I bet you're worried.
皆さん心配でしょう
(Laughter)
(笑)
I was worried. That's why I began this piece. I was worried about vaginas. I was worried what we think about vaginas and even more worried that we don't think about them. I was worried about my own vagina. It needed a context, a culture, a community of other vaginas. There is so much darkness and secrecy surrounding them. Like the Bermuda Triangle, nobody ever reports back from there.
私が心配だったから この芝居を始めました 私たちがヴァギナ(膣)をどう考えるか心配で ヴァギナを考えないことがもっと心配だったのです 自分のヴァギナが心配でした 他のヴァギナの内容や文化や仲間が必要でした ヴァギナに関する暗闇や秘密が多すぎます バミューダトライアングルのごとく 誰も報告はしてくれません
(Laughter)
(笑)
In the first place, it's not so easy to even find your vagina. Women go days, weeks, months, without looking at it. I interviewed a high-powered businesswoman; she told me she didn't have time. "Looking at your vagina," she said, "is a full day's work."
第一に 自分のヴァギナを知ることさえ 容易じゃありません 女性がヴァギナを見ることなく時間が過ぎて行きます 私がインタビューしたキャリアウーマンは ヴァギナを見る時間はないと言いました 彼女曰く “ヴァギナを見るのは一日がかり”
(Laughter)
(笑)
"You've got to get down there on your back, in front of a mirror, full-length preferred. You've got to get in the perfect position with the perfect light, which then becomes shadowed by the angle you're at. You're twisting your head up, arching your back, it's exhausting." She was busy; she didn't have time. So I decided to talk to women about their vaginas. They began as casual vagina interviews, and they turned into vagina monologues. I talked with over 200 women. I talked to older women, younger women, married women, lesbians, single women. I talked to corporate professionals, college professors, actors, sex workers. I talked to African-American women, Asian-American women, Native-American women, Caucasian women, Jewish women.
“等身大の鏡の前で仰向けにならないとだめ 完璧な姿勢で完璧な照明があっても 自分の影ができてしまう 顔をあげて背中を丸めクタクタよ” 彼女は忙しくて時間がありませんでした だから私はヴァギナについて話すことにしました 形式ばらないインタビューから始まり ヴァギナモノローグへと発展したのです 話した女性は200人以上 年配女性 若い女性 既婚女性 レズビアン 独身女性 会社役員 大学教授 女優 娼婦 アフリカ系米国人女性 アジア系米国人女性 ネイティブアメリカン女性 白人女性 ユダヤ人女性
OK, at first women were a little shy, a little reluctant to talk. Once they got going, you couldn't stop them. Women love to talk about their vaginas, they do. Mainly because no one's ever asked them before.
みんな最初はちょっとシャイで気遅れしていたけど 話し始めると止められない 女性は自分のヴァギナについて話すのが大好き そもそも そんな質問をされたことがないからです
(Laughter)
(笑)
Let's just start with the word "vagina" -- vagina, vagina. It sounds like an infection, at best. Maybe a medical instrument. "Hurry, nurse, bring the vagina!"
ヴァギナという言葉から始めましょう 良くても伝染病か医療用具のような響き “看護師さん 急いでヴァギナを”
(Laughter)
(笑)
Vagina, vagina, vagina.
ヴァギナって何度言っても
It doesn't matter how many times you say the word, it never sounds like a word you want to say. It's a completely ridiculous, totally un-sexy word. If you use it during sex, trying to be politically correct, "Darling, would you stroke my vagina," you kill the act right there.
適切な言葉には絶対聞こえない へんてこりんで 全然セクシーな言葉じゃない 卑猥な言葉を避けようとエッチの最中に “ヴァギナをなでて” なんて言ったら そこで大なし
(Laughter)
(笑)
I'm worried what we call them and don't call them. In Great Neck, New York, they call it a Pussycat. A woman told me there her mother used to tell her, "Don't wear panties, dear, underneath your pajamas. You need to air out your Pussycat."
ヴァギナの呼び方も心配です ニューヨークのグレイトネックでの呼び方は“猫ちゃん” ある女性は母親に言われたそう “パジャマの中は何も穿かないでね 猫ちゃんを風にさらさなくちゃ”
(Laughter)
(笑)
In Westchester, they call it a Pooki, in New Jersey, a twat. There's Powderbox, derriere, a Pooky, a Poochi, a Poopi, a Poopelu, a Pooninana, a Padepachetchki, a Pal, and a Piche.
ウェストチェスターではプーキー ニュージャージーではトワット パウダーボックス デリエア プーキー プーチー プーピー プパルー プニナナ パデパチェチキ パウ ピーシュ
(Laughter)
(笑)
There's Toadie, Dee Dee, Nishi, Dignity, Coochi Snorcher, Cooter, Labbe, Gladys Seagelman, VA, Wee wee, Horsespot, Nappy Dugout, Mongo, Ghoulie, Powderbox, a Mimi in Miami, a Split Knish in Philadelphia ...
トーディ ディディ ニシ ディグニティ クーチースノーチャー クーター ラビ グラディスシーグルマン ヴァ ウィウィ ホアスポット ナッピーダグアウト マンゴ グーリー パウダーボックス マイアミではミミ フィラデルフィアではスプリットクニッシュ ブロンクスではシュマンディ
(Laughter)
and a Schmende in the Bronx.
(Laughter)
(笑)
I am worried about vaginas. This is how the "Vagina Monologues" begins. But it really didn't begin there. It began with a conversation with a woman. We were having a conversation about menopause, and we got onto the subject of her vagina, which you'll do if you're talking about menopause. And she said things that really shocked me about her vagina -- that it was dried-up and finished and dead -- and I was kind of shocked. So I said to a friend casually, "Well, what do you think about your vagina?" And that woman said something more amazing, and then the next woman said something more amazing, and before I knew it, every woman was telling me I had to talk to somebody about their vagina because they had an amazing story, and I was sucked down the vagina trail.
私はヴァギナが心配です このようにヴァギナモノローグが始まりますが 元々は ある女性との会話から始まりました 私たちは閉経について話していて 彼女のヴァギナに話題が移りました 閉経の話になれば 自然な成り行きです 彼女は自分のヴァギナが乾き切って 死んでいると言ったので 私は驚きました それで 私はヴァギナの質問を友人にすると 彼女はもっと驚くことを言い 別の女性がさらに驚くことを言い ヴァギナの驚く話を 女性なら誰でも持っていることに気づき 私はヴァギナの道に引きずり込まれたのです (笑)
(Laughter)
And I really haven't gotten off of it. I think if you had told me when I was younger that I was going to grow up, and be in shoe stores, and people would scream out, "There she is, the Vagina Lady!" I don't know that that would have been my life ambition.
私の活動はまだ続いていますが もし幼いころに 将来 買い物中に “ヴァギナの人だ!” なんて言われるとわかってたら それが人生の目標になってたかはわかりません (笑)
(Laughter)
でも 幸せと 8年前に始まった素晴らしい―
But I want to talk a little bit about happiness, and the relationship to this whole vagina journey, because it has been an extraordinary journey that began eight years ago. I think before I did the "Vagina Monologues," I didn't really believe in happiness. I thought that only idiots were happy, to be honest. I remember when I started practicing Buddhism 14 years ago, and I was told that the end of this practice was to be happy, I said, "How could you be happy and live in this world of suffering and live in this world of pain?" I mistook happiness for a lot of other things, like numbness or decadence or selfishness. And what happened through the course of the "Vagina Monologues" and this journey is, I think I have come to understand a little bit more about happiness.
ヴァギナの旅との関係を 少し話したいと思います 私は この芝居を始める前 幸せの存在を信じていませんでした 幸せなのはバカだけだと思っていました 14年前に仏教徒になったときに 修行の目標は幸せになることだと言われ 私は言いました “この痛み 苦しみの世界で いかに幸せになれると?” 私は幸せを無感覚や 堕落や わがままと取り違えていました ヴァギナモノローグと この旅から 私は少しだけ 幸せとは何か 理解できるようになりました
There are three qualities I want to talk about. One is seeing what's right in front of you, and talking about it, and stating it. I think what I learned from talking about the vagina and speaking about the vagina, is it was the most obvious thing -- it was right in the center of my body and the center of the world -- and yet it was the one thing nobody talked about. The second thing is that what talking about the vagina did is it opened this door which allowed me to see that there was a way to serve the world to make it better. And that's where the deepest happiness has actually come from. And the third principle of happiness, which I've realized recently:
3つの本質について話したいと思います 一つは 目の前にあるものを見て 話して 述べること ヴァギナの話をする事から学んだのは ヴァギナが体や世界の中心であるのは 明らかなのに その話には誰も触れないこと 二つめはヴァギナの話をすることで ドアが開いて 世界を向上させる― 方法があると気づいたこと そこから心からの幸せがもたらされます 三つめは最近気がついた幸せの法則です
Eight years ago, this momentum and this energy, this "V-wave" started -- and I can only describe it as a "V-wave" because, to be honest, I really don't understand it completely; I feel at the service of it. But this wave started, and if I question the wave, or try to stop the wave or look back at the wave, I often have the experience of whiplash or the potential of my neck breaking. But if I go with the wave, and I trust the wave and I move with the wave, I go to the next place, and it happens logically and organically and truthfully. And I started this piece, particularly with stories and narratives, and I was talking to one woman and that led to another woman and that led to another woman. And then I wrote those stories down, and I put them out in front of other people.
8年前に “Vウェーブ” という動きが始まりました 正直な話 私も完全に理解していないので “Vウェーブ” としか描写できませんが 奉仕しているような気分です この波に疑問をもったり止めようとしたり 振り返ろうとすると 首を痛めてしまうけれど 波に乗って 身を任せると 前進できるのです 必然的で根本的で正直な流れです 特にこの芝居は「語り」として始めました 次々に たくさんの女性へと導かれ 彼女たちから聴いた話を書きだし 観客の前で披露しました
And every single time I did the show at the beginning, women would literally line up after the show, because they wanted to tell me their stories. And at first I thought, "Oh great, I'll hear about wonderful orgasms, and great sex lives, and how women love their vaginas." But in fact, that's not what women lined up to tell me. What women lined up to tell me was how they were raped, and how they were battered, and how they were beaten, and how they were gang-raped in parking lots, and how they were incested by their uncles. And I wanted to stop doing the "Vagina Monologues," because it felt too daunting. I felt like a war photographer who takes pictures of terrible events, but doesn't intervene on their behalf.
最初は どの公演でも 私に伝えたいことがあると 女性が列を作りました 彼らの素晴らしい性生活や ヴァギナへの愛着を伝えに来たのだと思いましたが そんなことではありませんでした 彼らの強姦された体験 殴られた体験 駐車場で輪姦された体験 叔父に犯された体験を 伝えに来たのでした ヴァギナモノローグをやめたくなりました 恐ろしい光景を写しながら 介入はしない戦場写真家のような気がしたのです それで1997年に 女性たちが虐げられているという―
And so in 1997, I said, "Let's get women together. What could we do with this information that all these women are being violated?" And it turned out, after thinking and investigating, that I discovered -- and the UN has actually said this recently -- that one out of every three women on this planet will be beaten or raped in her lifetime. That's essentially a gender; that's essentially the resource of the planet, which is women. So in 1997 we got all these incredible women together and we said, "How can we use the play, this energy, to stop violence against women?" And we put on one event in New York City, in the theater, and all these great actors came -- from Susan Sarandon, to Glenn Close, to Whoopi Goldberg -- and we did one performance on one evening, and that catalyzed this wave, this energy.
この情報で何ができるのかと考え 思案や調査を重ねた結果 国連が最近 発表した内容に行きつきました 世界中で女性3人のうち1人は 一生のうちに殴られるか強姦されるそうです 本質上 この地球を支えている女性を指しています それで1997年に 心強い女性たちが集まり 演劇と 我々の気力を女性虐待防止に どう利用できるか話し合いました そしてニューヨークの劇場で スーザンサランドンやグレンクロース ウーピーゴールドバーグといった大物女優と この波と気力を引き起こしたのです
And within five years, this extraordinary thing began to happen. One woman took that energy and she said, "I want to bring this wave, this energy, to college campuses," and so she took the play and she said, "Let's use the play and have performances once a year, where we can raise money to stop violence against women in local communities all around the world." And in one year, it went to 50 colleges, and then it expanded. And over the course of the last six years, it's spread and it's spread and it's spread around the world.
5年もしないうちに 驚くべき事が起こり始めました ある女性が “この波と気力を大学に もたらしたい” と この演劇を大学で広め “年に一度これを上演して 世界中に蔓延する― 女性に対する暴力を阻止するために お金を集めよう” と言ったのです その一年後には 50の大学まで広がり 6年経過するうちに世界中にまで どんどん広がっていきました
What I have learned is two things: one, that the epidemic of violence towards women is shocking; it's global; it is so profound and it is so devastating, and it is so in every little pocket of every little crater, of every little society that we don't even recognize it, because it's become ordinary. This journey has taken me to Afghanistan, where I had the extraordinary honor and privilege to go into parts of Afghanistan under the Taliban. I was dressed in a burqa and I went in with an extraordinary group, called the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. And I saw firsthand how women had been stripped of every single right that was possible to strip women of -- from being educated, to being employed, to being actually allowed to eat ice cream. For those of you who don't know, it was illegal to eat ice cream under the Taliban. And I actually saw and met women who had been flogged for being caught eating vanilla ice cream. I was taken to the secret ice cream-eating place in a little town, where we went to a back room, and women were seated and a curtain was pulled around us, and they were served vanilla ice cream. And women lifted their burqas and ate this ice cream. And I don't think I ever understood pleasure until that moment, and how women have found a way to keep their pleasure alive.
私が学んだ事は二つあります 女性に対する暴力は酷くて 世界中に存在するということ あまりにも根深くて破壊的で どの社会でも気づかない場所で行われています 普通になってしまったがゆえに 気がつきもしません この旅で私はアフガニスタンの タリバン政権下にある場所へ行く機会に恵まれ 私はブルカをかぶり アフガニスタン女性革命協会と呼ばれる 素晴らしい団体と共に どのように現地の女性が あらゆる権利を 剥奪されているか 直接見て来ました 教育や雇用の機会を奪われ アイスクリームを食べることさえ 認められていません タリバン政権下で アイスクリームを食べるのは違法です 実際にバニラアイスを食べて捕まり ムチ打ちの刑になった女性と会いました 私は小さな町の秘密のアイスクリーム屋さんに連れて行かれ 奥の部屋に入り 席に着くと カーテンが閉められ アイスクリームが出されました 女性たちは ブルカを脱いでアイスクリームを食べたのです 女性にとって喜びが いかに得がたい貴重なものか 私はそれまで理解していなかったと思います
It has taken me, this journey, to Islamabad, where I have witnessed and met women with their faces melted off. It has taken me to Juarez, Mexico, where I was a week ago, where I have literally been there in parking lots, where bones of women have washed up and been dumped next to Coca-Cola bottles. It has taken me to universities all over this country, where girls are date-raped and drugged. I have seen terrible, terrible, terrible violence. But I have also recognized, in the course of seeing that violence, that being in the face of things and seeing actually what's in front of us is the antidote to depression, and to a feeling that one is worthless and has no value.
この旅で私はイスラマバードへ行き 顔を溶かされた女性たちと会いました 1週間前はメキシコのフアレスへ行き ある駐車場に流れ着いた女性の骨や コーラ瓶の隣に捨てられた― 女性の骨を見ました 全米の大学へ行き デートで薬を飲まされ強姦された女の子たちに会いました あまりにも酷すぎる暴力を見てきました でも そのような暴力を見る中で気がついたのは 目の前にある事実と向き合うことで 落ち込んだ気分や自尊心の欠如から 解放されるということです
Because before the "Vagina Monologues," I will say that 80 percent of my consciousness was closed off to what was really going on in this reality, and that closing-off closed off my vitality and my life energy. What has also happened is in the course of these travels -- and it's been an extraordinary thing -- is that every single place that I have gone to in the world, I have met a new species. And I really love hearing about all these species at the bottom of the sea. And I was thinking about how being with these extraordinary people on this particular panel, that it's beneath, beyond and between, and the vagina kind of fits into all those categories.
と言うのも ヴァギナモノローグを始める前 自分の意識の8割は この現実で起こっていることを 受けつけていませんでした せき止めることで 自分の活力や生命力をせき止めていました このような素晴らしい旅の中で起こったことは 旅した世界中の どの場所でも 新しい人間に出会ったということです 海にも様々な生き物がいるように このパネルにいる素晴らしい人たちと 一緒にいることを考えていたら ヴァギナがすべてのカテゴリーに あてはまることに気づきました
(Laughter)
(笑)
But one of the things I've seen is this species -- and it is a species, and it is a new paradigm, and it doesn't get reported in the press or in the media because I don't think good news ever is news, and I don't think people who are transforming the planet are what gets the ratings on TV shows. But every single country I have been to -- and in the last six years, I've been to about 45 countries, and many tiny little villages and cities and towns -- I have seen something what I've come to call "vagina warriors." A "vagina warrior" is a woman, or a vagina-friendly man, who has witnessed incredible violence or suffered it, and rather than getting an AK-47 or a weapon of mass destruction or a machete, they hold the violence in their bodies; they grieve it; they experience it; and then they go out and devote their lives to making sure it doesn't happen to anybody else.
私が見たものの一つは この人達は新しい模範だということです 良いニュースはニュースになりにくく マスコミで報道されることはありません また 地球を変えている人たちが テレビで高い視聴率を得ている人だとは思いません 過去6年に 小さな村や町や市と 約45カ国回りましたが どの国でも 私が“ヴァギナ勇士” と呼ぶようになった人たちと出会いました ヴァギナ勇士とは信じ難い暴力を目撃 または経験した女性 もしくはヴァギナに理解のある男性を指し ライフルや大量破壊兵器や山刀を使うのではなく むしろ暴力を体の中に抑え 悲しみ 体験して 他の人には同じことが起こらないように 自らの人生をかける人たちです
I have met these women everywhere on the planet, and I want to tell a few stories, because I believe that stories are the way that we transmit information, where it goes into our bodies. And I think one of the things about being at TED that's been very interesting is that I live in my body a lot, and I don't live in my head very much anymore. And this is a very heady place. And it's been really interesting to be in my head for the last two days; I've been very disoriented --
そんな女性たちに世界中で会いました 情報を伝達することで 物語は体内に入り込みます TEDに参加する興味深いことの一つは 私は体の中に生きていて もう頭の中に住んでいませんが ここは刺激があって 頭を使う面白さが感じられます この二日間 とっても混乱した状態です
(Laughter)
(笑)
because I think the world, the V-world, is very much in your body. It's a body world, and the species really exists in the body. And I think there's a real significance in us attaching our bodies to our heads, that that separation has created a divide that is often separating purpose from intent. And the connection between body and head often brings those things into union.
と言うのも Vワールドは 人間の体の中にあるからです 肉体の世界に この人達はいるのです 真の重要性は 体と頭のシンクロにあると思います そこに隔たりがあると 意志と目的が分断されますが 体と頭がつながると その二つは たいてい結合します
I want to talk about three particular people that I've met, vagina warriors, who really transformed my understanding of this whole principle and species, and one is a woman named Marsha Lopez. Marsha Lopez was a woman I met in Guatemala. She was 14 years old, and she was in a marriage and her husband was beating her on a regular basis. And she couldn't get out, because she was addicted to the relationship, and she had no money. Her sister was younger than her, and she applied -- we had a "Stop Rape" contest a few years ago in New York -- and she applied, hoping that she would become a finalist and she could bring her sister. She did become a finalist; she brought Marsha to New York.
3人の女性について話をしたいと思います 私が会ったヴァギナ勇士たちで 彼らは私の 本質や人間に関する理解を変えました その一人はマーシャ ロペス グァテマラで会った女性です 14歳の彼女は結婚していて 定期的に夫から殴られていたのに その関係に はまっていたのと お金が無くて 抜け出せませんでした 彼女の妹は数年前に ニューヨークで行われた “ストップ レイプ”コンテストに姉を応募したのです 決勝戦まで残れば 姉をニューヨークに 連れて行けると思ったからです 彼女は決勝戦まで残り ニューヨークに来ました
And at that time, we did this extraordinary V-Day at Madison Square Garden, where we sold out the entire testosterone-filled dome -- 18,000 people standing up to say "Yes" to vaginas, which was really a pretty incredible transformation. And she came, and she witnessed this, and she decided that she would go back and leave her husband, and that she would bring V-Day to Guatemala. She was 21 years old. I went to Guatemala and she had sold out the National Theater of Guatemala. And I watched her walk up on stage in her red short dress and high heels, and she stood there and said, "My name is Marsha. I was beaten by my husband for five years. He almost murdered me. I left and you can, too." And the entire 2,000 people went absolutely crazy.
その時に 通常男ばかりの スタジアムを満席にしてV-Dayを行い 総立ちになった18,000人が “ヴァギナに賛成!” と言ったのです とても信じられない変容でした その場にいたマーシャは 国に戻って 夫とは別れ V-Day を グァテマラに広めようと決意しました 彼女は21歳でした 私がグァテマラに行くと 彼女はグァテマラ国立劇場を満席にしていました 彼女は赤のショートドレスを着てハイヒールを履き 檀上で言いました “私はマーシャ 夫に5年間殴られ 殺されかけました 夫とは別れました あなたにもできます” 会場にいた2,000人は沸き返りました
There's a woman named Esther Chávez who I met in Juarez, Mexico. And Esther Chávez was a brilliant accountant in Mexico City. She was 72 years old and she was planning to retire. She went to Juarez to take care of an ailing aunt, and in the course of it, she began to discover what was happening to the murdered and disappeared women of Juarez. She gave up her life; she moved to Juarez. She started to write the stories which documented the disappeared women. 300 women have disappeared in a border town because they're brown and poor. There has been no response to the disappearance, and not one person has been held accountable. She began to document it. She opened a center called Casa Amiga, and in six years, she has literally brought this to the consciousness of the world. We were there a week ago, when there were 7,000 people in the street, and it was truly a miracle. And as we walked through the streets, the people of Juarez, who normally don't even come into the streets, because the streets are so dangerous, literally stood there and wept, to see that other people from the world had showed up for that particular community.
メキシコのフアレスで会った― エスター シャベスという女性がいます 72歳の彼女はメキシコシティで会計士をしていて 退職を考えていました 彼女は病気の叔母の看病にフアレスに行き 看病中に フアレスで殺されたり失踪した女性に 何が起きたのかを知りました 彼女は仕事を辞めて フアレスに引っ越し 失踪した女性の記録を書き始めました 300人の女性が肌の色と 貧困のため失踪し 失踪に関する反応は何もなく 逮捕された人もいない状態です 彼女はこれを文章にし始め 友の家というセンターを開設 6年かけて 暴力の存在を 世界に気づかせたのです フアレスの通りに7,000人が集まりました それは奇跡と言えるもので 治安の悪さから 普段は通りに出ない地元の人たちが 世界各地から集まった人々を見て 通りに立ちすくして 涙を流していました
There's another woman, named Agnes. And Agnes, for me, epitomizes what a vagina warrior is. I met her three years ago in Kenya. And Agnes was mutilated as a little girl; she was circumcised against her will when she was 10 years old, and she really made a decision that she didn't want this practice to continue anymore in her community. So when she got older, she created this incredible thing: it's an anatomical sculpture of a woman's body, half a woman's body. And she walked through the Rift Valley, and she had vagina and vagina replacement parts, where she would teach girls and parents and boys and girls what a healthy vagina looks like, and what a mutilated vagina looks like.
アグネスという女性は 私にとって ヴァギナ勇士の典型です 彼女とはケニアで3年前に会いました 彼女は10歳の時に 彼女の気持ちに反して 陰核を切除され こんな慣例は地域社会において 存続させまいと決意したのです 彼女は大人になってから 女性の体半分の解剖彫刻を作って ケニアのリフトバレーを歩き ヴァギナとヴァギナの取り替え部品を持って 保護者と子どもに健康なヴァギナと切除されたヴァギナの違いを 教えて回ったのです その活動で彼女は
And in the course of her travel -- she walked literally for eight years through the Rift Valley, through dust, through sleeping on the ground, because the Maasai are nomads, and she would have to find them, and they would move, and she would find them again -- she saved 1,500 girls from being cut.
砂ぼこりの中 野宿しながらリフトバレーを 8年間歩きました マサイ族は遊牧民なので 彼らが移動しては探し出し 彼女は1,500人の少女を切除から救いました
And in that time, she created an alternative ritual, which involved girls coming of age without the cut. When we met her three years ago, we said, "What could V-Day do for you?" And she said, "Well, if you got me a jeep, I could get around a lot faster."
彼女は少女が切除されることなく成人できる― 新しい慣例を作ったのです 3年前 私たちが協力したいと 彼女に言うと “ジープがあれば もっと早く移動できる” と言いました
(Laughter)
(笑)
So we bought her a jeep. And in the year that she had the jeep, she saved 4,500 girls from being cut. So we said to her, "What else could we do for you?" She said, "Well, Eve, if you gave me some money, I could open a house and girls could run away, and they could be saved." And I want to tell this little story about my own beginnings, because it's very interrelated to happiness and Agnes.
それでジープを贈ったら その年に彼女はジープを使って 4,500人の少女を切除から救いました “他に何かできる?” と尋ねたら “お金がもらえたら 少女たちを 保護できる家を作って 彼らを救える” と言いました 幸福とアグネスに関係があるので 私の幼少期の話をしたいと思います
When I was a little girl -- I grew up in a wealthy community; it was an upper-middle class white community, and it had all the trappings and the looks of a perfectly nice, wonderful, great life. And everyone was supposed to be happy in that community, and, in fact, my life was hell. I lived with an alcoholic father who beat me and molested me, and it was all inside that. And always as a child I had this fantasy that somebody would come and rescue me. And I actually made up a little character whose name was Mr. Alligator. I would call him up when things got really bad, and say it was time to come and pick me up. And I would pack a little bag and wait for Mr. Alligator to come.
私が育ったのは白人社会で 中流の上層階級という恵まれた環境でした 完璧な素晴らしい生活を 象徴するものが溢れていました そこでは誰もが幸せであるはずだったのに 私の生活は地獄で アル中の父親に 殴られ犯されていたのです 子どもだった私は 誰かが助けに来てくれる空想を常に抱いていました ミスターアリゲーターと名付けたキャラクターを作り上げて 状況が悪化したときは 彼に電話をして 迎えに来る時間だと伝えてました 小さなカバンに荷物を詰めて ミスターアリゲーターを待っていたのです
Now, Mr. Alligator never did come, but the idea of Mr. Alligator coming actually saved my sanity and made it OK for me to keep going, because I believed, in the distance, there would be someone coming to rescue me.
ミスターアリゲーターは決して来なかったけれど いつか誰かが助けに来てくれると信じていたので ミスターアリゲーターが現れる考えが 実際に私を正気に保ち 頑張れました
Cut to 40-some odd years later, we go to Kenya, and we're walking, we arrive at the opening of this house. And Agnes hadn't let me come to the house for days, because they were preparing this whole ritual.
40年以上が経ち ケニアに新設された― 女性のための隠れ家のオープニングに行くと アグネスは儀式の準備をしていたので 数日待つこととなりました アグネスの住む地域社会で彼女が
I want to tell you a great story. When Agnes first started fighting to stop female genital mutilation in her community, she had become an outcast, and she was exiled and slandered, and the whole community turned against her. But being a vagina warrior, she kept going, and she kept committing herself to transforming consciousness. And in the Maasai community, goats and cows are the most valued possession. They're like the Mercedes-Benz of the Rift Valley. And she said two days before the house opened, two different people arrived to give her a goat each, and she said to me, "I knew then that female genital mutilation would end one day in Africa."
女性器切除を止めようと初めて働きかけていたとき 彼女は追放され中傷され 地域全体が彼女を背いたのです でも 彼女はヴァギナ勇士になり 慣習を変えてみせると自ら誓い続けて 頑張りました マサイ族の文化では ヤギと牛が一番価値があるとされています リフトバレーでは ベンツに匹敵します 隠れ家オープンの二日前 二人の人が彼女に それぞれヤギを持ってきたそうです 彼女は “いつかアフリカで女性器切除が終わるとわかってた” と言いました
Anyway, we arrived, and when we arrived, there were hundreds of girls dressed in red homemade dresses -- which is the color of the Maasai and the color of V-Day -- and they greeted us. They had made up these songs that they were singing, about the end of suffering and the end of mutilation, and they walked us down the path. It was a gorgeous day in the African sun, and the dust was flying and the girls were dancing, and there was this house, and it said, "V-Day Safe House for the Girls."
それで 私たちが到着したとき マサイとV-Dayの色である赤の手作りワンピースを着た― 何百人という女の子たちがいて 彼らは私たちと挨拶してから 苦しみの終わりや 女性器切除の終わりを歌う― 自作の歌と共に 小道を誘導してくれました アフリカの太陽に照らされ 埃が舞って 少女たちは踊り 素晴らしい日でした その家には “女性のためのV-Day 隠れ家” と書かれていました
And it hit me in that moment that it had taken 47 years, but that Mr. Alligator had finally shown up. And he had shown up, obviously, in a form that it took me a long time to understand, which is that when we give in the world what we want the most, we heal the broken part inside each of us.
その瞬間 47年かかったけれど ミスターアリゲーターが ついに現れたと思いました 彼は時間をかけて意外な形で現れました と言うのは 我々が一番欲しいと思うものを 世界にもたらした時 心の傷が癒されるのです
And I feel, in the last eight years, that this journey -- this miraculous vagina journey -- has taught me this really simple thing, which is that happiness exists in action; it exists in telling the truth and saying what your truth is; and it exists in giving away what you want the most. And I feel that knowledge and that journey has been an extraordinary privilege, and I feel really blessed to have been here today to communicate that to you.
過去8年間のヴァギナの旅で 学んだのは とてもシンプルなこと 幸福とは 行動したり 真実を語ったり 本物の自分を表現する中に存在し 切望するものを明らかにすると 見出せるのです そして 貴重な知識と経験を得られ 嬉しく思っています 皆さんにお話できた事も感謝しています どうもありがとう
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
(拍手)