雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第6章3:垃圾山的孩子

Though my mother was not educated, she was the practicAl one in the family, the doer while my father was the talker. She was always out helping people. My father would get angry sometimes – he would arrive home at lunchtime and call out, ‘Tor Pekai, I’m home!’ only to find she was out and there was no lunch for him. Then he would find she was at the hospital visiting someone who was ill, or had gone to help a family, so he could not stay cross. Sometimes though she would be out because she was shopping for clothes in the Cheena Bazaar, and that would be a different matter.

雖然我的母親沒有受過教育，但她是家裏的實幹家；父親發號施令，母親則是執行者。她總是在外面幫助其他人。父親有時回家吃午餐的時候發現母親出門了，沒有幫他準備午餐，就會很生氣。如果父親發現母親在醫院裏探視生病的人，或是去幫助其他家庭，這時他就不會再生氣了。但有時候，母親是去婦女巴扎逛街買衣服，那就另當別論了。

Wherever we lived my mother filled our house with people. I shared my room with my cousin Aneesa from the village, who had come to live with us so she could go to school, and a girl called Shehnaz whose mother Sultana had once worked in our house. Shehnaz and her sister had also been sent out to collect garbage after their father had died leaving them very poor. One of her brothers was mentally ill and was always doing strange things like setting fire to their clothes or selling the electric fan we gave them to keep cool. Sultana was very short-tempered and my mother did not like having her in the house, but my father arranged a small allowance for her and a place for Shehnaz and her other brother at his school. Shehnaz had never been to school, so even though she was two years older than me she was put two classes below, and she came to live with us so that I could help her.

不論我們住在哪裏，家裏都擠滿了人。我和堂姐安妮紗，還有一個女孩謝娜姿住一個房間。安妮紗來跟我們同住，這樣她才能上學。謝娜姿的母親索塔娜曾在我們家做事。謝娜姿的父親過世後，家裏變得非常窮困，她和她的姐妹也曾被派去垃圾山撿垃圾。她們的一個兄弟有精神疾病，常常做奇怪的事情，比如放火燒她們的衣服，或是把我們送的電風扇拿去賣掉。索塔娜的脾氣很壞，母親不喜歡讓她在家裏幫忙，但是父親安排了一筆小小的津貼給她，並讓謝娜姿和她的其他兄弟來學校上課。謝娜姿以前從沒上過學，所以雖然她比我大兩歲，還是被安排在比我小兩屆的班上。她來跟我們同住，這樣，我就可以給她輔導功課了。

There was also Nooria, whose mother Kharoo did some of our washing and cleaning, and Alishpa, one of the daughters of Khalida, the woman who helped my mother with the cooking. Khalida had been sold into marriage to an old man who used to beat her, and eventually she ran away with her three daughters. Her own family would not take her back because it is believed that a woman who has left her husband has brought shame on her family. For a while her daughters also had to collect rubbish to survive. Her story was like something out of the novels I had started reading.

努麗亞也和我們住在一起。她的母親卡努幫我們洗衣服和打掃。還有阿麗施巴，她是卡麗達的女兒，卡麗達幫我母親煮飯。卡麗達曾被賣給一個喜歡揍她的老男人當太太，最後她終於帶着三個女兒逃了出來。她的家人不願意收留她，因爲人們認爲離開丈夫的女人會讓自己的家族蒙羞。有一陣子，她的女兒也得在垃圾山撿垃圾度日。她的經歷對我來說，就像是小說的故事情節一樣。