In FRAME: Olivia Sonya Aresta

I am in the Creative Writing class at 1 pm on Monday, May 13, 2013. I heard that this class will have an interesting guest and we should interview this guest. The first time I think of special guest who can make me interested, I guess the guest will be a female till the class start. Mbak Abmi as the substitute lecture came to the class and begins the class with some discussion about an interview. While the discussion run, I look at a person who sits down the corner near windows of the class, then for a moment mbak Abmi introduces this person to us. Well, it looks pretty, with long black hair, sweet lipstick, and coquettish. But in the other side I think of different perception that actually “She is a man” and “yes she is”.

“Totally great” I murmur. All of the students look at her, watching her intimately and focusing on her attitude which is nice and easy going and she will be interviewed.

“Sonya” She said in the first time to introduce herself to us. Well, I am in the confusion side because actually I am not really thinking that our guest is a transsexual. “But its ok” I think, because I know that we are human, God’s created.

During the interview, she talk what she think it’s important to share and she answer the questions from us friendly, she looks enjoy her time and she is very kind, and just like she is very open minded and have a good idea for life. I still remember when one of us ask about his identity and easily she explained “Well, here I still use my KTP or identity as a male, because as I know in Indonesia is one and only which has “Waria” or transsexual in Papua or Irian Jaya, it is a good think because how this region want to admit and respect the differences and the right”. Sonya’s sentence of this part that I’ll always remember because now I know that how we are same, we have same right to fell free and to be accepted in the society without think the gender. I think that it is great point because of her attitude which wants to maintain herself as she is.

Olivia Sonya Aresta, her full name, I don’t know how the name meaning and coming from, but it is a nice name, match with the person who has this name. From the interview I get some point such as the differences is great thing and it became the richest knowledge. Sonya is a frame in her community PKBI (Perkumpulan Keluarga Berencana Indonesia), it means that she is smart, kind, active and care to another. May be her past time, there are so many stories she get but I underline one thing that she always said “playing safety”. She said that to playing safety is importance because the dangerous in this life always hunted. It is the story when she is just a kid in her age, she play as a boy and in the game she come home and cry because of her naughty boy who disturb her, then she choose to play with girls. Her habit of playing doll, cooking, seems as girls games make her in habitually attitude as a girl. Then she makes a decision to be a girl and as now she is.

“To be accepted and change people’s perception about transsexual in the society is not easy” She said, it need a hassle, but she always try to make her ambition to get right and fight her identity come true. She always tries to be herself, and it’s why she hates the one of program in the TV station which shows about the characters changing to be a real man. “It is cruel program I guess, because it means that they cannot accept us, and they don’t respect us, if somebody wants to change, why it should be forced? It is bad.” Yes, it is bad, because human have their own right to get their freedom and have their right in their life.

Actually there are so many questions for Sonya but I am really interesting in the question about her future as she is now. One of us has a question like this “Do you have any plan to married?” and she answer the question magically I love it. She said clearly “I don’t have any plan to get married because I have been fall in love with my life for now, I don’t think about how the future will be and I don’t care about the married, yeah, I enjoy myself to have many friends who love me so much, and they care about me, they give what I want, what-ever I like, and people around me always support me without don’t care about my condition. And what I think for my aim in this life is not to think about what I will get for someone else, but what I can give to them? So, why I should get married? I have everyone who loves and cares to me, it is enough for me, because to be accepted is happiness for me” I like her point of view about it, I learn from her answer because I think that if I always think that I will become the person who acting as they want and sometimes loosing myself, it means nothing, and it teach me to not to be an egoist person who thinks much what will I get from others but think about what can I give for people around me with love and how to care people without pointing the status, age, social class, racial, etc.

The lesson is, how to respect one another is important and use the time to aware with the life and the condition wherever I go and whatever the condition, I should be myself, give this life to help and to care others and it is happiness.