Malala: My Story of Standing Up for Girl's Rights - Chapter 2 PDF

ye @ @ & © A Magic Pencil Every spring and autumn, my family visited one of my favourite places on earth: Shangla, the mountain village where my parents grew up. It was a four-hour trip by bus, along roads that followed the Swat River on one side and hugged sheer cliffs on the other. As we climbed h...

ye @ @ & © A Magic Pencil Every spring and autumn, my family visited one of my favourite places on earth: Shangla, the mountain village where my parents grew up. It was a four-hour trip by bus, along roads that followed the Swat River on one side and hugged sheer cliffs on the other. As we climbed higher and higher, my brothers pointed out the cars or buses that had fallen into the valley below. Eventually the air turned cool and crisp, and 20 we saw nothing but mountain after mountain. ~Mountain, mountain, mountain, and just a sliver of sky. Though most people in the village were very poor, our family always put on a feast when we arrived. Especially when it was the holiday of Small Eid, which marks the end of Ramadan — the holiest month of the year in our religion, Islam. During Ramadan, followers of Islam, who are called Muslims, go without food all day, from sunrise to sunset, to focus on prayer and to remember all that God has given us. On Small Eid, our family shared bowls of chicken and rice, spinach and lamb, apples, pretty yellow cakes, and kettles of sweet milky tea. We brought boxes of sweets and other gifts we had stacked on top of the bus. 21 “a What Is Ramadan? What Is Small Eid? What Is Big Eid? = Ramadan @€ @ @ & is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is considered the holiest month, over the world increased in which reflect on their faith devotion, Muslims all by praying with reading the Holy Quran, spending time with family, giving to charity, and fasting each day from sunrise to sunset. (Families and friends often share a meal together after the sun goes down.) “Small Eid,” which is also known as Eid al-Fitr, is a three-day celebration marking the end of Ramadan, with feasts, family visits, and gifts — especially for kids. In Dhu al-Hijjah, the Islamic calendar, of sacrifice.” commemorate This the which is the twelfth month of is the Eid ul-Azha, or “the feast is Big Eid, and sacrifice of the it is celebrated prophet to Abraham in the way of Allah. The spirit of Eid ul-Azha lies in the concept of sharing Allah’s blessing with your loved ones as well as the underprivileged people around you. SARE SS SITS RR SS SU RR SS 2S SS SS RI ARIS III SSE IE SU SSS LESS air si i In my cousins’ eyes, I was a city girl. They teased me because I didn’t like to go barefoot and wore clothes from the market, not homemade like theirs. If only they knew that people from real cities like Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, would have thought that / was a country girl. When we were together in the village, we all lived the country life: when the rooster crowed, we spilled out of the houses to greet the day. We ate honey from the hive, and green plums sprinkled with salt. None of us had toys or books, so we played hopscotch and cricket in a gully. Life for women in the mountains was not easy. There were no proper shops, no hospitals or female doctors. Like women in Mingora, the women of Shangla also covered their faces. They could not meet or speak to men who were not their close relatives. None of them could read — not even my own mother, who'd grown up in the village. Many girls in the village didn’t go to school. 23 People thought it was less important than it was for boys, since a girl would be married off at a young age to live with her husband's family. “Why send her to school?” the men often say. “She doesn’t need an education to run a house.” I would never talk back to my elders. In my culture, one must never disrespect one’s elders — even if they are wrong. But when I saw how hard these women’s lives were, I was confused and sad. Why were women treated so poorly in our country? I asked my father. He told me that life was even worse for women in Afghanistan, the country next to ours, where a dangerous group called the Taliban had taken over. The Taliban disapproved of most actions seen as Western — something that might be acceptable in the United States, Canada, or European countries. They claimed that Western beliefs and behaviours were not appropriate based on 24 their very strict version of Islam, one that twists the true Islamic beliefs in a way that threatens the rights of others. In Afghanistan, schools for girls had been destroyed, and all women were forced to wear a head-to-toe veil that had only a tiny window for their eyes. It was called a burqa. Women were banned from laughing out loud or wearing nail polish, and they were sometimes put in prison for walking without a male family member. Hearing such things, I thanked God that | lived in Pakistan, where a girl was free to go to school. I didn’t realise that the Taliban weren't only in Afghanistan. There was another group in Pakistan, and they would soon come to cast a dark shadow over my sunny childhood. My father told me not to worry. “I will protect your freedom, Malala,” he said. “Carry on with your dreams.” 29 By the time I was eight years old, my father’s school had expanded to three buildings and had more than eight hundred students. Because most families paid to send their children to school, our family finally had enough money to buy a TV! Sometimes Safina and I watched Shaka Laka Boom Boom, a show about a boy named Sanju, who could make anything real by drawing it with a magic pencil. If he was hungry, he drew a bowl of curry, and it appeared. If he was in danger, he drew a policeman. He was a little hero, always protecting people. I began to dream about a magic pencil of my own. At night I would pray, God, please give me Sanju’ pencil. I won't tell anyone. Just leave it in my cupboard. I will use it to make everyone happy. Then I would check the drawer. But the pencil was never there. I really wanted the magic pencil when my mother asked me to take rubbish to the dump near our house. Then I could have 26 erased it all: the smell, the rats, the giant ‘mountain of rotting food. I was about to toss our potato peels and eggshells onto the rubbish heap one afternoon when I saw something move. | jumped. : It was a girl my age. She and some boys nearby were sorting through rubbish. | wanted to talk to them, but I was scared. Later that night I asked my father about the children. Why weren't they in school? He told me that these children sold what they found at the dump to help feed their families; if they went to school, their families would go hungry. I realised then that God must have been showing me what my life might be like if I couldn't go to school. There was no such thing as a magic pencil to change the world: J would have to do something. But what? I wrote a letter to God, asking for the strength and courage to make the world a better place. | signed my letter, rolled it up, tied it to a piece of wood, placed a dandelion on top, and floated it in a stream that flows into the Swat River. Surely God would find it there. As much as I wanted to help the children from the dump, my mother wanted to help everyone. She often had an extra pot of rice and chicken to feed a poor family in our neighbourhood. I asked her once why she always gave food away. “We have known what it is like to be hungry, pisho,” she said. “We must never forget to share what we have.” 28