After three months Naeem had had enough. ‘We are supposed to be collecting money in enrolment fees. Instead the only people knocking on our doors are beggars! This is a Herculean task, ’ he added. ‘I can’t take any more!’

三个月之后，纳伊姆受够了。“我们本来应该已经开始计算报名费的收入了，但现在唯一会来敲门的，只有乞丐！这简直是不可能完成的任务，”他补充道，“我没办法再忍下去了！”

By this time the two former friends were hardly speaking to each other and had to call in local elders to mediate. My father was desperate not to give up the school so agreed to pay Naeem a return on his share of the investment. He had no idea how. Fortunately another old college friend called Hidayatullah stepped in and agreed to put up the money and take Naeem’s place. The new partners again went from door to door, telling people they had started a new kind of school. My father is so charismatic that Hidayatullah says he is the kind of person who, if invited to your house, will make friends with your friends. But while people were happy to talk to him, they preferred to send their children to established schools.

到了这时候，这对昔日死党已经几乎不跟彼此说话了，还得劳驾长辈前来调停。父亲实在不愿放弃这所学校，他答应把纳伊姆出资的那一部分还给他。但他完全不知道钱从哪里来。幸运的是父亲大学时的另一位好友希达亚图拉出手介入，表示愿意接手纳伊姆的位置。这对新的搭档再次挨家挨户去招生，告诉大家他们成立了一所新式的学校。父亲是个很有魅力的人，根据希达亚图拉的说法，他就是那种如果受邀去你家，就会跟你的朋友都结为好友的人。但是虽然大家都很乐于与父亲聊天，他们却还是都想把孩子送去念名校。

They named it the Khushal School after one of my father’s great heroes, Khushal Khan Khattak, the warrior poet from Akora just south of Swat, who tried to unify all Pashtun tribes against the Moghuls in the seventeenth century. Near the entrance they painted a motto: WE ARE COMMITTED TO BUILD FOR YOU THE CALL OF THE NEW ERA. My father also designed a shield with a famous quote from Khattak in Pashto: ‘I girt my sword in the name of Afghan honour.’ My father wanted us to be inspired by our great hero, but in a manner fit for our times – with pens, not swords. Just as Khattak had wanted the Pashtuns to unite against a foreign enemy, so we needed to unite against ignorance.

他们把学校命名为胡沙尔学校，追崇我父亲心中的另一位英雄--胡沙尔.汗.哈塔克，一名斯瓦特南方阿卡拉的战士。他曾在17世纪时，试着将普什图的所有部落联合起来，对抗莫卧儿王朝。他们在学校大门旁漆上了一句箴言：我们致力引领潮流，打造全新趋势。父亲还设计了一个屏风，上面用普什图语写着一句哈塔克的名言：“我以阿富汗的荣耀之名，将刀剑系上腰间。”父亲希望我们能受到伟大英雄的启发，但要学会使用我们这个时代应该使用的工具--笔，而不是刀剑。就像卡塔克希望普什图人能团结起来抵御外辱一样，我们也要团结起来，抵御冷漠。