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.

穿越山丘后，有几栋屋子是用树枝条和灰泥糊成的，我祖父的房子就是这样。这些房子往往遇到洪水后就会倒塌。冬天住在里头的小孩有时会被冻死。这里没有医院，只有夏波村有一间诊所，如果有人在别的村子生病了，他们就得由亲戚用木制的担架，也就是我们笑称的香拉县救护车，抬到这里来看病。如果病得很重，除非他们很幸运地认识有车的人，否则就得搭很久的公交车到明戈拉去看医生。

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，政治人物只有在选举期间才会来拜访，承诺要修路、接电缆、接水管和盖学校，然后捐钱和发电机给当地有影响力的人--我们称之为“关系人”，这些人会教他们所属选区里的民众如何投票。当然，这些只与男人有关，我们这里的女人没有投票权。而一旦这些政治人物当选国民议会或是白沙瓦的省议会议员后他们就会隐身回伊斯兰堡，我们就再也见不到他们了，那些承诺也都随风而逝。

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.

我的表姐妹们喜欢拿我的都市习惯打趣。我不喜欢赤脚，我喜欢看书，我的口音不一样，而且我还会使用明戈拉的地方俚语。我的衣服大多是在商店里买的，不像她们穿的都是家里自制的衣物。我的亲戚会问我：“你要帮我们煮鸡吗？”我会回答：“不了，鸡是无辜的，我们不该杀它。”因为我来自都市，所以他们觉得我很时髦。他们不明白在伊斯兰堡，甚至白沙瓦的人看来，我就会显得很落伍。