雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第4章1:沃瑪
4 The Village
4 這個村莊
IN OUR TRADITION on the seventh day of a child’s life we have a celebration called Woma (which means ‘seventh’) for family, friends and neighbours to come and admire the newborn. My parents had not held one for me because they could not afford the goat and rice needed to feed the guests, and my grandfather would not help them out because I was not a boy. When my brothers came along and Baba wanted to pay, my father refused as he hadn’t done this for me. But Baba was the only grandfather I had as my mother’s father had died before I was born and we became close. My parents say I have qualities of both grandfathers – humorous and wise like my mother’s father and vocal like my father’s father! Baba had grown soft and white-bearded in his old age and I loved going to visit him in the village.
按照傳統，嬰兒出生的第七天叫作“沃瑪”。這天，家人、朋友和鄰居都會來探望，祝福這個新生兒。因爲沒有錢購買山羊和白米招待參加的賓客，我父母沒有爲我舉辦這個活動；而祖父也因爲我不是個男孩子不願出手幫忙。我的弟弟們出生後，祖父想要出錢舉辦慶祝儀式，卻被我的父親拒絕了，理由是馬拉拉也沒有辦過。但外公在我出生前就去世了，所以我和祖父還是很親近。父母說，我擁有祖父和外公兩人的特質--像外公的幽默和智慧以及祖父的聲音！祖父老了以後變得比較溫和，還留着白鬍子，我很喜歡到村子裏探望他。
Whenever he saw me he would greet me with a song as he was still concerned about the sad meaning of my name and wanted to lend some happiness to it: ‘Malala Maiwand wala da. Pa tool jehan ke da khushala da, ’ he sang. ‘Malala is of Maiwand and she’s the happiest person in the whole world.’
每次他見到我的時候，總是會唱一首歌來迎接我，因爲他還是很在意我名字裏的悲傷含義，想以這首歌來爲其增添一點快樂的感覺。他唱道：“馬拉拉是邁萬德，她是全世界最快樂的人。”
We always went to the village for the Eid holidays. We would dress in our finest clothes and pile into the Flying Coach, a minibus with brightly painted panels and jangling chains, and drive north to Barkana, our family village in Shangla. Eid happens twice a year – Eid ul-Fitr or ‘Small Eid’ marks the end of the Ramadan fasting month, and Eid ul-Azha or ‘Big Eid’ commemorates the Prophet Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son Ismail to God. The dates of the feasts are announced by a special panel of clerics who watch for the appearance of the crescent moon. As soon as we heard the broadcast on the radio, we set off.
我和家人總是一起去村裏過開齋節。我們會穿上最好的衣服，然後擠上飛行巴士--一臺外觀漆得很亮麗，還掛着鈴鐺的小巴士，然後一路往北搭到巴卡納，這是我們家族在香拉縣的村落所在地。爾德節一年有兩次，分別是齋戒月結束時的“開齋節”，和用來讚頌先知亞伯拉罕願意爲了真主犧牲兒子伊斯瑪儀的“古爾邦節”。節慶的日期由負責觀看伊斯蘭曆新月的毛拉組成的特別審查會宣佈。一聽到收音機裏公佈的日期，我們就會出發。
