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Laxmi led me forward and pointedimmediately to the closest feature: some corrugated metal stalls lined up onthe hard ground, black numbers painted on their doors. “The toilets,” sheannounced in surprisingly clear English. “One, two, three, four. And twoshowers.”These were the total sanitary facilities, I realized, for the350-plus men, women, and children who made their home in this refugee camp.
拉克希米带着我向前，给我指了指最近的一排建筑：那是一些波纹状的金属亭子，门上都印着黑色的数字。“厕所。”她用异常清晰的英语说道，“1、2、3、4。还有两个淋浴间。”我意识到，这是350多个在难民营安家的人共用的卫生设施。
Our tour continued. I was surprised by howlively the camp was. In the study tent, three laughing teenage girls did theirhomework together on a pile of Tibetan carpets. The kitchen tent held a huge,steaming cauldron lifted out of an Ali Baba tale. There was an altar tent withoffering bowls around a small Buddhist shrine, and a community tent where adozen children sat in front of an old TV, enraptured by a Hindi soap opera. Iwas quickly hypnotized as well.
我们的参观还在继续。这个难民营的生机勃勃令我颇感意外。在学习帐篷内，有3个十几岁的女孩儿笑着凑在一张藏毯上做作业。厨房帐篷里有一个巨大的蒸锅，让人想起阿里巴巴的传说。还有一个祭坛帐篷，在一尊小佛像旁边放了很多供奉祭品的碗。另外还有一个社区帐篷，里面有十几个孩子坐在一台旧电视前面，认真观看着一部印地语肥皂剧。我也很快被迷住了。
Laxmi tugged me away. “Come on,” shedirected. There was much more to see: the medical tent, the pantry, the tentthat she, her parents and siblings shared with three other families. She wasespecially proud of the office tent, which the children had helped decoratewith snapshot-filled bulletin boards and ribbon-festooned sport trophies
拉克希米拽着我离开了这里。“来呀。”她说。还有很多东西要看：医疗帐篷、食品储藏室，还有她和她的父母、兄弟姐妹以及另外三个家庭共同居住的帐篷。办公室帐篷令她尤为自豪，孩子们帮助大人在里面挂上了贴满照片的公告板和配有彩带的体育奖杯。
I was also introduced to her friends:Binita, who dreamed of becoming a flight attendant on TAP Portugal Airlines;Laxmi’s willowy sister, Dabuthi; and two young twins who, my guideconfided in a whisper, “are too much loving chocolate”.
拉克希米还给我介绍了其他人：她的朋友、梦想在TAP葡萄牙航空公司当空姐的比尼塔(Binita)、拉克希米身材苗条的姐姐达布希(Dabuthi)、还有她一对孪生妹妹——我的小向导悄悄对我说：“她俩特别喜欢巧克力。”
But it was Laxmi who won my heart. She wassmart, defiant, articulate and self-possessed. Her father shared my admiration:tattooed on his chest was a portrait of his daughter.
但我最喜欢的还是拉克希米。她聪明、镇静、口齿清晰。她的父亲同样对女儿赞不绝口，甚至把女儿的肖像纹在了自己的胸口上。
I visited Camp Hope several more times:once to bring chocolate for the twins (and the other 79 children, of course)and again to celebrate Diwali, a beautiful, five-day festival dedicated to thegoddess of wealth, Laxmi, for whom my new friend had been named. The opening dayscelebrate cows, dogs and even crows; but on the final day, bhai tika, sistersoffer long-life blessings to their brothers, who offer back gifts and blessthem in turn. I was honoured to take part. As part of the proceedings, myforehead was emblazoned with an elaborate tika: a vertical rainbow ofprotective smudges.
我后来又到“希望营”参观过几次：有一次给那对双胞胎(当然还有另外79个孩子)带去了巧克力，还有一次是庆祝为期5天的排灯节。传说财富女神拉克希米(没错，我的新朋友与这位女神同名)会在这一天下凡。起初的几天，人们祭拜牛、狗甚至乌鸦；但最后一天，也就是兄弟节(bhaitika)，姐妹们会向兄弟们发出长寿的祝福，兄弟们则会向姐妹们回赠礼物和祝福。能够参加这个节日是一种荣耀。作为节日礼仪的一部分，我的前额也涂上了一种名叫蒂卡(tika)的彩色装饰物。
Inside the community tent, a traditionaldance presentation began. Laxmi stood behind me, one hand on my shoulder,studying me as I took photographs. She waited patiently for the moment I tuckedmy camera back into its case, then tapped me on the shoulder. “Can I takepictures?”
社区帐篷里开始表演传统舞蹈。拉克希米站在我身后，一只手搭在我肩膀上，认真观察我的拍照过程。她非常耐心，一直等到我把相机放回包里，才拍拍我的肩膀说：“我能拍几张照片吗？”
Normally I’d hesitate before handing mycamera to a child. But Laxmi never seemed like a child to me. I turned on theshutter, and showed her how to operate the focus, zoom and review. Most otherkids would have been nodding eagerly, restless to go. But Laxmi watchedpatiently. When I’d finished, she brought the viewfinder to her eye, nodded brieflyand skipped off.
把相机交给一个孩子前，我通常都很犹豫。但拉克希米在我眼中从来都不是个孩子。我打开快门，教给她如何对焦、缩放和回看。其他孩子多半都会焦急地点头，然后迫不及待地想要上手操作。但拉克希米却始终耐心地观察。当我讲解完毕后，她把取景器放到眼前，点了点头就溜走了。
At Dwarika’s that night, editing my photos,I was briefly baffled. I didn’t remember taking the shot of Laxmi’s fatherdisplaying his tattoo, or the slightly blurred action photo of a dancing girlin a blue silk dress. When had I captured that glum teenager, framed by bamboopoles, gazing with melancholy at her new home? Or those grinning brothers, withmulti-coloured tikas on their foreheads?
在德瓦利卡的那一晚，我在编辑照片时突然感觉有些困惑。我不记得我拍过拉克希米的父亲展示他的纹身，也不记得给穿着蓝色丝裙跳舞的女孩拍过一张有些模糊的照片。我什么时拍过那个忧郁的少年木然地盯着新家的样子，还用竹竿把他框了起来？又是在什么时候拍过那对露齿而笑的兄弟，在额头上涂满色彩斑斓的蒂卡？
I had not. I realized, amazed, that thesewere the work of Laxmi Shrestha. Along with her other gifts, she was aninstinctive photographer with a mature, insightful eye.
我突然意识到，这些照片不是我拍的，而是拉克希米·施雷萨(Laxmi Shrestha)的作品。除了其他天赋外，她竟然还是一位拥有成熟而深刻洞察力的天才摄影师。
I stared at her images, and understoodsomething. I had seen Camp Hope as a temporary caravan of dull canvas tents ona flat dirt lot, dogs lounging in ruts, a few toilet sheds standing by abarbed-wired fence. But Laxmi helped me see beyond this. To her, Camp Hope washome. It was a labyrinth, a playground, a place to shape and explore and infusewith creative imagination.
我看着她的照片，突然明白了什么。在我眼中，“希望营”只是一片由帐篷组成的临时居所，地面虽然平整，但却并不洁净，猫狗四处乱窜，在钢丝网栅栏旁修建了几个简陋的厕所。但拉克希米帮助我看到了更深层的内涵。在她看来，“希望营”就是家。这里是迷宫，是乐园，是充满想象力的地方。
I don’t know what Sindhupalchowk had beenlike before it was swallowed by the Earth. But I’m sure that, like allvillages, it was tied to long memories and anchored in traditions. Camp Hope,on the other hand, is a new environment: a place that the children and adultsare creating together, from scratch. Many of the things that had made theirmountain village magical – animals, old stonewalls, terraced hillsides -– aremissing. But there is a different spell to this place, which I witnessedthrough Laxmi’s eyes.
我不知道辛杜帕尔乔克在被地球吞噬前是什么样子，但可以肯定的是，与所有村庄一样，它也有着绵长的记忆和丰富的传统。另一方面，“希望营”也是一个全新的环境：这是大人和孩子们携手共建的一片家园。这个山村原本有很多神奇的东西，有可爱的动物，有古老的城墙，还有山间的梯田……但如今，这一切都荡然无存。但透过拉克希米的双眼，我发现这里迸发出了别样的韵味。
In mid-November, after three weeks inNepal, I returned home to work on my stories. The day before I left Kathmandu,Laxmi -– in pigtails and a donated down jacket – walked me to the Camp Hopegate. “Travel safely, and write well,” she said earnestly. “And come back soon.”
11月中旬，在尼泊尔采访了3个星期后，我回到家里整理素材。就在我离开加德满都的前一天，拉克希米梳着小辫、穿着别人捐赠的羽绒服来到“希望营”的大门口。“一路顺风，好好写作。”她真诚地对我说，“还有，快点回来。”
I plan to. During the past few months I’vepartnered with Looking Glass, a beloved photographers’ store in Berkeley,California. We’ve sent five digital cameras and cases to Sangita and Pedro, whohave put them in the hands of Camp Hope’s children. The kids are already beinginstructed by Min Bajracharaya, a respected Nepali photographer.
我的确是这么计划的。过去几个月，我已经与加州伯克利的Looking Glass摄影店展开了合作。我们给桑吉塔和佩德罗寄去了5台数码相机和相机包，让他们转交给“希望营”的孩子们。那些孩子已经获得了尼泊尔著名摄影师明·巴拉查拉亚(Min Bajracharaya)的指导。
I’ll be back at CampHope this spring, this time to edit their work. And next Diwali, in November 2016, I hope to escort a few of the children,including Laxmi, to the opening of their own photo exhibition in northernCalifornia.
我今年春天会回到“希望营”，这一次是为了编辑他们的作品。等到2016年11月的排灯节时，我希望能帮助几个孩子在北加州开一场属于他们自己的摄影展，其中当然也包括拉克希米。
Temporarily, for me at least, this chain ofchance encounters has paused. Its energy has spilled into a cluster of villagekids who, a year ago, could never have foreseen where life’s tectonic dancemight take them. And though I dread earthquakes as much as any Nepali –-myhometowns of Oakland and Kathmandu are sister cities in this respect –I findmyself hoping that some of the tremors that began last April will continue formany months to come.
至少对我来说，这一系列的偶遇已经暂时告一段落。它给这些山村里的孩子赋予了一股能量，他们在一年前根本无法预见自己的生活将会发生何种变化。尽管我跟所有尼泊尔人一样惧怕地震——就这一点来说，奥克兰和加德满都这两个身为我家乡的地方已经成了姐妹城市——但在我的内心深处，却希望去年4月开始的这场地震能够多延续几个月。
