双语畅销书《我是马拉拉》第17章:祈祷再长高些(1)
17 Praying to Be TAll
When I Was thirteen I stopped growing.
到了13岁之后，我就再也不长了。I had always looked older than I was but suddenly all my friends were taller than me.
一直以来，我都比实际年龄显得成熟些，但突然间，我身边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位同学中最矮的三个女孩之一。I felt embarrassed when I was with my friends.
当我与朋友们在一起时，总觉得难为情。Every night I prayed to Allah to be taller.
每天晚上，我都向真主安拉祈祷能再长高些。I measured myself on my bedroom wall with a ruler and a pencil.
我用尺和铅笔在卧室的墙上记录下自己测量的身高。Every morning I would stand against it to check if I had grown.
每天早上，我都会靠在墙上，检查自己是否长高了些。But the pencil mark stayed stubbornly at five feet.
但那铅笔画下的记号固执地停在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.
我甚至答应真主，如果我能再长高一点点，我就会再多做一百次raak at nafl（除了每日必须要进行的祷告以外，自愿额外进行的祷告。），在原本每日五回的祷告基础上心甘情愿地增加一百次。I was speaking at a lot of events but because I was so short it wasn't easy to be authoritative.
我发表过多次演说，但因为我实在太矮了，让人很难感到权威。Sometimes I could hardly see over the lectern.
有时我几乎看不到讲台外面。I did not like high-heeled shoes but I started to wear them.
虽然我并不喜欢高跟鞋，但也只好开始穿了。One of the girls in my class did not return to school that year.
那年开学时，我们班上一个女孩没有再回到学校上课。She had been married off as soon as she entered puberty.
刚进入青春期，她就被嫁掉了。She was big for her age but was still only thirteen.
虽然她的个头比同龄的女孩子们高些，但也不过13岁而已。A while later we heard that she had two children.
再后来，我们听说她生了两个孩子。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.
我在化学课堂上一边背诵碳氢化合物的分子式，一边做起白日梦，想象着如果开始不上学，只是照顾丈夫的日常生活，会是怎样。We had begun to think about other things besides the Taliban, but it wasn't possible to forget completely.
现在，塔利班已经不再占据我们全部的思想，但也不可能被完全遗忘。
