终于有电用：点亮纳瓦霍
Miranda Haskie sits amid the glow of candles at her kitchen table as the sun sinks into a deep blue horizon silhouetting juniper trees and a nearby mesa.
米兰达·哈斯基坐在餐桌旁的烛光中，夕阳西下，沉入深蓝色的地平线，映出杜松树和附近的一个台地的剪影。
Her husband, Jimmie Long, Jr., fishes for the wick to light a kerosene lamp as the couple and their 13-year-old son prepare to spend a final night without electricity.
她的丈夫小吉米·龙正在找灯芯点煤油灯，这对夫妇和他们13岁的儿子准备在没有电的情况下度过最后一个晚上。
They're waiting for morning, when utility workers who recently installed four electric poles outside their double-wide house trailer will connect it to the power grid, meaning they will no longer be among the tens of thousands of people without power on the Navajo Nation, the country's largest American Indian reservation.
他们正在等待早晨的到来，最近，公用事业公司的工作人员在他们两层宽的房车外安装了四根电线杆，并将电线杆与电网连接起来，这意味着他们不再是成千上万没有电用纳瓦霍人之一了，纳瓦霍是美国最大的印第安人保留地。
Haskie and Long are getting their electricity this month thanks to a project to connect 300 homes with the help of volunteer utility crews from across the U.S.
哈斯基和龙本月将获得电力供应，这要归功于一项在全美志愿公用事业人员的帮助下连接300户家庭的项目。
The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority typically connects from 400 to 450 homes a year, chipping away at the 15,000 scattered, rural homes without power on the 27,000-square-mile (43,000-square-kilometer) reservation that lies in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
纳瓦霍部落公用事业管理局通常每年连接400到450户家庭，在亚利桑那州、新墨西哥州和犹他州占地2.7万平方英里的保留区，有1.5万户分散的农村家庭没有电力供应。
At that rate, it will take the tribal utility about 35 more years to get electricity to the 60,000 of the reservation's 180,000 residents who don't have it.
按照这个速度，部落公用事业公司还需要大约35年的时间，才能让保留地18万居民中的6万人用上电。
The couple's home at the end of rutted dirt roads outside the small town of Kaibeto was about a quarter-mile (0.4 kilometers) from the closest power line.
这对夫妇的家位于凯贝托小镇外一条满是车辙的土路的尽头，距离最近的输电线大约四分之一英里(0.4公里)。
Life disconnected from the grid in the high desert town dotted with canyons and mesas was simple and joyful but also inconvenient, they said.
他们说，在这个布满峡谷和台地的沙漠高地小镇上，脱离电网的生活简单而快乐，但也不方便。
"It's not that bad. Growing up, you get used to it, being raised like that," Long said.
“也没那么糟。从小在这里长大，你就会习惯这样的生活，”龙说道。
The family's weekday routine included showering, cooking and charging cellphones, battery packs and flashlights at Haskie's mother's house 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away, down dirt roads that turn treacherous in stormy weather.
这个家庭平日的例行公事包括洗澡、做饭、给手机、电池组和手电筒充电，这些都是在去2英里(3.2公里)外哈斯基母亲家的路上进行的。
Navajos without electricity also pack food or medication in coolers with ice or leave it outside in the wintertime.
没有电的纳瓦霍人也会在冬天把食物或药物放在有冰的冷藏箱里或放在外面。
Children use dome lights in cars or kerosene lamps to do their homework at night. Some tribal members have small solar systems that deliver intermittent power.
孩子们在晚上用汽车顶灯或煤油灯做作业。一些部落成员拥有小型的太阳能系统，可以提供间歇性的电力
No electricity typically means no running water and a lack of overall economic development.
没有电通常意味着没有自来水，并且缺乏全面的经济发展。
Creating the infrastructure to reach the far-flung homes on the reservation is extremely costly.
建立基础设施，以达到遥远的家庭在保留地是极其昂贵的。
Hooking up a single home can cost up to $40,000 on the reservation where the annual, per-capita income is around $10,700 and half the workforce is unemployed, said Walter Haase, general manager of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority.
纳瓦霍部落公用事业管理局总经理沃尔特.哈斯说，在该地区，一套住房的价格最高可达4万美元。
For the recent power hookup project called LightUpNavajo, the utility raised funds from an online campaign, collected donations from employees, businesses and communities, and used revenue from solar farms on the reservation to cover the utility's $3 million cost.
在最近的一个名为“点亮纳瓦霍”的电力连接项目中，该公司通过一项在线活动筹集资金，从员工、企业和社区筹集捐款，并利用保留地太阳能农场的收入来支付该公司300万美元的成本。
Money that isn't raised will be borrowed and the repayment passed on to customers via their rates, Haase said.
哈斯说，没有筹集到的资金将被借入，还款将通过客户的利率传递给他们。
The project started in March and ends this month.
这个项目从三月份开始，到这个月结束。
The volunteer crews spent days on the reservation, learning about Navajo culture, the language and the landscape before setting out to job sites often hours away from their hotel rooms.
志愿者们花了几天的时间在这里进行工作，学习纳瓦霍文化、纳瓦霍语，领略纳瓦霍风景，然后前往工作地点，通常要离开酒店几个小时。
Tribal utility crews had already performed much of the prep work, removing trees or stumps so the volunteers could focus on installing power poles and miles of electric line to connect homes.
部落公用事业人员已经做了大量的准备工作，把树木或树桩移走，这样志愿者们就可以集中精力安装电线杆和几英里长的电线来连接家庭。
A four-man crew from Piqua, Ohio, weathered rain, dust storms and sandy terrain that threatened to bury their equipment as they traveled through the western part of the reservation in Arizona earlier this month.
本月早些时候，一名来自俄亥俄州皮奎的四名机组人员在穿越亚利桑那州保留区西部时，经受住了暴雨、沙尘暴和沙尘天气的侵袭，他们的设备有可能被掩埋。
They heard from families who have waited months, years and a lifetime to get power.
他们从那些等待了数月、数年甚至一生才获得权力的家庭那里得到消息。
Navajos showed their appreciation to the crews with feasts of fry bread, steaks and steamed corn.
纳瓦霍人用油炸面包、牛排和蒸玉米大餐向船员们表示感谢。
"It's kind of crazy to think about the different things you take for granted on a daily basis," said Ken Wagner, a journeyman lineman for Piqua Power System.
皮奎电力系统的边线熟练工肯.瓦格纳说，“想想那些你每天认为理所当然的事情，真是有点疯狂。”
At an appreciation dinner, his crew received gifts of posters with traditional Navajo sayings, turquoise jewelry, shirts and mugs.
在一次感恩晚宴上，他的团队收到了印有传统纳瓦霍语的海报、绿松石首饰、衬衫和马克杯等礼物。
Among those getting electricity hookups were Vernon Smith and his wife, Bertha.
弗农·史密斯和他的妻子伯莎就是获得了电力供应家庭的其中之一。
They live in Salt Lake City but are preparing their home in Tuba City on the reservation for a move back.
他们住在盐湖城，但正在准备搬回他们位于图巴市保留地的家。
They became set on getting electricity when a kerosene lamp tipped over while she was napping and she feared the house would burn down.
当她打盹的时候，煤油灯翻倒了，她担心房子会被烧毁，后来他们就开始发电。
The wait for electricity took three years, but Vernon Smith called that "a miracle."
他们等了三年才用上电，但弗农·史密斯称这是一个“奇迹”。
"I couldn't believe it," he said in an interview, his face lighting up as recalled seeing the whirling blades of a ceiling fan in his reservation home for the first time.
“我简直不敢相信，”他在一次采访中说，回忆起第一次在他预定的房间里看到吊扇的叶片在旋转，他顿时喜笑颜开。
"I didn't think I was going to get electricity that fast."
“我真没想到这么快就有电用啦。”
Haskie said she could live without electricity but that it's also exciting getting it.
哈斯基说，没有电她也能生活，但得到电也很令人兴奋。
"I can walk in, turn the light on without my son turning on the generator," she said.
“我可以直接走进去，不用我儿子打开发电机就能把灯打开，”她说。
She's crafted a wish list that includes a blender, a coffee maker, a juice maker, a stand-up mixer and an espresso machine.
她精心制作了一个愿望清单，包括一台搅拌机、一台咖啡机、一台果汁机、一台立式搅拌机和一台浓缩咖啡机。
Eventually, she'll subscribe to cable TV.
最终，她会订阅有线电视。
The couple's son, Jayden, said he managed fine without power — using portable chargers for his cellphone.
这对夫妇的儿子杰登说，他在没有电源的情况下也能过得很好——用汽车电池来给手机充电。
Some days, he fired up a gas generator that was hooked up to the home's electric panel to watch TV or turn on the light in his bedroom.
有几天，他还启动了一个柴油发电机，这个发电机连着家里的电板，用来看电视或打开卧室的灯。
But the generator's 5-gallon (19-liter) tank lasted less than a day and the cost of fuel meant it was used sparingly and mostly on the weekends.
但这台发电机的5加仑(19升)油箱只能使用不到一天，而且燃料成本也意味着他们很少用它，而且主要是在周末使用。
He's looked forward to taking eggs, bacon, steak, pork chops and hamburgers out of a refrigerator to cook whenever he wants.
他期待着随时从冰箱里拿出鸡蛋、培根、牛排、猪排和汉堡包来煮。
As of Thursday, the LightUpNavajo project hooked up 208 homes.
截至周四，点亮纳瓦霍项目已经连接了208个家庭。
Crews from 26 utilities in 12 states traveled to the reservation to help, installing 1,500 power line poles and more than 35 miles (56 kilometers) of electric lines.
来自12个州26家公用事业公司的工作人员前往保留地提供帮助，安装了1500根电线杆和超过35英里(56公里)长的电线。
The project was designed with a $125,000 grant from the American Public Power Association.
该项目由美国公共权力协会拨款12.5万美元支持。
Mark Hyland, an association senior vice president, said the group and the tribal utility will consider repeating it on the Navajo Nation, or using it as a model for other reservations or rural areas.
协会高级副主席马克·海兰德说，该组织和部落公用事业公司将考虑在纳瓦霍部落效仿这种做法，或者把它作为其他保留区或农村地区的一种模式。
On the morning that Haskie's and Long's home got power, journeyman lineman Justin Foutz with the Piqua utility slipped on a pair of gloves and grabbed an extendable, yellow tool to close a switch atop the utility pole and send power to the home.
在哈斯基和龙家通电的那天早上，皮奎亚公用事业公司的边线工人贾斯汀·福茨戴上手套，抓起一个可伸缩的黄色工具，合上了公用事业公司电线杆上的开关，把电送到了他们家里。
"Coming in hot," he said.
“马上来电，”他说道。
A few minutes later, electrician Delbert Graham knocked on the trailer's door.
几分钟后，电工德尔伯特.格雷汉姆敲响了拖车的门。
"Hey, you're energized," he said.
“嘿，你们家通电了，”他说。
"Go ahead and turn on your main breaker."
“快去打开你们家的总闸吧。”
Using a flashlight inside the darkened house, Long flipped on the breaker, turned on the home's porch light and opened the door with a smile.
在漆黑的房子里，龙用手电筒打开开关，打开门廊的灯，然后微笑着打开了门。
Then the crew loaded up their utility trucks and headed toward the small community of Coppermine, about an hour's drive down the next dirt road, to connect more homes.
然后，机组人员装好他们的多用途卡车卡车，驶向科波明社区，沿着下一条土路开大约一个小时的车，去给更多的家庭供电。
问题
以目前的速度估算，大约多少年后才能彻底“点亮纳瓦霍”呢？
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