Emmanuel Jal was eight when he was given a gun and trained to fight. By the time he was 13, he had been in two wars. Today, the former child soldier is becoming Kenya’s hottest rap singer. (如今,昔日的孩子兵已经成为肯尼亚最炙手可热的rap歌手)His songs mix messages of peace with his personal stories.
When war reached Jal’s small village, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (苏丹人民解放军)(SPLA) ordered children be sent to UN-run(联合国管辖的) refugee camps （难民营） in Ethiopia.(埃塞俄比亚). The SPLA promised that the children would be fed and educated there. Seven-year-old Jal had little choice but to go to the crowded camps. He stayed in school there for only six months.
“Then we were taken away from the camp to the bush for training,” he says.“The United Nations had no idea what was going on.(意为:联合国并不知道我们被训练去打仗)” The SPLA was looking for new soldiers in the camps. The bigger boys were handed big weapons, but Jal could only manage a small AK-47. They were really excited to learn how to use a gun.
When the SPLA broke up,( 13-year-old Jal and a group of 400 fellow soldiers decided to join the enemy.(敌人) They believed that they would be treated better. The boys carried enough corn and flour(白面) for a month, the time they thought it would take to reach safety.(他们觉得一个月的时间就可以安全抵达) But three months later, they were still marching.(行进) Because of starvation, by the time the boys arrived at their destination, only 12 of them survived.(幸存)
Luckily, Jal was picked out from the group of homeless children by Emma McCune, a young British woman who worked for the Canadian aid group Street Kids International. She secretly carried Jal from Sudan to Nairobi in a suitcase aboard an aid flight.(她偷偷地把雅尔藏进一个医疗箱,搭上了一架救援用飞机,从苏丹来到了肯尼亚首都内罗毕)
Today rap music is popular in Nairobi. Jal turned his interest in African music to hip hop and singing to raise money for children’s homes.
Help:
break up 分解, 分裂
starvation n. 饥饿, 饿死
destination n. 目的地