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Health studies from the region are conflicting and fraught.
针对那个地区做的健康研究都很矛盾又漏洞百出。
The World Health Organization puts the number of Chernobyl-related deaths at 4,000, eventually.
世界卫生组织估计与切尔诺贝利事件相关的死亡人数有4,000人。
Greenpeace and other organizations put that number in the tens of thousands.
绿色和平和其它组织估计有上万人。
Now everybody agrees that thyroid cancers are sky high,
现在每个人都同意，甲状腺癌的罹患率奇高，
and that Chernobyl evacuees suffer the trauma of relocated peoples everywhere:
在切尔诺贝利事件中的撤离者饱受重新安置的创伤之苦：
higher levels of anxiety, depression, alcoholism, unemployment and, importantly, disrupted social networks.
更严重的焦虑、沮丧、酗酒、失业，还有更重要的是，社交圈瓦解。
Now, like many of you, I have moved maybe 20, 25 times in my life.
现在，就像在座的你们一样，我这辈子大概搬了 20、25次家，
Home is a transient concept.
家是一种短暂的概念。
I have a deeper connection to my laptop than any bit of soil.
相较于任何一片土地，我和我的笔电有更深刻的连结。
So it's hard for us to understand, but home is the entire cosmos of the rural babushka,
这对我们来说很难理解，但是家的概念就是这群村妇的全世界，
and connection to the land is palpable.
与土地的连结是显而易见的。
And perhaps because these Ukrainian women were schooled under the Soviets
也许是因为这些乌克兰妇女在苏维埃政权下接受教育，
and versed in the Russian poets, aphorisms about these ideas slip from their mouths all the time.
熟读俄国诗歌和格言，与这些相关的观念随时都能轻易地从她们口中颂出。
"If you leave, you die."
“如果你离开，就会逝去。”
"Those who left are worse off now. They are dying of sadness."
“那些离开的人处境每况愈下，他们都悲伤地死去。”
"Motherland is motherland. I will never leave."
“家乡就是家乡，我永远都不会离开。”
What sounds like faith, soft faith, may actually be fact,
那些听起来像是信念，温柔的信念，也许才是事实，
because the surprising truth --
因为那些出乎意料之外的真相——
I mean, there are no studies,
毕竟没有任何研究证明，
but the truth seems to be that these women who returned to their homes
只是真相似乎是，那些回到家乡的妇女
and have lived on some of the most radioactive land on Earth for the last 27 years,
至今生活在这片全世界最高放射污染的土地上已长达27年，
have actually outlived their counterparts who accepted relocation, by some estimates up to 10 years.
相较于与她们有同样处境，但是接受安置的人们，她们的寿命预估多于十年。
How could this be?
这怎么可能？
Here's a theory: Could it be that those ties to ancestral soil,
有一个理论是：有没有可能那些与祖先土地的连结，
the soft variables reflected in their aphorisms, actually affect longevity?
那些在他们的格言中展现的可变因子，其实也影响了寿命？
The power of motherland so fundamental to that part of the world seems palliative.
家乡的力量对那部分的世界来说如此重要，似乎能够带来疗愈。
Home and community are forces that rival even radiation.
家与社群是一种力量，即使连辐射都能抵抗。
Now radiation or not, these women are at the end of their lives.
不管有没有辐射，这些妇女都走到了她们的生命尽头。
In the next decade, the zone's human residents will be gone,
未来十年，禁区的居民都会过世，
and it will revert to a wild, radioactive place,
这片土地会恢复为荒野，有辐射的地方，
full only of animals and occasionally daring, flummoxed scientists.
只有满满的动物和偶尔出现胆大又困惑的科学家。
But the spirit and existence of the babushkas,
但是这些老奶奶的精神与生活方式
whose numbers have been halved in the three years I've known them,
尽管在我认识她们的三年中人数已减少了一半
will leave us with powerful new templates to think about and grapple with,
将留给我们强而有力的新模式，让我们得以省思，风险的相对涵义，
about the relative nature of risk, about transformative connections to home,
让我们得以攫取，一种变迁中的家的联系，
and about the magnificent tonic of personal agency and self-determination.
也让我们得以反思，并且获得那滋养个人决心的动力。
Thank you.
谢谢！
