全亞洲最干凈的村莊究竟在哪里？.

　　In eastern India’s Mawlynnong village, tidying up is a ritual that everyone – from tiny toddlers to toothless grannies – takes very seriously. This small, 600-odd person town in the Meghalaya region is renowned as the cleanest village in India.

　　在印度東部村莊Mawlynnong，保持衛(wèi)生是人人都認真奉行的習慣，無論是蹣跚學步的孩子還是耄耋老人都不例外。位于梅加拉亞邦的這個600多人的小村莊以印度最干凈的村莊而聞名于世。

　　And for India, that’s really saying something. Discarded bottles and crumpled food wrappers mixed with cow dung – and worse – are simply part of the topography in most of the country. So much so that prime minister Shri Narendra Modi launched the ambitious “Clean India Mission” (Swachh Bharat Abhiyan) in October 2014 with a goal of drastically sprucing up the country’s major cities by Mahatma Gandhi’s 150 birthday in 2019.

　　對印度而言，這的確值得大書特書。在印度大部分地區(qū)，司空見慣的是丟棄的瓶子和皺巴巴的食品包裝紙，還有混雜著的牛糞，情況甚至會更糟。正因為如此，印度總理莫迪才于2014年10月發(fā)起一項雄心勃勃的“清潔印度”計劃，旨在到2019年甘地150周年誕辰紀念日時，讓印度各大城市的面貌煥然一新。

　　Mawlynnong is already way ahead of the curve, though. It was declared the cleanest village in Asia in 2003 and the cleanest in India in 2005 by Discover India magazine. More recently, Modi acknowledged Mawlynnong as the cleanest village in Meghalaya and a model for the rest of the county in a 2015 radio address. In May 2016 he highlighted it as “Asia’s cleanest village” in a celebration of the government’s successes (including the Clean India programme).

　　而在這次清潔浪潮中，Mawlynnong已經(jīng)一馬當先。在印度《發(fā)現(xiàn)》雜志的評選中，該村莊被評為 2003年亞洲最干凈的村莊和2005年印度最干凈的村莊。最近，在2015年的一次廣播講話中，莫迪將Mawlynnong稱為梅加拉亞邦最干凈的村莊和全國衛(wèi)生典范。2016年5月，在一次政府慶?；顒?包括印度清潔計劃)中，莫迪強調(diào)，Mawlynnong是“亞洲最干凈的村莊”。

　　This claim to fame stuck, and the village has become a regional legend and source of pride. Walk in, and all the typical rubbish is mysteriously, miraculously absent.

　　走進村莊，所有的常見垃圾都蹤跡全無，令人不可思議。

　　So how do you get a community to become a model of cleanliness and sanitation in a country where this has long been a problem? The answer, it seems, is to start them young.

　　那么，在一個長期存在衛(wèi)生問題的國家，怎樣才能讓社區(qū)成為清潔衛(wèi)生的典范呢?答案似乎是，衛(wèi)生要從娃娃抓起。

　　Eleven-year-old Deity Bakordor starts her day around 6:30 am. Her chore, shared with all the village kids, is the beautification of the town. Teasel brooms in hand, the children storm the streets, sweeping up dead leaves and garbage bore school. The children are also responsible for emptying the rubbish bins – which are surprisingly pretty, hand-woven, cone-shaped baskets scattered throughout town – and separating organic waste from burnable trash. Leaves and other biodegradable waste are buried (and eventually used as fertilizer); everything else is driven far from the village and burned. There are also dedicated town gardeners who maintain riots of public plants and flowers that line the footpaths, making a walk here incredibly pleasant.

　　11 歲的Deity Bakordor在每天早晨的6:30開始新的一天。與村子里其他孩子一樣，美化村莊也是她要從事的日常事務。上學前，孩子們會用起絨草做的掃帚清掃街道上的落葉和垃圾。孩子們還要負責倒空垃圾箱。垃圾箱為手工編織的錐形籃筐，在村莊各處星羅棋布，漂亮得出乎意料。孩子們會將有機垃圾與可燃垃圾分開。樹葉和其他生物可降解垃圾被埋起來(最終作為化肥使用);其他垃圾則被拉到離村莊很遠的地方燒掉。另外，村子里還有專門的園丁負責維護步道兩邊的公共花草樹木，使得在這里散步令人格外愉悅。

　　I asked Bakordor if she was happy to live in such a clean place. She nodded, shyly. And what if a visitor dropped rubbish on the ground, what would she do? She replied that she wouldn’t say anything to the visitor directly. But she’d pick it up.

　　我問Bakordor，她是否愿意生活在這樣一個干凈的地方。她害羞地點頭。我又問，如果有游客在地上丟垃圾，她會怎么做呢?她回答，她不會直接對游客說什么，但她會將垃圾撿起來。

　　Bakordor explained that in Mawlynnong, there’s normal daily cleaning for children and adults, then extra on Saturdays when the village leader assigns out “social work” to be completed for the good of the town. For her, that might mean helping clean her school. It’s an impressive system, but even more impressive is that this is the norm. Cleanliness is deeply ingrained into living a good life here; it’s just what you do.

　　Bakordor 說，在Mawlynnong，孩子們和大人都要參加日常清潔工作，每逢周六，村子領導人還要分配為村子公益而完成的“社會工作”。對她而言，就是幫助打掃自己的學校。這種體系令人印象深刻，尤其是這已成為村里的規(guī)范。維護清潔衛(wèi)生在這里的良好生活中深入人心;這里的人們就是這樣做的。

　　I peeked at the family’s pristine outdoor cooking area to see the fruit of these labours, and Bakordor’s grandmother, Hosana, held aside the curtain that leads to their two-room home. Sure enough, each area was immaculate: the floors freshly swept, the dishware sparkling, bedding folded.

　　我悄悄觀察這家人的戶外烹飪區(qū)，想看看他們的勞動成果，Bakordor的祖母Hosana將通往他們兩居室住處的簾子掀開。當然，到處都完美無瑕，地板干凈，餐具閃閃發(fā)光，床鋪疊得整整整齊齊。

　　So where did this sanitation routine come from? No one knows for sure, but, according to my guide Shishir Adhikari, it likely stemmed from an outbreak of cholera more than 130 years ago, and cleanliness was encouraged to control its spread. Early Christian missionaries probably helped implement and encourage the practice too.

　　那么，這種講究衛(wèi)生的習慣從何而來呢?沒有人確切知道，但據(jù)我的向?qū)?Shishir Adhikari 所言，它來自130多年前爆發(fā)的霍亂，當時鼓勵通過加強衛(wèi)生控制霍亂的傳播。早期的基督教傳教士可能也幫助實施和鼓勵了這種做法。

　　The villagers are also of the Khasi people, a traditionally matrilineal society. Perhaps, with women in dominant roles in society, keeping the home and environment orderly also takes on a greater role, Adhikari and I speculated.

　　村民們?yōu)榭ㄎ髯?，這是一個傳統(tǒng)的母系社會。Adhikari和我都推測，也許在女性發(fā)揮主導的社會，家庭和環(huán)境都會井井有條，這也起到很大的作用。

　　“We are Christians from more than 100 years back, and cleaning is learned from our elders,” said housewife Sara Kharrymba. “We pass on these skills, from me to my children, from them to their children.”

　　家庭主婦Sara Kharrymba表示，“100多年前我們的先輩都是基督徒，我們從老人那里學會講究衛(wèi)生。我們將這種技能傳給孩子，從他們再傳給下一代。”

　　In other words, this isn’t habit, it’s a long-time tradition. Kharrymba’s own day begins by cleaning their entire compound, she said.

　　換言之，講究衛(wèi)生并不是一種習慣，而是一種長期傳統(tǒng)。她說，Kharrymba的一天從打掃整個住所開始。

　　While we chatted, she smiled at her six-year-old daughter, Sanjanai, who was swinging gleully on a swing made of ltover plastic bags. The question of what to do with plastic garbage is still a big one, as burning it is toxic. Often the materials are reused, with containers repurposed as planters and bags turned into swings.

　　在我們聊天時，她笑著望向六歲的女兒Sanjanai——她正在廢塑料袋制作的秋千上歡快地蕩著。塑料垃圾該怎樣處理依然是個大問題，因為燃燒塑料袋是有毒的。材料往往被重復利用，廢舊容器會被用作花盆，廢塑料袋會被制成秋千。

　　“My kids know it’s different here,” Kharrymba said.

　　Kharrymba 說，“我的孩子知道這里和別處不同?！?/p>

　　Her children haven’t been outside the village yet, she added, but “sometimes guests stay here, and they talk.” She described how every home in the village has a toilet (another major goal of the Clean India programme), and how good her children are at following the rules for hygiene.She paused, staring out at the small pond on her property, whose water looked crystal clear. “I am very proud to live here,” she said.

　　她補充說，她的孩子還沒有出過村子，但“有時候到訪的客人會講起外面的情況?！彼€說，村里家家都有廁所，她的孩子們都有良好的衛(wèi)生習慣。她停下來，凝望著屋外的小池塘，那里的水清澈透明。她說，“我為在這里生活感到自豪?！?/p>