雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第4章6:穿越山丘
Scattered up and down the hills there were houses made of wattle and daub, like my grandfather’s, and these often collapsed when there were floods. Children sometimes froze to death in winter. There was no hospital. Only Shahpur had a clinic, and if anyone fell ill in the other villages they had to be carried there by their relatives on a wooden frame which we jokingly called the Shangla Ambulance. If it was anything serious they would have to make the long bus journey to Mingora unless they were lucky enough to know someone with a car.
穿越山丘後，有幾棟屋子是用樹枝條和灰泥糊成的，我祖父的房子就是這樣。這些房子往往遇到洪水後就會倒塌。冬天住在裏頭的小孩有時會被凍死。這裏沒有醫院，只有夏波村有一間診所，如果有人在別的村子生病了，他們就得由親戚用木製的擔架，也就是我們笑稱的香拉縣救護車，擡到這裏來看病。如果病得很重，除非他們很幸運地認識有車的人，否則就得搭很久的公交車到明戈拉去看醫生。
Usually politicians only visited during election time, promising roads, electricity, clean water and schools and giving money and generators to influential local people we called stakeholders, who would instruct their communities on how to vote. Of course this only applied to the men; women in our area don’t vote. Then they disappeared off to Islamabad if they were elected to the National Assembly, or Peshawar for the Provincial Assembly, and we’d hear no more of them or their promises.
通常，政治人物只有在選舉期間纔會來拜訪，承諾要修路、接電纜、接水管和蓋學校，然後捐錢和發電機給當地有影響力的人--我們稱之爲“關係人”，這些人會教他們所屬選區裏的民衆如何投票。當然，這些只與男人有關，我們這裏的女人沒有投票權。而一旦這些政治人物當選國民議會或是白沙瓦的省議會議員後他們就會隱身回伊斯蘭堡，我們就再也見不到他們了，那些承諾也都隨風而逝。
My cousins made fun of me for my city ways. I did not like going barefoot. I read books and I had a different accent and used slang expressions from Mingora. My clothes were often from shops and not home-made like theirs. My relatives would ask me, ‘Would you like to cook chicken for us?’ and I’d say, ‘No, the chicken is innocent. We should not kill her.’ They thought I was modern because I came from town. They did not realise people from Islamabad or even Peshawar would think me very backward.
我的表姐妹們喜歡拿我的都市習慣打趣。我不喜歡赤腳，我喜歡看書，我的口音不一樣，而且我還會使用明戈拉的地方俚語。我的衣服大多是在商店裏買的，不像她們穿的都是家裏自制的衣物。我的親戚會問我：“你要幫我們煮雞嗎？”我會回答：“不了，雞是無辜的，我們不該殺它。”因爲我來自都市，所以他們覺得我很時髦。他們不明白在伊斯蘭堡，甚至白沙瓦的人看來，我就會顯得很落伍。
