雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第4章5:時間推移

As the day went on and the sun climbed higher in the sky, more and more of the White Mountain would be bathed in golden sun. Then as evening came it fell in shadow as the sun moved up the Black Mountain. We timed our prayers by the shadow on the mountains. When the sun hit a certain rock, we used to say our asr or afternoon prayers. Then in the evening, when the white peak of Spin Ghar was even more beautiful than in the morning, we said the makkam or evening prayers. You could see the White Mountain from everywhere, and my father told me he used to think of it as a symbol of peace for our land, a white flag at the end of our valley. When he was a child he thought this small valley was the entire world and that if anyone went beyond the point where either mountain kissed the sky, they would fall off.

時間推移，太陽越升越高，白山沐浴在金色陽光下。到了傍晚，白山沒入黑暗中，太陽慢慢往黑山移動。我們通過觀察山上的陰影來判定進行禱告的時間。當陽光照到某一塊岩石的時候，我們就會進行“雅思耶”，也就是午禱。到了晚上，當白山史賓佳爾比早晨更美的時候，我們就會進行“馬坎”，也就是晚禱。從任何方向望去，都能看見白山。父親告訴我，他曾把這當作是和平生活的象徵，白山就是河谷末端的一面白旗。當他還是個孩子時，他曾以爲這個小小的河谷就是全世界，如果有人穿越山陵與天空連接的地方，就會掉到世界外頭去。

Though I had been born in a city, I shared my father’s love of nature. I loved the rich soil, the greenness of the plants, the crops, the buffaloes and the yellow butterflies that fluttered about me as I walked. The village was very poor, but when we arrived our extended family would lay on a big feast. There would be bowls of chicken, rice, local spinach and spicy mutton, all cooked over the fire by the women, followed by plates of crunchy apples, slices of yellow cake and a big kettle of milky tea. None of the children had toys or books. The boys played cricket in a gully and even the ball was made from plastic bags tied together with elastic bands.

雖然我是在城裏出生的，但我跟父親一樣熱愛大自然。我喜歡肥沃的土地、綠油油的植物、水牛和總是會在我走路時在身邊飛舞的黃色蝴蝶。這個村子雖然很貧困，但每當我們抵達時，我們的大家族都會設宴款待。桌上會有一碗又一碗的雞肉、米飯、菠菜和辣味羊肉，全都由婦女們親手烹調而成。飯後還有一盤盤香脆的蘋果、一塊塊黃澄澄的蛋糕，還有一大壺奶茶。孩子們沒有玩具或是書籍。男孩們在溪谷裏打板球，球有時甚至是用橡皮筋纏着一團塑料袋做成的。

The village was a forgotten place. Water was carried from the spring. The few concrete houses had been built by families whose sons or fathers had gone south to work in the mines or to the Gulf, from where they sent money home. There are forty million of us Pashtuns, of which ten million live outside our homeland. My father said it was sad that they could never return as they needed to keep working to maintain their families’ new lifestyle. There were many families with no men. They would visit only once a year, and usually a new baby would arrive nine months later.

這個村子彷彿是世外桃源。日常用水是從泉眼提回來的，少數幾棟水泥房是由家裏在南方的礦坑或是海灣地區工作的男子們賺了錢回來建的。普什圖大約有四千萬人口，其中有一千萬人住在外地。父親說，可悲的是他們可能永遠不會回來，因爲他們必須不斷賺錢，以維持家裏較爲現代化的生活方式。很多戶人家裏沒有男人，他們只能一年回來一次。然後，通常在九個月後，就會有新生兒誕生。