容這片遭乾旱嚴重侵襲的地區，而此字名詞形式為aridity（乾旱、乾燥之意），它雖跟drought一字都有乾旱的意思，但兩者在定義上有所差別。
aridity常用於氣象學和氣候學，指的是氣候缺乏能有效促進生命生長的水分程度，而drought則通常指的是一段異常乾燥天氣期間。前者為不可數名詞，而後者則在泛指乾旱情況下為不可數，論及乾旱次數時則可使用複數形式。
此外，famine除饑荒之意外，還指飢餓，相近意思的英文單字有hunger和starvation，而後者在程度上大於前者，而片語be hounded by sb/sth則指被某人或某事糾纏或困擾，例如某人一直被財務問題困擾的英文要說成sb has been hounded by financial troubles.
