There was a hole in the wall to our neighbours’ house, Safina’s family, through which we used to communicate with them, and we knocked on the wall so they would come to the hole.

我们家和邻居萨芬娜家之间的墙上有个小洞，我们平时可以通过这个洞来说话；只要敲敲那堵墙，他们就会来到洞旁。

‘What does it mean this curfew?’ we asked.

为什么会有宵禁？我们问。

When they explained, we didn’t even come out of our rooms because we thought something bad might happen.

当他们跟我们解释时，我们知道某种不好的事可能要发生了。

Later the curfew took over our lives.

不久以后，宵禁控制了我们的生活。

We heard on the news that Musharraf had sent 3,000 troops into our valley to confront the Taliban.

我们听到消息，穆沙拉夫派了3000名士兵到我们的河谷来对付塔利班。

They occupied all government and private buildings which they thought were of strategic importance.

军队占据了他们认为具备战略意义的政府建筑或者私宅。

Until then it had seemed as if the rest of Pakistan was ignoring what was happening in Swat.

在政府实际派兵前，我们以为巴基斯坦其余地方根本不在乎这里发生的一切。

The following day a suicide bomber attacked another army truck in Swat, killing seventeen soldiers and thirteen civilians.

隔天，一名自杀式炸弹袭击者袭击了一辆停驻在斯瓦特的军用卡车，杀死了17名军人及13名普通百姓。

Then all that night we heard dar dar dar, the boom of cannons and machine guns from the hills.

整个晚上，哒哒哒的枪炮声不绝于耳，

It was hard to sleep.

令人无法安眠。