One of my father’s colleagues at the school was his friend Mohammad Naeem Khan. He and my father had studied for their bachelors and masters degrees in English together and were both passionate about education. They were also both frustrated as the school was very strict and unimaginative. Neither the students nor the teachers were supposed to have their own opinions, and the owners’ control was so tight they even frowned upon friendship between teachers. My father longed for the freedom that would come with running his own school. He wanted to encourage independent thought and hated the way the school he was at rewarded obedience above open-mindedness and creativity. So when Naeem lost his job after a dispute with the college administration, they decided to start their own school.

父亲在那所学校里的一个同事，同时也是他在大学念英文学士和硕士时期的同窗--穆罕默德.纳伊姆.汗，和父亲一样，都对教育充满热忱。他们对学校的严格与死板感到失望。这所学校的创办者对一切都实行严厉控制。学校里无论老师还是学生都不允许有自己的想法，甚至对老师之间的友谊也进行管控。父亲一直向往自己开办学校，开创自由的风气。他希望鼓励学生独立思考，憎恨这所大学偏好顺从、对开放的心胸和创意的态度进行压制的风气。所以，当纳伊姆因为与大学里的一个行政人员发生冲突而丢了工作的时候，他们决定开办一所自己的学校。

Their original plan was to open a school in my father’s village of Shahpur, where there was a desperate need: ‘Like a shop in a community where there are no shops, ’ he said. But when they went there to look for a building, there were banners everywhere advertising a school opening – someone had beaten them to it. So they decided to set up an English-language school in Mingora, thinking that since Swat was a tourist destination there would be a demand for learning in English.

他们最初的想法是在父亲的村子夏波村办学，因为村子里有这个需求。“就像是在一个没有商店的地方开一间店。”父亲说。但当他们到了村里，开始寻找办校地点时，却看见到处都贴满了一个新学校的广告--有人抢先一步。于是，他们决定在明戈拉开一所英文学校。他们认为，既然斯瓦特是观光胜地，一定会有学英文的需求。

As my father was still teaching, Naeem wandered the streets looking for somewhere to rent. One day he called my father excitedly to say he’d found the ideal place. It was the ground floor of a two-storey building in a well-off area called Landikas with a walled courtyard where students could gather. The previous tenants had also run a school – the Ramada School. The owner had called it that because he had once been to Turkey and seen a Ramada Hotel! But the school had gone bankrupt, which perhaps should have made them think twice. Also the building was on the banks of a river where people threw their rubbish and it smelt foul in hot weather.

父亲仍然在教书，纳伊姆到处寻找可以承租的地点。有天，他兴奋地打电话告诉父亲，已经找到了理想的地点。那是位于较富裕的兰蒂卡斯的一栋两层小楼，一楼空了出来，还有一个院子可以供学生们使用。前一位承租者也是一所学校--华美达学校。创办人为学校取名“华美达”，是因为他在一次土耳其之旅中见到过有名的华美达酒店！但华美达学校后来破产了，这个现实让父亲和他的朋友对此地点有些犹豫。而且这栋建筑就在河岸边，大家都把垃圾丢进河里，天气热的时候，味道十分难闻。