To make us wash, our aunts told stories about a scary woman called Shashaka, who would come after you with her muddy hands and stinking breath if you didn’t take a bath or wash your hair, and turn you into a dirty woman with hair like rats’ tails filled with insects. She might even kill you.

我的姑姑们为了要让我们快点去洗澡，还会讲一个恐怖的女人夏夏卡的故事给我们听。如果小孩不去洗澡、洗头发，夏夏卡就会伸出她满是污泥的双手，喷出散发着恶臭的口气追着你跑，把你的头发变成像老鼠的尾巴一样脏，还长满虫子，搞不好还会把你给杀掉。

In the winter when parents didn’t want their children to stay outside in the snow they would tell the story about the lion or tiger which must always make the first step in the snow. Only when the lion or tiger has left their footprint were we allowed to go outside.

有时候，大人不愿意让我们大冬天跑去外面玩耍，就会说要等到老虎或狮子在雪地上留下足迹，我们才可以出去玩。

As we got older the village began to seem boring. The only television was in the hujra of one of the wealthier families, and no one had a computer.

随着我们慢慢长大，村子里的生活对我们来说就有点无聊了。唯一的电视在一位有钱人家的会堂里，整个村子没有一台计算机。

Women in the village hid their faces whenever they left their purdah quarters and could not meet or speak to men who were not their close relatives. I wore more fashionable clothes and didn’t cover my face even when I became a teenager. One of my male cousins was angry and asked my father, ‘Why isn’t she covered?’ He replied, ‘She’s my daughter. Look after your own affairs.’ But some of the family thought people would gossip about us and say we were not properly following Pashtunwali.

村里的妇女只要踏出女性专属的空间，便要将脸遮住，她们也不可以跟自己近亲以外的男性说话。我一直到了十岁多都穿得比较时髦，也没有将脸遮起来。我的一位表哥对此很不高兴，问我父亲：“为什么她没有把脸遮起来？”父亲回答道：“她是我的女儿，你管好自己的事就好。”但家族里有些人会背着我们说闲话，说我们没有好好遵守普什图习俗[2]。