國家地理:新冠病毒和洗手文化(4)

This spring, as COVID-19 began spreading, people in Kaithi, as in so many other Indian villages, faced a disconcerting choice: They could wash their hands or they could keep their social distance, but it was hard to practice both methods of warding off the disease at the same time. "We are not allowing too many people to crowd around the taps and trying to wash our hands as much as possible," Kaithi resident Mangal Singh told me by phone after the lockdown began.

2020年春天，當(dāng)COVID-19開始擴(kuò)散時(shí)，凱提村村民和其他許多印度村莊的居民一樣，面臨尷尬的選擇：他們可以選擇洗手或是保持社交距離，但要同時(shí)實(shí)踐這兩種方法來預(yù)防疾病是很困難的。“我們不允許太多人聚集在水龍頭邊盡情洗手。”封城之后，凱提村村民芒格爾·辛在電話中這樣告訴我。

Like many Indian villages, Kaithi has a colony at one end inhabited only by lower-caste Dalits. There, some 400 people share a single tap. And many people in the region don't have access to any nearby water source, says Kesar Singh, convener of the Bundelkhand Water Forum, a local nonprofit. Women in such villages often travel more than a mile and stand in a long line to fetch water.

如同印度許多村莊，凱提村有個(gè)區(qū)域，只有最低種姓階層的達(dá)利特人居住。在那里，大約400個(gè)人共用一個(gè)水龍頭。而且該地區(qū)有許多人附近都沒有任何水源可使用，邦德爾肯的水論壇召集人凱薩·辛說。這些村里的婦女經(jīng)常得走超過1.5公里的路程、排很長的隊(duì)伍才能取水。

"To expect that people in this poverty-stricken, water-deficient region will prioritize handwashing over daily living is nothing short of a cruel joke," Singh says.

“在這個(gè)貧困又缺水的地區(qū)，期待民眾會把洗手放在比日常生活更重要的位置，簡直是個(gè)殘酷的笑話?！毙琳f。