4 The Village

4　这个村庄

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.

按照传统，婴儿出生的第七天叫作“沃玛”。这天，家人、朋友和邻居都会来探望，祝福这个新生儿。因为没有钱购买山羊和白米招待参加的宾客，我父母没有为我举办这个活动；而祖父也因为我不是个男孩子不愿出手帮忙。我的弟弟们出生后，祖父想要出钱举办庆祝仪式，却被我的父亲拒绝了，理由是马拉拉也没有办过。但外公在我出生前就去世了，所以我和祖父还是很亲近。父母说，我拥有祖父和外公两人的特质--像外公的幽默和智慧以及祖父的声音！祖父老了以后变得比较温和，还留着白胡子，我很喜欢到村子里探望他。

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.’

每次他见到我的时候，总是会唱一首歌来迎接我，因为他还是很在意我名字里的悲伤含义，想以这首歌来为其增添一点快乐的感觉。他唱道：“马拉拉是迈万德，她是全世界最快乐的人。”

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.

我和家人总是一起去村里过开斋节。我们会穿上最好的衣服，然后挤上飞行巴士--一台外观漆得很亮丽，还挂着铃铛的小巴士，然后一路往北搭到巴卡纳，这是我们家族在香拉县的村落所在地。尔德节一年有两次，分别是斋戒月结束时的“开斋节”，和用来赞颂先知亚伯拉罕愿意为了真主牺牲儿子伊斯玛仪的“古尔邦节”。节庆的日期由负责观看伊斯兰历新月的毛拉组成的特别审查会宣布。一听到收音机里公布的日期，我们就会出发。