ISLAMABAD – In her heartfelt bloglink>, Malala Yousafzai hasrecalled details of her visit to Pakistan and hoped “it will not be anotherfive and half years” before she sees the faces of her friends and relativesagain.
The 20-year-old wrote, “I didn’t leave my country by choice, but I didreturn by choice.”
Malala started off her blog with details of the day she woke up in ahospital in the United Kingdom. “When I left Swat Valley, Pakistan onOctober 9, 2012, my eyes were closed. I woke up a week later in theintensive care unit of a hospital in Birmingham, UK — but in my mind I wasstill at home,” she wrote.
The youngest Nobel Prize winner recalled the day she was shot in the headat point-blank range by Taliban gunmen as she was returning from her schoolin Swat valley.
The Pakistani Nobel laureate will stay in country for four days, holdmeetings with PM and other key figures
“I remembered that morning. I was in my bedroom, finishing revision of myPakistan Studies paper and praying to Allah that I would do well on myexam. I remembered eating breakfast on the floor with my family, leaving myegg unfinished and rushing off to school. After school, my best friendMoniba and I were relieved our exam was over. We giggled as we watched ourbus driver Usman Bhaijaan do magic tricks with a pebble. My memories endthere. Seconds later, I was attacked.”
Malala also narrated the events leading to her standing in her home in SwatValley once again on March 31.
“On March 31, 2018, I stood in my home again — and felt like the past wasreversing itself. My family and I packed our bags and flew from UK to Dubaiand then Dubai to Islamabad. We took a helicopter from Islamabad to SwatValley. I saw the beauty of my home from a bird’s eye view — thenever-ending mountain range, the greenery, the rivers. I could not stopmyself from looking at everything.”
Stating that she worried losing that ‘moment’, the 20-year-old said,“Worried that I would lose that moment, I recorded every bit in my memoryand, of course, my iPhone.”
“I wondered if parents had noticed this beauty as they sat beside me when Iwas evacuated from Swat. My father said, ‘We saw neither the sea nor themountain. When your eyes were closed, our eyes were closed too’.”
“We landed on the same helipad where I was flown away on a stretcher,” sheadded.