HARARE, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe is in the grip of one of the great hyperinflations in world history. The people of this once proud capital have been plunged into a struggle to get by.
辛巴威正陷入全球有史以來最嚴重的超級通貨膨脹之一。一度意氣風發的首都哈拉雷民眾正辛苦掙扎、勉強度日。

Like countless Zimbabweans, Rose Moyo has calculated the price of goods by the number of days she had to spend in line at the bank to withdraw cash to buy them: a day for a bar of soap; another for a bag of salt; and four for a sack of cornmeal.
如同無數辛巴威人，羅絲．莫尤在銀行排隊提錢買東西時，已算好每天要買的東西價錢：一天買一塊肥皂，另一天買一袋鹽，還有4天買一袋玉米粉。

The maximum withdrawal allow by the government rose on September 29, but with inflation surpassing what independent economists say is an almost unimaginable 40 million percent, Mrs. Moyo said the value of the new amount would quickly be a pittance, too.
政府許可的提款上限9月29日放寬，但隨著通貨膨脹超過獨立經濟學家口中幾乎令人難以想像的百分之4000萬，莫尤太太說，提款新限額很快也會變得少之又少。

“It’s survival of the fittest,” said Mrs. Moyo, 29, a hair braider who sells the greens she grows in her yard for a dime a bunch. “If you’re not fit, you will starve.”
「適者生存，」以一把10美分銷售自家後院所種蔬菜的29歲編髮師莫尤說：「不適者就得餓肚子。」

Economists here and abroad say Zimbabwe’s economic collapse is gaining velocity, radiating instability into the heart of southern Africa. As the bankrupt government prints ever more money, inflation has gone wild, rising from 1,000 percent in 2006 to 12,000 percent in 2007 to a figure so high the government had to lop 10 zeros off the currency in August to keep the nation’s calculators from being overwhelmed. (Had it left the currency alone, $1 would now be worth about 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars.)
辛巴威國內外的經濟學家都說，辛巴威經濟加速崩盤，把不穩定情勢擴散到非洲南部心臟地帶。隨著破產的政府印更多鈔票，通貨膨脹有如脫韁野馬，從2006年的百分之1千，增為2007年的百分之1萬2,000，後來更飆高到政府8月不得不把貨幣上的零減掉10個，以免國內計算機破表。（要是放任通貨不管，現在美金1元大約相當於10兆辛巴威元。）

In fact, Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation is probably among the five worst of all time, said Jeffrey D. Sachs, an economics professor at Columbia University in New York.
紐約哥倫比亞大學經濟學教授傑佛瑞‧薩克斯表示，事實上，辛巴威的超級通膨，可能是歷來最嚴重的通貨膨脹之一。

Making matters worse, cash itself has become scarce. Business executives and diplomats say Zimbabwe’s central bank governor, Gideon Gono, desperate for foreign currency to stoke the governing party’s patronage machine, sends runners into the streets with suitcases of the nation’s currency to buy up American dollars and South African rand on the black market – drying up Zimbabwean dollars that would otherwise go to the banks.
雪上加霜的是，現金本身變少。商界主管和外交人士說，辛巴威央行總裁葛諾為了幫執政黨的贊助機器加油添火，對外幣需求急如星火，還派人提著一箱箱辛巴威鈔票奔波街頭，購買黑市美元和南非幣，讓原本會流到銀行的辛巴威貨幣枯竭。

Economists say that the only thing that can halt Zimbabwe’s inflationary spiral is a political solution that takes control over the country’s economy out of the hands of Robert Mugabe, the 84-year-old president who still maintains a viselike hold on power after 28 years in office. “This is the end of the endgame,” Professor Sachs said.
經濟學家表示，唯一能讓辛巴威通膨不再惡化的，是穆加比的魔掌不再伸入控制全國經濟的政治解決方案，這位84歲的總統主政28年後，仍像鉗子般牢牢掌權。薩克斯教授說：「這是死亡遊戲的終點。」

Mr. Mugabe, who lives in splendor here in a mansion hidden behind high walls, and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, signed a power-sharing agreement, but they are still negotiating the terms of the deal.
穆加比在隱身哈拉雷高牆後的豪宅裡過著奢華的生活，而反對派領袖楚凡吉萊已簽署共治協議，但雙方仍在磋商協議條件。

Basic public services are breaking down on an ever larger scale as tens of thousands of teachers, nurses, garbage collectors and janitors have simply stopped reporting to their jobs because their salaries, more worthless literally by the hour, no longer cover the cost of taking the bus to work.
基礎公共服務空前大規模停擺，數萬教師、護士、垃圾清潔隊員和工友乾脆停止上班，只因為實質上每小時都在變薄的薪水，再也不足以支應搭公車上班的開銷。

Tendai Chikowore, president of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association, a teachers’ union, said a teacher’s monthly pay was not even enough to buy two bottles of cooking oil. “This is a collapse of the system, and it’s not only for teachers,” she said. “At the hospitals, there are no nurses, no drugs.”
教師工會「辛巴威教師協會」會長譚岱．齊柯沃瑞說，教師的月薪連兩瓶食用油都買不起。「這是制度崩盤，而且不只教師而已，」她說：「醫院已經沒有護士，也沒有藥。」

Zimbabweans have a legendary ability to make do despite extraordinary hardship, and the money sent home by millions of their compatriots who have fled abroad to escape political repression and economic deprivation continues to sustain many of them. But the deteriorating conditions are creating pressures for a renewed exodus.
辛巴威人雖然生活極度艱困，仍具有將就過日子的傳奇能力，逃亡國外躲避政治壓迫和經濟剝削的數百萬同胞寄回老家的錢，繼續維繫很多辛巴威人的生活。但情況不斷惡化，引發另一波出走潮的壓力。

Among those thinking of leaving is Fortunate Nyabinde, whose salary of $3,600 Zimbabwean dollars a month does not even pay for four days of bus fare to her job at Parirenyatwa Hospital.
佛圖娜特‧奈亞賓德也考慮出走，她每月3,600辛巴威元的薪水，連4天坐公車到帕里連亞特瓦醫院上班的車資都付不起。

Yet, for now, she keeps going to work, wheeling a trolley of cornmeal porridge from ward to ward, mostly because she can eke out an extra 20 cents a day by selling basic necessities to patients that the hospital usually does not have in stock: toilet paper, toothpaste, soap.
但目前她還是繼續工作，推著玉米粥餐車穿梭在病房之間，主要因為她靠賣給病患醫院通常沒有庫存的民生基本必需品衛生紙、牙膏和肥皂，每天還能多掙20分錢。

“If they come to the hospital without anything, they will have to buy from us,” Ms. Nyabinde said.
奈亞賓德說：「如果他們兩手空空上醫院，就得向我們買東西。」

Zimbabwe’s economic unraveling has accelerated since the chaotic, often violent invasions of thousands of white-owned farms by Mr. Mugabe’s supporters began in 2000 as part of a land reform effort. The big farms now produce less than a tenth the corn of what they did in the 1990s, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported in June.
為了推動土地改革，2000年開始，穆加比支持者以混亂而且往往流於暴力的方式入侵好幾千個白人擁有的農場後，辛巴威經濟加速分崩離析。聯合國糧農組織6月提出的報告說，辛巴威大型農場現在玉米產量不及1990年代的十分之一。

And in a country that used to have an education system that was the pride of the continent, the schools that Mrs. Nyabinde’s two children attend are now empty of teachers. So she sends them to Stella Muponda, a teacher who quit her public school job last year, for a couple of hours of instruction a day. The money Mrs. Nyabinde pays Mrs. Muponda is now worth only about 40 cents, enough for a single bread roll.
而且，這個過去教育體制讓非洲大陸引以為傲的國家，奈亞賓德兩個子女就讀的學校現在鬧教師荒。因此她把他們送到去年辭掉公立學校教職的史黛拉‧穆彭達那裡，每天上幾小時課。奈亞賓德給穆彭達的學費現在僅值約40美分，夠買一條麵包。

Mrs. Muponda kept saying, “I only wish I could get a decent job.”
穆彭達老是說：「我不過希望有個像樣的工作。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/world/africa/02zimbabwe.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/02/africa/02zimbabwe.php

關鍵字句

辛巴威曾是非洲最富有的國家，被譽為模範經濟體，也是產糧區（bread basket），近年來屢屢成為國際媒體新聞焦點，卻主要是因為令人咋舌的（astonishing）超高通貨膨脹率（hyperinflation）。

文中提到辛巴威通膨率為百分之4,000 萬。根據9 日的外電報導，辛巴威官方公布的7 月通膨年增率（annual inflation） 高達百分之2.31 億，比6 月的通膨年增率百分之1,120 萬大幅惡化，是糧食漲價所致。通膨率出現這種天文數字（astronomical figure），可謂史上空前（unprecedented in history）。

許多國際觀察家把辛巴威的經濟亂象歸咎於（attribute to）穆加比總統的政策。幾年前，他實施土地改革，將白人擁有的農場充公，轉交（hand them over to）給往往缺乏農作技術的黑人經營，引發外資（foreign investors）撤離，辛巴威經濟開始急轉直下（became nosedived）。

為了因應超高通膨，辛巴威政府今年以來多次發行新鈔，最早於1 月發行面額（denomination）1,000 萬的紙鈔（banknote），隨後再推出面額5,000 萬的紙鈔。到6 月，紙鈔面額已高達數百億，仍不敷需要，面額1,000 億的紙鈔旋於7 月21 日發行。但1,000 億辛元在黑市只相當於1 美元，只夠買一條麵包。在這篇10 月初見報的報導中，一條麵包只值約40 美分（見倒數第二段），辛國經濟崩盤（meltdown）導致貨幣貶值（devaluate）速度之快，可見一斑。Meltdown 原指核子反應爐爐心熔毀，在口語中也指經濟崩潰、股價暴跌，近來各國金融危機沸沸揚揚，這個字成了英文報導常用也很實用的字。

2008-10-14/聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 夏嘉玲 原文請見10月14日紐時周報四版上