I Am Malala - Chapter 1

Summary

In the first chapter of 'I Am Malala', we meet a young, spirited Malala Yousafzai, who identifies herself as ordinary yet exceptional in her unique way. Born in the beautiful Swat Valley of Pakistan, she has a distinct personality, loves watching cricket, playing with friends, and even finds joy in challenging her brothers. Malala's narrative invites us into her close-knit world, filled with family bonds, traditional Pashtun values, and her father's influential role. Despite societal norms, she desires freedom and refuses to be limited by gender constraints, inspired by her namesake, the heroine Malalai of Maiwand. Malala's early years are marked by the joyful chaos of a lively household, the vibrant lessons of her father's school, and her early resistance to gender inequality, setting the stage for her journey toward becoming an advocate for education and women's rights.

Highlights

• Malala's playful spirit shines as she proudly owns her quirks, from enjoying arm wrestling to despising eggplants! 🌟😂
• A glimpse into Pashtun culture reveals Malala's deeply rooted sense of identity and pride. 🏔️❤️
• Her adventurous childhood involves cricket matches, sibling rivalry, and neighborhood games. 🏏👫
• The powerful influence of her father, a school founder, and political enthusiast, shapes her world. 👨‍🏫🗣️
• Malala's early resistance to wearing a niqab speaks to her innate desire for freedom. 🌸🙅‍♀️
• The chapter foreshadows her future impact, painted through her father's dreams and her own budding resolve. ✨🌍

Key Takeaways

• Meet Malala, a charmingly rebellious spirit, ready to challenge norms! 🚀
• Her passion for education and justice was there from day one. 📚✨
• Malala's bond with her father Ziauddin is inspirational. 👨‍👧
• Pashtun hospitality and the Swat Valley's beauty frame her spirited upbringing. 🏞️
• Despite cultural norms, young Malala is determined to live freely. 💪
• Her unique perspective on gender roles is both comical and courageous. 😂🙌

Overview

Malala Yousafzai introduces herself not just as a girl from the Swat Valley, but as someone with a uniquely rebellious spirit. She shares charming anecdotes from her childhood – her love for quirky talents, strong opinions on chocolates, and an amusing dislike for vegetables. These stories reveal her playful nature and spark for life, setting the stage for a narrative that balances humor with introspective insights.

In a vibrant depiction of her cultural environment, Malala paints a picture of the harmonious yet hectic Pashtun family life. Her relationship with her father, who plays multiple roles from school principal to a social commentator, is central to her story. He instills in her the values of education and gender equality, even against the backdrop of traditional societal norms that often limit women's roles.

Through Malala's eyes, we see a girl quietly challenging social boundaries and nurturing her dreams. Her candid reflections on the discomfort of gender expectations are both enlightening and empowering. Malala's early defiance of wearing a niqab and her father’s encouragement to seek knowledge hint at the powerful advocate she would become. This chapter is not just an introduction; it's a cornerstone that foreshadows her relentless quest for justice and education for all.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 12:30: As Free as a Bird Malala introduces herself as an ordinary girl with unique talents such as being double-jointed and winning at arm wrestling against older opponents. She enjoys cupcakes but dislikes candy and has a peculiar stance towards dark chocolate and eggplant.

I Am Malala - Chapter 1 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 chapter one as free as a bird I am Malala a girl like any other although I do have my special talents I am double-jointed and I can crack the knuckles on my fingers and my toes at will and I enjoy watching people squirm as I do it I can beat someone twice my age at armwrestling I like cupcakes but not candy and I don't think dark chocolate should be called chocolate at all I hate eggplant
• 00:30 - 01:00 and green peppers but I love pizza I think Bella from Twilight is too fickle and I don't understand why she would choose that boring Edward as my girlfriend's in Pakistan and I say he doesn't give her any lift now I don't care much for makeup and jewelry and I'm not a girly girl but my favorite color is pink and I do admit I used to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror playing with my hair and when I was
• 01:00 - 01:30 younger I tried to lighten my skin with honey rosewater and buffalo milk when you put milk on your face it smells very bad I say that if you check a boy's backpack it will always be a mess and if you check his uniform it will be dirty this is not my opinion this is just a fact I am a pashtun a member of a proud tribe of people spread across Afghanistan and Pakistan
• 01:30 - 02:00 my father zio Dean and my mother torvik I are from mountain villages but after they married they relocated to Mingora the largest city in the Swat Valley which is in northwest Pakistan where I was born SWAT is known for its beauty and tourists came from all over to see its tall mountains lush green hills and crystal-clear Rivers I'm named for the great young Pashtun heroine Malala who
• 02:00 - 02:30 inspired her countrymen with her courage but I don't believe in fighting even though my 14 year old brother who shall annoys me to no end I don't fight with him rather he fights with me and I agree with Newton for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction so I guess you could say that when crucial fights with me I obliged him we argue over the TV
• 02:30 - 03:00 remote over chores over who's the better student over who ate the last of the cheesy watts it's over whatever you can think of my ten-year-old brother at all annoys me less and he is quite good at chasing down the cricket ball when we kick it out of bounds but he does make up his own rules sometimes when I was younger and these brothers started coming along I had a little talk with God God I said you did
• 03:00 - 03:30 not check with me before sending these to you didn't ask how I felt they are quite inconvenient sometimes I told God when I want to study they make a terrible racket and when I brush my teeth in the morning they bang on the bathroom door but I have made my peace with these brothers at least with the pair of them we can play a cricket match
• 03:30 - 04:00 at home in Pakistan the three of us ran like a pack of rabbits in and out of the alleys around our house we played a chasing game like tag another game called mango mango a hopscotch game we called chin doc meaning frog and thief and police sometimes we rang the bell at someone else's house then ran away and hid our favorite though was cricket we
• 04:00 - 04:30 played cricket day and night in the alley by our house or up on our roof which was flat if we couldn't afford a proper cricket ball we made one out of an old sock stuffed with rubbish and we drew wickets on the wall in chalk because atala was the youngest he would be sent to fetch the ball when it sailed off the roof sometimes he grabbed the neighbour's ball while he was at it he'd returned with it grin and a shrug what's wrong you'd say
• 04:30 - 05:00 they took our ball yesterday but boys are well boys most of them are not as civilized as girls and so if I wasn't in the mood for their boyish ways I'd go downstairs and knock on the wall between our house and Safinaz two taps that was our code she tapped in reply I'd slip aside a brick opening a hole between our houses and we'd whisper back and forth
• 05:00 - 05:30 sometimes we'd go over to one house or the other where we'd watch our favorite TV show shaka laka boom boom about a boy with a magic pencil or we'd work on the little shoebox dolls we were making out of matchsticks and bits of fabric Safina was my playmate from the time I was about eight she's a couple years younger than me but we were very close sometimes we copied each other but one time I thought she had gone too far when
• 05:30 - 06:00 my favorite possession my only toy a pink plastic cell phone my father had given me went missing that afternoon when I went to play with Safina she had an identical phone she said it was hers she said she'd bited at the bazaar well I didn't believe her and I was too angry to think straight so when she wasn't looking I took a pair of her earrings
• 06:00 - 06:30 the next day a necklace I didn't even like these trinkets but I couldn't stop myself a few days later I came home to find my mother so upset she wouldn't look at me she had found the stolen trinkets in my small cupboard and had returned them Safina stole from me first I cried but my mother was unmoved you are older Malala you should have set a good example I went to my room drenched in
• 06:30 - 07:00 shame but it was the long wait for my father to come home that was worse he was my hero and principled and I was his Johnny he would be so disappointed in me but he didn't raise his voice or scold me he knew I was being so hard on myself that already that he had no need to reprimand me instead he consoled me by telling me
• 07:00 - 07:30 about the mistakes great heroes had made when they were children heroes like Mahatma Gandhi the great pacifist a Muhammad Ali Jinnah the founder of Pakistan he relayed a saying from a story his father used to tell him a child is a child when he's a child even if he's a prophet I thought of our Pashtunwali code which governs how we Pashtuns live one part of that code is Badal a tradition of revenge where one
• 07:30 - 08:00 insult must be answered by another one death by another and on and on it goes I had had my taste of exacting revenge and it was bitter I vowed then that I would never partake in battle I apologized to Safina and her parents I hoped Safina would apologize too and return my phone but she didn't say a thing and as difficult as it was to keep
• 08:00 - 08:30 my new vow I didn't mention my suspicions concerning the whereabouts of my phone Safina and I quickly got back to being friends and we in all the neighborhood children were back at our running and chasing games at that time we lived in a part of town far from the city center behind our house was a grassy lot scattered with mysterious ruins statues of lions broken columns of an old stupa and hundreds of enormous stones that
• 08:30 - 09:00 looked like giant umbrellas where in the summer we played pauper Kuni a game of hide-and-seek in the winter we made snowmen until our mothers called us in for a cup of hot milky tea and cardamom for as long as I can remember our house had been full of people neighbors relatives and friends of my father's and a never-ending stream of cousins male and female they came from the mountains
• 09:00 - 09:30 where my parents grew up or they came from the next town over even when we moved from our tiny first house and I got my own bedroom it was rarely my own there was always seemed to be a cousin sleeping on the floor that's because one of the most important parts of the Pashtunwali code is hospitality as a Pashtun you always open your door to a visitor my mother and the women would
• 09:30 - 10:00 gather on our veranda at the back of the house and cook and laugh and talk about new clothes and jewelry and other ladies in the neighborhood while my father and men would sit in the men's guest room and drink tea and talk politics I would often wander away from the children's games tip to tiptoe through the women's quarters and joined the men that it seemed to me was where something exciting and important was happening I
• 10:00 - 10:30 didn't know what it was exactly but and I certainly didn't understand the politics but I felt a pull to the weighty world of the men I would sit at my father's feet and drink in the conversation I loved to hear the men debate politics but mostly I loved sitting among them hypnotized by all this talk of the big worlds beyond our valley eventually I'd leave the room and linger awhile among the women the sights
• 10:30 - 11:00 and sounds in their world were different there were gentle confiding whispers tinkling laughter sometimes raucous uproarious laughter sometimes but most stunning of all the women's head scarves and veils were gone their long dark hair and pretty faces made up with lipstick and Hannah were lovely to see I had seen these women nearly every day of my life observing the code of Bertha where they
• 11:00 - 11:30 covered themselves in public some like my mother simply draped scarves over their faces this is called niqab but others wear burqas long flowing black robes that covered the head and face so that people could not even see their eyes some went so far as to wear black gloves and socks so that not a bit of skin was showing I'd seen the wives be required to walk a few paces behind their husbands I'd seen
• 11:30 - 12:00 the women be forced to lower their gaze when they encountered a man and I'd seen the older girls who'd been our playmates disappear behind veils as soon as they became teenagers but to see these women chatting casually their face is radiant with freedom was to see a whole new world I was never much of a hand around the kitchen I'll admit that I tried to get out of chopping vegetables or
• 12:00 - 12:30 cleaning dishes whenever I could so I didn't linger there long but as I ran off I had always wondered how it felt to live in hiding living under wraps seems so unfair and uncomfortable from an early age I told my parents that no matter what the other girls did I would never cover my face like that my face was my identity my mother who is quite
• 12:30 - 13:00 devout and traditional was shocked our relatives thought I was very bold some said rude but my father said I could do as I wished Malala will live as free as a bird he told everyone so I would run to rejoin the children especially when it was time for the kite flying contests where the boys would skillfully try to cut their competitors kite strings it was an exciting game full of
• 13:00 - 13:30 unpredictable escapes and plunges it was beautiful but also a bit melancholy for me to see the pretty kites sputter to the ground maybe it was because I could see a future that would be cut down just like those kites simply because I was a girl despite what my father said knew that as Safina and I got older we'd be expected to cook and clean for our brothers we could become doctors because
• 13:30 - 14:00 female doctors were needed to care for female patients but we couldn't be lawyers or engineers fashion designers or artists or anything else we dreamed of and we wouldn't be allowed to go outside our homes without a male relative to accompany us as I watch my brothers run up to the roof to launch their kites I wondered how free I could ever really be but I knew even then that I was the apple of my father's eye a rare thing
• 14:00 - 14:30 for a Pakistani girl when a boy is born in Pakistan it's cause for celebration guns are fired in the air gifts are placed in the baby's cot and the boy's name is inscribed on the family tree but when a girl is born no one visits the parents and women have only sympathy for the mother my father paid no mind to these customs I've seen my name in
• 14:30 - 15:00 bright blue ink right there among the male names of our family tree mine was the first female name in 300 years throughout my childhood he sang me a song about my famous Pashtun namesake Oh Malalai of Maiwand he'd sing rise once more to make Pashtuns understand the song of honor your poetic words turn world's around I beg you rise again when I was young I didn't
• 15:00 - 15:30 understand what any of this meant but as I grew up I understood that Malala was a hero and a role model and I wanted to learn something from her and when I started to learn to read at age five my father would brag to his friends look at this girl he'd say she is destined for the skies I pretended to be embarrassed but my father's words of praise have always been the most precious thing in the world to me I was far luckier than most
• 15:30 - 16:00 girls in another way too my father ran a school it was a humble place with nothing more than blackboards and chalk and it was right next to a smelly River but to me it was a paradise my parents tell me that even before I could talk I would toddle into the empty classrooms and lecture I delivered lessons in my own baby talk sometimes I'd get to sit in on classes with the
• 16:00 - 16:30 older children in awe as I listened to everything they were being taught as I grew I longed to wear the uniforms I saw the big girls wearing when they arrived each day shalwar kameez a long deep blue tunic and loose white pants and a white head scarf my father started the school three years before I was born and he was teacher accountant and principal as well as janitor handyman and chief mechanic he climbed up the ladder to change the
• 16:30 - 17:00 lightbulbs and down the well when the pump broke when I saw him disappear down that well I wept thinking he would never come back although I didn't understand it at the time I now know that there was never enough money after paying the rent and the salaries there was not much left for food soon he often had little for dinner but the school had been my father's dream and we were all happy to be living it
• 17:00 - 17:30 when it was finally time for me to go to classes I was so excited I could hardly contain myself you could say I grew up in a school the school was my world and my world was the school