Longing for Home: Ch. 34-35 PDF

# The One Thing We All Know A few things remain the same in this new world. One: I still fight with Khushal. (Or rather, he fights with me and I oblige him.) We fight over who gets the front seat on the way to school. We fight over what station to listen to on the radio. He tells me I have a big no...

# The One Thing We All Know A few things remain the same in this new world. One: I still fight with Khushal. (Or rather, he fights with me and I oblige him.) We fight over who gets the front seat on the way to school. We fight over what station to listen to on the radio. He tells me I have a big nose. I tell him he is fat. He tries to give me a punch when we pull up in front of his school. And I lock the door as he tries to get out. I may be an advocate for free speech and human rights in public, but with my brother, I admit, I can be a dictator! Two: Moniba and I have gone back to our silly old feuding. We Skype as often as we can. But we seem to start each chat the same way. "Oh, Malala,” she says. "You've forgotten all about me." And I say, "Moniba, you're the one who's forgotten about me." After we've gotten that out of the way, we get down to having a good gossip. Sometimes, talking with Moniba and my friends at home makes me more homesick. I can almost smell the wood smoke drifting up from the valley or hear the horns honking on Haji Baba Road. I've seen many other places, but my valley remains to me the most beautiful place in the world. I will go back to Pakistan eventually, but whenever I tell my father I want to go home, he finds excuses. “No, jani,” he says. "Your medical treatment is not complete.” Or “These schools are good. You must stay here until you have learned all you can." He doesn't say the one thing we all know: It will be a long time before we can go home. Going home is the one thing we don't talk about, especially now that Fazlullah has risen from the head of the Taliban in Swat to the head of the Taliban in all of Pakistan. I know this new life is sometimes hard for my brothers. They must feel as if a giant wind suddenly picked them up in Pakistan, blew them across the globe, and set them down here in this foreign place. As for Atal, he doesn't understand all the media fuss around me. “I don't understand why Malala is famous," he said to my father. "What has this girl done?" To the world, I may be Malala, the girl who fought for human rights. To my brothers, I'm the same old Malala they've been living with and fighting with all these years. I'm just the big sister. My mother, though, sometimes treats me as if I'm the baby, not the oldest. She can be very protective, and sometimes, out of nowhere, she will come over and hug me and cry. I know she is thinking about how she almost lost me. Often I catch sight of her wandering in the garden out back, her head covered by her shawl. She feeds the birds from leftovers she keeps on the windowsill, just as she used to do back home. I'm sure she is thinking of all the hungry children who used to eat breakfast at our house before school in the morning and wondering if anyone is feeding them now. Sometimes my father cries, too. He cries when he recalls those first days after the attack, when I was somewhere between life and death. He cries at the memory of the attack itself. He cries with relief when he wakes up from an afternoon nap to hear his children's voices in the yard and realizes that I am alive. I don't get angry very often, but I do get angry when people say he is responsible for what happened to me. As if he forced me to speak out. As if I didn't have a mind of my own. If only they could see him now. Everything he worked for over almost twenty years has been left behind: the school he started from nothing, the school that now has three buildings and eleven hundred students. He used to love nothing more than to stand at the gate and greet the children in the morning. The Khushal School carries on and each day students pass through that gate—but he is not there to see it. Instead, he goes to conferences on girls' education and he speaks out for peace as he used to do in Swat. I know it's odd for him now that people want to hear from him because of me and not the other way around. "Malala used to be known as my daughter,” he says. “But I am proud to say that now I am known as Malala's father." It's not safe for us to go to Pakistan; that is true. But one day when we were homesick we realized we could bring Pakistan to us. Friends and family come to visit. And Shazia and Kainat, who both go to college in England, stay with us during holidays. My mother is much happier when she has a house full of guests and extra chairs around the dinner table. As her happiness grows, so does her willingness to try new things. She has begun to learn English again. She has also begun appearing in public without her shawl covering her face and has even allowed herself to be photographed. My father, meanwhile, has taken on a new responsibility at home. Recently, I teased him that while he and I are busy speaking about women's rights, my mother is still doing the cooking and cleaning. Now he cooks every morning. It's the same thing every time: fried eggs. His cooking is full of love, but not so full of flavor. He has done some brave things in the past: starting a school without a coin in his pocket, standing up for women's rights and girls' education, and standing up to the Taliban. But now my brave, proud Pashtun father has taken on the pots and the pans! # Anniversary As the first anniversary of the shooting approached, many journalists came to interview me. They often seemed so sad about what had happened to me. They said things like "You and your family have had to leave your home. You have to live in fear. You have had to suffer so much.” And even though I was the one who'd gone through the experience, I wasn't nearly as sad as they were. I guess I see my situation differently. If you tell yourself, "Malala, you can never go home because you are the target of the Taliban," you just keep suffering. I look at it this way. I can see! I can hear! I can talk! I can go to school and I can fight with my brothers! I am having a second chance at life. And I am living the life God wants for me. The journalists also ask if I am afraid. I say no. And that is true. What I don't say is that I am afraid of one thing: I wonder sometimes if I will be the same Malala in the future. Will I be deserving of all these honors I have been given? Sometimes when the journalists see my brothers playing so freely, they ask if I am being robbed of a childhood by my campaign for children's rights. I tell them to think of a girl who is married off at eleven. Or a little boy who has to pick through the rubbish heap to earn money for his family. Or the children who have been killed by bombs and bullets. They are the ones who have been robbed of a childhood. And sometimes the journalists seem to want to focus on the attack, rather than on my campaign. This frustrates me, but I understand it. It is human curiosity. Here’s how I think of it, though: They have already harmed me, leaving permanent scars. But out of the violence and tragedy came opportunity. I never forget that, especially when I think of all the good the Malala Fund has done and will continue to do. We have started a project in Swat for girls suffering from domestic child labor. We support them, so they can go to school and eventually become independent. After months of talking about how much I wanted to help in Jordan, we arranged a trip to help Syrian refugees, many of whom have already missed school for three years. I met children there in dirty clothes with no shoes and only a small bag of possessions. I met children there whom I will never forget. It’s our duty to help these children get food, shelter, and an education. And we will. I think of the world as a family. When one of us is suffering, we must all pitch in and help. Because when people say they support me, they are really saying they support girls’ education. So, yes, the Taliban have shot me. But they can only shoot a body. They cannot shoot my dreams, they cannot kill my beliefs, and they cannot stop my campaign to see every girl and every boy in school. Millions of people prayed for me, and God spared me. I am still here for a reason, and it is to use my life to help people. # One Girl Among Many On my sixteenth birthday, I was given the most extraordinary gift: I was invited to speak to the United Nations. It was the first of two trips I would make to New York that year. Four hundred people would be in attendance: high-ranking officials from all over the world, such as Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, and Gordon Brown, the former UK prime minister, as well as ordinary children like me. It would be a far cry from the solemn and fearful birthdays I had spent in Pakistan not long ago. My whole family traveled to New York. We saw Annie on Broadway, and we stayed in a hotel where they bring pizza to your room on a silver tray. I liked the hustle and bustle of New York, compared with sleepy Birmingham. And I felt as if the city were my old friend after seeing it on Ugly Betty. Many people in Pakistan have been told that the United States is a dark and godless place, but everyone I met there was quite nice. I couldn’t wait to tell Moniba: America is a very nice place, but it was just as loud and crowded as other cities I’ve seen, with its honking horns and people rushing here and there. It’s like a developed Karachi! During my second trip, I met one of my favorite people in the United States: a man named Jon Stewart, who invited me to his TV show to talk about my first book and the Malala Fund. He took my campaign very seriously, but he also made funny faces and asked if he could adopt me. I also met the real Ugly Betty, America Ferrara, who is very pretty. And even President Barack Obama and his family. (I was respectful, I believe, but I told him I did not like his drone strikes on Pakistan, that when they kill one bad person, innocent people are killed, too, and terrorism spreads more. I also told him that if America spent less money on weapons and war and more on education, the world would be a better place. If God has given you a voice, I decided, you must use it even if it is to disagree with the president of the United States.) the day of the UN speech, I was excited. I'd had amazing experiences and met amazing people. (I'd even meet the Queen of England and Prince Harry and David Beckham one day.) But I was still me. A girl who likes to crack her knuckles as loud as she can and draws pictures to explain things. A girl who hates pasta and likes cupcakes and will always like her mother's rice—and now loves Cheesy Wotsits and fish fingers. A girl who has to stay up late studying for her physics test. A girl who worries if her best friend is mad at her. A girl like any other. Was it really possible that I was going to address the United Nations? How my world had changed! I dressed slowly that morning, putting on my favorite pink shalwar kamiz and one of Benazir Bhutto’s scarves. I had not written my speech with only the delegates in mind. I wrote it for every person around the world who could take courage from my words and stand up for his or her rights. I don’t want to be thought of as “the girl who was shot by the Taliban” but as “the girl who fought for education," the girl who stands up for peace, with knowledge as her weapon. I said in my speech: Dear brothers and sisters, Do remember one thing. Malala Day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy, and every girl who has raised their voice for their rights. Thousands of people have been killed by the terrorists, and millions have been injured. I am just one of them. So here I stand...one girl among many. I speak not for myself, but for all girls and boys. I raise up my voice not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. Those who have fought for their rights: Their right to live in peace. Their right to be treated with dignity. Their right to equality of opportunity. Their right to be educated. On the ninth of October 2012, the Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead. They shot my friends, too. They thought that the bullets would silence us. But they failed. And then, out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear, and hopelessness died. Strength, power, and courage was born. I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. My dreams are the same. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. As I heard the applause and took my seat, all I could think of was that I had come a long way from Malala the toddler giving lessons to the empty chairs at the Khushal School. And a long way from the girl who gave speeches to the bathroom mirror. Somehow, by the grace of God, I really was speaking to millions of people. I had once asked God to make me taller. I have realized that God has answered my prayer. God has made me as tall as the sky. So tall I could not measure myself, but my voice could reach people everywhere. I had promised a hundred raakat nafl when I’d first asked God to give me height, so I have given him those prayers. But I know that with the immeasurable height, God has also given me a responsibility and a gift: the responsibility to make the world a more peaceful place, which I carry with me every moment of every day; and the gift to be able to do so. Peace in every home, every street, every village, every country—this is my dream. Education for every boy and every girl in the world. To sit down on a chair and read my books with all my friends at school is my right. To see each and every human being with a smile of true happiness is my wish. I am Malala. My world has changed, but I have not.