国家地理: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，当COVID-19开始扩散时，凯提村村民和其他许多印度村庄的居民一样，面临尴尬的选择：他们可以选择洗手或是保持社交距离，但要同时实践这两种方法来预防疾病是很困难的。“我们不允许太多人聚集在水龙头边尽情洗手。”封城之后，凯提村村民芒格尔·辛在电话中这样告诉我。

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.

如同印度许多村庄，凯提村有个区域，只有最低种姓阶层的达利特人居住。在那里，大约400个人共用一个水龙头。而且该地区有许多人附近都没有任何水源可使用，邦德尔肯的水论坛召集人凯萨·辛说。这些村里的妇女经常得走超过1.5公里的路程、排很长的队伍才能取水。

"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.

“在这个贫困又缺水的地区，期待民众会把洗手放在比日常生活更重要的位置，简直是个残酷的笑话。”辛说。