国家地理:一次翻越世界屋脊的历史性旅行(3)
The Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan is one of the remotest inhabited landscapes on Earth. An extension of Badakhshan Province, it juts some 200 miles between Tajikistan and Pakistan to touch the ice-capped ramparts of western China. Drawn by Russia and Britain as a buffer zone to separate their Asian empires in the 19th century, the corridor -- marooned by rugged geography, geopolitics, and time -- endures as a forgotten appendage of Afghanistan. About 17,000 farmers and nomads still live in its medieval pastures and rock-walled hamlets. It was my exit ramp to South Asia.
阿富汗瓦罕走廊是地球上最偏远的有人居住的地方，是巴达赫尚省突出的一块地方，在塔吉克斯坦与巴基斯坦之间只有大约200英里长的狭长地带，东面就是中国西部冰雪覆盖的森严壁垒。这条走廊于19世纪由俄罗斯和英国绘制以作为他们帝国的势力在亚洲的隔离缓冲带。瓦罕走廊受崎岖的地理、地缘政治和时代所限制，一直成了阿富汗一个被遗忘的地方，仍然有大约17000名农民和游牧民住在这里的中世纪似的牧场与用石头围起的村子里。这里是我去南亚的必经之地。
We crossed the Tajikistan border at Ishkashim. Sixteen years had elapsed since I had trodden Afghanistan's dust as a war correspondent. It wasn't the land I remembered.
我们在伊什卡希姆通过了塔吉克斯坦的边界。自从我作为一名战地记者踩过阿富汗的尘土以来，已经16年过去了。这并非我记得的那块土地。
My Afghan memories cartwheeled among armed men in Hilux pickup trucks and the concussions of 500-pound bombs dropped by American B-52s. Walking through the war, I had stepped unconsciously around the domes of silence that always encased the newly dead. By contrast, the Wakhan corridor -- poor, utterly isolated, and shielded from violence by the Hindu Kush -- seemed an oasis of peace. We hiked unafraid through fields of ripe wheat where men drove teams of oxen in circles, threshing sheaves in biblical fashion. Antique waterwheels milled their flour. The local Wakhi farmers were easygoing Ismailis, and the women went about unveiled. The farmers stacked the magnificent horns of wild Marco Polo sheep at sacred springs. Snow leopards, not militants, patrolled the snow peaks. Nobody carried guns. It was rural Afghanistan as it should be.
我的阿富汗记忆只有海拉克斯皮卡里的武装分子和美国B-52扔下的500磅大炸弹。在战地行走的时候，我曾经不知不觉就绕过了常常掩埋新死者的死寂的坟丘。相比之下，瓦罕走廊似乎是一块和平的绿洲，尽管贫穷、与世隔绝，也因兴都库什山的阻隔而免遭暴力。我们毫无畏惧地穿越成熟的麦田，当地男人们坚守着古老的打麦方式，赶着牛在那里一圈圈地走，古老的水车磨着面粉。瓦罕的农民是随和的伊斯玛仪派，妇女们进出抛头露面，农夫们在神圣的泉水边堆放着野生马可波罗绵羊的巨大羊角，雪豹（并非指激进分子）在雪峰上游走，没人带着枪。这本是阿富汗乡下该有的样子。
"We're in our glory times," said Dervish Ali, a sheepherder whose homestead clung like a swallow's nest to a steep riverbank. "In the 1990s we couldn't even afford tea. Now life is good."
牧羊人德尔维希·阿里说：“这是我们的辉煌时代，1990年代，我们甚至连茶叶都买不起。现在生活好多了。”他家的房子像燕子窝一样紧贴在陡峭的河岸上。
