(单词翻译:单击)
It was cold and wet when Amoah finally landed back in Britain in December 2018, after a total of 975 days away, but he didn’t mind.
2018年12月，在离开英国975天后，阿莫亚终于回到英国，虽然天气湿冷，但他并不介意。
“I’d been missing the cold,” he said. “I could finally exhale and inhale. I felt like I was being put back together again.”
“我一直很想念英国的寒冷，”他说。“我终于可以呼气和吸气了。我觉得我又可以重新运转了。”
He hadn’t told his relatives he was coming back, so he took a train and then a bus from the airport, using the last bit of money he had been lent.
他没有告诉亲戚他将会回国，因此，他下了飞机，先坐火车，再坐公共汽车，用完了他借的最后一点钱。
(“I’d forgotten they didn’t take cash on buses. The driver let me on for free.”)
(“我忘了英国公共汽车不收现金。司机让我免费上车了。”)
Quickly he realised that this wouldn’t be the return he had hoped for.
他很快意识到，这不是他所希望的回国。
During his time abroad, his mother had developed Alzheimer’s. She barely recognised him.
在他出国期间，母亲患上了老年痴呆症。母亲几乎认不出他来。
“I’d only been able to speak to her once or twice when I was away. She was confused,” he said.
“我离开的时候只跟她说过一两次话。她那时很困惑，”他说。
His long absence had damaged his relationship with his children.
他的长期缺席破坏了他与孩子们的关系。
“I had become quite alienated from my family. The consensus was that I chose to stay out there.
“我已经和家人疏远了。大家一致认为是我选择留在了外面。
I told them I’d been stopped from coming back into the country, but I didn’t go into much detail. I wouldn’t want to upset them.
我告诉他们我被禁止入境回国，但我没有讲太多细节。我不想让他们不高兴。
They haven’t had much to do with me since I came back.”
自从我回来以后，他们就没怎么跟我来往了。”
Amoah struggled to return to normal life.
阿莫亚难以恢复正常生活。
He had lost his job and was unable to find new work, and he had been profoundly altered by his experience.
他失去了工作，无法找到新工作，这段经历深深地改变了他。
“He was skinny, like a bag of bones,” Christopher said. “He used to be very bubbly and outgoing. Now he is the total opposite, more like a recluse.”
“他过去瘦得只剩下一把骨头，”克里斯托弗说。“他过去非常活泼外向。现在的他完全相反，更像是一个隐士。”
In the summer of 2020, a year and a half after his return, Amoah saw a TV news report about the compensation scheme and decided to apply.
2020年夏天，也就是回国后的一年半，阿莫亚在电视新闻中看到了有关补偿计划的报道，于是决定去申请。
He searched online for a lawyer, who sent him the 18-page form, then he set about trying to shoehorn his experiences into the white spaces allocated, under headings that included:
他在网上找了一位律师，律师给了他一份18页的表格，然后他开始试图把自己的经历塞进分配的空白处，对应的标题包括:
“When did you first have difficulties proving your lawful status in the UK?”
“第一次证明你在英国的合法身份有困难是什么时候？”
“Include the dates you were homeless and where you stayed when you were homeless.”
“包括无家可归的日期以及这段时期的居住地。”
“Impact on life: provide details of the non-financial impact you experienced on your daily life for which you are claiming.”
“对生活的影响：请详细说明你所申索的、日常生活中所经历的非财务影响。”
There is no space on the form for people who got stranded abroad and denied the right to return home, so he scattered his description of what had happened across other boxes.
表格上没有为滞留在国外并被剥夺回国权利的人余留空白，所以他把过往的描述分散地填写在其他方框里。
