(单词翻译:单击)
From the airport in Accra, Amoah got on a coach, arriving at his father’s town just as the funeral was beginning.
阿莫亚从阿克拉机场坐了一辆长途汽车，当他抵达父亲所在的城镇时，葬礼已经开始了。
Relatives Amoah had never met made him change out of his black suit into a black-and-red cloth robe and sandals.
阿莫亚素未谋面的亲戚们让他脱下黑色西装，换上黑红棉布长袍和凉鞋。
“I’d never worn clothes like that before,” he recalled. “Absolutely everything was strange. I didn’t speak the language, nothing was familiar to my life – the heat, the mosquitoes, the food.”
“我以前从没穿过那样的衣服，”他回忆说。“一切都很陌生。我不会说那里的语言，生活中没有什么是我所熟悉的——炎热、蚊子、食物。”
Before he left London, Amoah had thought he might spend time getting to know his Ghanaian family, but in the days after the funeral he struggled to connect.
在离开伦敦前，阿莫亚曾想过，他可能会花时间去了解他的加纳家人，但在葬礼后的几天里，他很难与家人建立联系。
He found being in rural Ghana – surrounded by siblings he had only just met, most of them speaking a language he didn’t understand – an unhappy, unsettling experience.
他发现待在加纳农村——周围都是他刚刚见面的兄弟姐妹，他们中的大多数人说着他听不懂的语言——是一种不愉快、令人不安的经历。
After two weeks, he was more than ready to return home to London.
两周后，他完全准备好要回伦敦的家了。
He travelled to the British high commission in Accra to get the documents that would allow him to fly back.
他前往位于阿克拉的英国高级专员公署(英国大使馆)获取回国所需的文件。
During his rushed travel preparations, he had been assured by an official that this would be a simple matter.
在仓促的旅行准备期间，一位官员向他保证，回国是一件简单的事情。
“My thinking at the time was that I’d get a Ghanaian document to go there, and an English one to go back home,” Amoah told me. “I’d never travelled before. I was a bit naive about the whole situation.”
阿莫亚告诉我: “我当时的想法是，我要拿一份加纳的文件去那里，拿一份英国的文件回家。我以前从未出过国。我对整个情况一无所知。”
At the high commission, Amoah took a ticket from a machine on the wall, and waited more than an hour for his number to come up.
在英国高级专员公署(英国大使馆)，阿莫亚从墙上的一台机器里取了张票，等了一个多小时才等待叫他进去的号。
Eventually he was called to a desk, but the conversation was brief.
最后，他被叫到一张桌子前，但谈话却很简短。
He was told that unless he could prove to staff that he was a British citizen, he had no right to board a plane to the UK.
他被告知，除非他能向工作人员证明他是英国公民，否则他无权登上飞往英国的飞机。
Amoah had attended primary and secondary school in Battersea, south London.
阿莫亚在伦敦南部的巴特西上的小学和中学。
He had worked and paid taxes in the UK throughout his adult life.
他成年后一直在英国工作、纳税。
He had helped bring up his five children and grandchildren in the same part of the city where he had grown up.
在他长大的城市的同一地区，他抚养了五个子女和孙子女。
When he tried to explain all this, the official behind the counter cut him off. “There’s nothing we can do for you,” he was told.
当他试图解释这一切时，服务台后面的官员打断了他的话。他被告知：“我们无能为力。”
Amoah demanded to see someone more senior. Eventually the vice-consul was brought out.
阿莫阿要求见更高级别的官员。最后，这位官员带来了副领事。
“She told me these decisions came from Home Office rules in the UK,” he said.
“她告诉我，这些决定来自英国内政部的规定，”他说。
“She was upset talking to me, but she said the rules had been changed in the 1980s.
“她很难过地和我交谈着，但她说规则在20世纪80年代已经改变了。
She told me: ‘You’ve overstayed in Britain for 50 years.’
她对我说: ‘你在英国已经逾期停留50年了。’
I tried to explain: everything I have ever done in life, I did it in England. I learned to walk here, I learned to talk here.
我试图解释: 我一生中所做的一切，都是在英国做的。我在这里学会走路，学会说话。
In Accra, I was like an alien, just landed on Earth.
在阿克拉，我就像一个刚降落到地球的外星人。
She was very sympathetic, but pfft … that was about it.”
她很同情我，但是……仅此而已。”
