雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第17章:祈禱再長高些(1)
17 Praying to Be TAll
When I Was thirteen I stopped growing.
到了13歲之後，我就再也不長了。I had always looked older than I was but suddenly all my friends were taller than me.
一直以來，我都比實際年齡顯得成熟些，但突然間，我身邊所有的朋友都比我高了。
I was one of the three shortest girls in my class of thirty.
我是班上30位同學中最矮的三個女孩之一。I felt embarrassed when I was with my friends.
當我與朋友們在一起時，總覺得難爲情。Every night I prayed to Allah to be taller.
每天晚上，我都向真主安拉祈禱能再長高些。I measured myself on my bedroom wall with a ruler and a pencil.
我用尺和鉛筆在臥室的牆上記錄下自己測量的身高。Every morning I would stand against it to check if I had grown.
每天早上，我都會靠在牆上，檢查自己是否長高了些。But the pencil mark stayed stubbornly at five feet.
但那鉛筆畫下的記號固執地停在1.5米高的地方。I even promised Allah that if I could grow just a tiny bit taller I would offer a hundred raakat nafl, extra voluntary prayers on top of the five daily ones.
我甚至答應真主，如果我能再長高一點點，我就會再多做一百次raak at nafl（除了每日必須要進行的禱告以外，自願額外進行的禱告。），在原本每日五回的禱告基礎上心甘情願地增加一百次。I was speaking at a lot of events but because I was so short it wasn't easy to be authoritative.
我發表過多次演說，但因爲我實在太矮了，讓人很難感到權威。Sometimes I could hardly see over the lectern.
有時我幾乎看不到講臺外面。I did not like high-heeled shoes but I started to wear them.
雖然我並不喜歡高跟鞋，但也只好開始穿了。One of the girls in my class did not return to school that year.
那年開學時，我們班上一個女孩沒有再回到學校上課。She had been married off as soon as she entered puberty.
剛進入青春期，她就被嫁掉了。She was big for her age but was still only thirteen.
雖然她的個頭比同齡的女孩子們高些，但也不過13歲而已。A while later we heard that she had two children.
再後來，我們聽說她生了兩個孩子。In class, when we were reciting hydrocarbon formulae during our chemistry lessons, I would daydream about what it would be like to stop going to school and instead start looking after a husband.
我在化學課堂上一邊背誦碳氫化合物的分子式，一邊做起白日夢，想象着如果開始不上學，只是照顧丈夫的日常生活，會是怎樣。We had begun to think about other things besides the Taliban, but it wasn't possible to forget completely.
現在，塔利班已經不再佔據我們全部的思想，但也不可能被完全遺忘。
