MELINDA GATES: Bill called me that day after he visited the TB hospital and normally if one of us is on an international trip, we will go through our agenda for the day and who we met and where we have been. But this call was different.
在比尔去过结核病医院后,他曾给我致电。(因为)惯例上当我们其中一个出国的话,我们都会聊聊这天我们遇到的人和我们去过的地方。但是这番电话有些特别。
Bill said to me, Melinda, I have been somewhere that I have never been before. And then he choked up and he couldn't go on. And he finally just said, I will tell you more when I get home. And I knew what he was going through because when you see people with so little hope, it breaks your heart.
比尔说,梅琳达,我(今天)去了一个我之前从未去过的地方。然后他哽咽地说不出话了。他最后只是说,等我回来了再详细告诉你。(其实)我知道他经历了什么,因为当你看到濒临绝望的人们,他会让你十分悲痛。
But if you want to do the most, you have to go see the worst, and I've had days like that too. About ten years ago, I traveled with a group of friends to India. And on last day I was there, I had a meeting with a group of prostitutes and I expected to talk to them about the risk of AIDS that they were facing, but what they wanted to talk to me about was stigma.
但是如果你想做得更多,你必须要看到最坏的情况,我也经历过那些日子。大概十年前,我和一群朋友去印度旅游。在我临走的那一天,我和一群妓女进行了交谈,我希望跟她们讲她们所面对得艾滋病的风险,但是她们想跟我聊的只是(作为妓女的)耻辱。
Many of these women had been abandoned by their husbands. That's why they even went into prostitution. They wanted to be able to feed their children. They were so low in the eyes of society that they could be raped and robbed and beaten by anyone, even the police, and nobody cared.
这当中的很多人都是被她们的丈夫所抛弃。这就是为什么她们去卖淫的原因。她们想养活自己的孩子。他们在社会的眼中是如此卑微,以致于她们可以被任何人甚至是警察强奸,抢劫,甚至挨揍,(而)根本没有人会在意(她们)
Talking to them about their lives was so moving to me, but what I remember most was how much they wanted to be touched. They wanted to touch me and to be touched by them. It was if physical contact somehow proved their worth. And so before I left, we linked arms hand in hand and did a photo together.
聊起她们的生活让我感触至深。但是我印象最深的就是她们多么想接触他人。她们希望触摸我,也希望让我能去触碰她们也许是通过这种身体上的触碰证明了她们存在的价值。所以当我离开之前,我们肩并肩,手牵手,一起照了相。
Later that same day, I spent some time in India in a home for the dying. I walked into a large hall and I saw rows and rows of cot and every cot was attended to except for one, that was far off in the corner. And so I decided to go over there.
之后在那天,我去了印度的一个弥留者的家中。我走进大厅,我看见一排排的床,除了远在角落的一张床,每张床都有人在照顾。所以我决定过去看看。
The patient who was in this room was a woman in her 30s. And I remember her eyes. She had these huge, brown, sorrowful eyes. She was emaciated and on the verge of death. Her intestines were not holding anything and so the workers had they put a pan under her bed, and cut a hole in the bottom of the bed and everything in her was just pouring out into that pan. And I could tell that she had AIDS. Both in the way she looked and the fact that she was off in this corner alone.
这位病人是一个30岁左右的妇女。我还记得她的眼睛的样子。她有着大而悲伤的棕色的眼睛。当时的她如此憔悴并且徘徊在死亡的边缘。她的肠道里什么东西也盛不下,所以那里的工作人员就在她的床下放了一个盘子,然后在床的底部开了个洞,这样一切东西就能倾泻到那个盘子中。我看得出她得了艾滋病。不仅可以从她的外表,而且也可以从她独自在这个角落中看出来。
The stigma of AIDS is vicious, especially for women. And the punishment is abandonment. When I arrived at her cot, I suddenly felt completely and totally helpless. I had absolutely nothing I could offer this woman. I knew I couldn't save her. But I didn't want her to be alone. So I knelt down with her and I put my hand out and she reached for my hand and grabbed it and she wouldn't let it go. I didn't speak her language and I couldn't think of what I should say to her. And finally I just said to her, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. It's not your fault.
得艾滋病令人声名狼藉,特别是对女性。并且得病的惩罚就是被抛弃。当我走进她床边时,我突然感觉彻底的无力和无助感。我无能为力实施帮助。我知道我不能救活她。但是我不想让她独自一人(死去)。所以我跪下来然后伸出手,她摸到我的手然后就抓住,不松开。我不会说她们的语言而且我也不知道我能对她说什么。最后我只是对她说,一切都会好起来的。一切都会好起来的。这不是你的错。
And after I had been with her for sometime, she started pointing to the roof top. She clearly wanted to go up and I realized the sun was going down and what she wanted to do was go up on the roof top and see the sunset. So the workers in this home for the dying were very busy and I said to them, you know, can we take her up on the roof top? No. No. We have to pass out medicines. So I waited that for that to happen and I asked another worker and they said, No no no, we are too busy. We can't get her up there. And so finally I just scooped this woman up in my arms.
在我陪着她待了一会之后,她的手指向了屋顶。很显然她很想上屋顶,而我发现太阳快要落山了,所以她想做的就是等上屋顶并且看日落。那时房子里的工作人员非常忙碌,然后我对他们说,我们能不能把她抬到屋顶上?不行。我们现在必须要分派药物。所以我就等着他们分派药物,然后我又问了另外的工作人员,他们说不行,我们太忙了。我们不能抬她上去。所以,最后我就把她抱在了怀中。
She was nothing more than skin over bones and I took her up on the roof top, and I found one of those plastic chairs that blows over in a light breeze. I put her there, sat her down, put a blanket over her legs and she sat there facing to the west, watching the sunset. The workers knew -- I made sure they knew that she was up there so that they would bring her down later that evening after the sun went down and then I had to leave.
她不过是骨瘦如柴,我就抱着她上了屋顶。找到了一个在微风的吹拂下响着的破旧不堪塑料凳。我把她放在椅子上,拿一个毛毯盖住她的腿,然后她就坐在那里望向西边,看着日落。工作人员知道她在屋顶上,我确保他们知道并且会在日落以后把她带下来。而不久后我就要离开。
But she never left me. I felt completely and totally inadequate in the face of this woman's death. But sometimes, it's the people that you can't help that inspire you the most.
但是她从未离开过我。我感到彻底的无力去面对这位妇女的死亡。但是有时,就正是这些你不能帮助的人群给了你最大的激励。
I knew that those sex workers I had met in the morning could be the woman that I carried upstairs later that evening. Unless we found a way to defy the stigma that hung over their lives.
我知道早上我碰到的那些性工作者将来可能就会是那天夜晚我抱上屋顶妇女的样子。除非我们找到一个方法来对抗这个羁绊她们一生的耻辱。
Over the past ten years, our Foundation has helped sex workers build support groups so they could empower one another to speak up and demand safe sex and that their clients use condoms. Their brave efforts have helped to keep HIV prevalence low among sex workers and a lot of studies show that's the big reason why the AIDS epidemic has not exploded in India.
过去的十年中,我们的基金已经帮助性工作者建立了支持小组,那样她们可以互相协助,要求安全的性行为,让客户就使用安全套。正是因为性服务者们勇敢的努力保持了性工作者的低HIV感染率,并且很多研究表明这就是为什么印度没有大范围地爆发艾滋病的一个重要原因。
When these sex workers gathered together to help stop AIDS transmission, something unexpected and wonderful happened. The community they formed became a platform for everything. Police and others who raped and robbed them couldn't get away with it anymore. The women set up systems to encourage savings for one another and with those savings, they were able to leave sex work. This was all done by people that society considered the lowest of the low.
如果这些性工作者一起帮助阻止艾滋病的传播,就会发生意想不到的好事。她们形成的这个社区成为了一个任何事互相协助的平台。警察和其他任何强奸或者抢劫她们的人都不可能无法无天。妇女们组建起了互相鼓励储蓄财产的系统,这样有了足够的储蓄,她们就可以离开性服务行业。这就是那些在社会上被视作底层中的最下等人做的事情。
Optimism, for me, is not a passive expectation that things are going to get better. For me, it's a conviction and a belief that we can make things better. So no matter how much suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don't lose hope help and if we don't look away. (Applause).
对我而言,乐观并非消极地期待事情会变好而是一种相信事情会做的更好的确信和信念。因此不管我们目睹了怎样的痛苦,不管事态如何糟糕,如果我们没有失去希望不转头而去,那么我们便能伸出援手。(掌声)