Colorful Friendship Added Value to My Life

[Gyna Lydiana]

I am 19 years old girls and now attending in public university in my hometown, Pontianak City, West Borneo, as you know before, I just an ordinary girl like many girls in my country, having fun, going around, shopping, and everything about youth lifestyle, and I have many friends too, boys and girls, young and adults.

Until I know about HIV-AIDS and get in to the activism world, I met with very a lot of different people, and I must adapted with every people, not only boys and girls but also transgender, people with different sexual oriented, sex worker, and still too much to tell.

Daily, I usually worked and spending my time with them, sharing, telling story, until some of them, I mean the transgender, who man dressed like a woman, wearing a dress and used the make up in his face, it makes my family and my friends, I mean my college friends start to protest and gave a negative comment to me. My family rejected my transgender friends, every people around me said something breaking his heart, and so many people asking me, "Don't you shy have friend like him?"

Oh Gosh, that is very hard to me to try explained to my family, especially my mother, my friends, and peoples around me that he is human too, an ordinary person too, just same like us, but I never give up, because I believe, in the first time, I did the same attitude too, like as my family and my friends did, said a negative comment to "strange people" like them, but when my eyes is open, I can see from another part of them, they are special friend and also care about me, my experience and clarity information be my power to realized people around me too, as like realized me before, and now I'm very happy because I have a lot of friends from a lot of background.



Recommendation :

"If you want to get to know a person, don't judge the person from the cover, but try to know how is it like inside."



Gyna Lydiana

AIDS Commission, Pontianak, West Borneo

[Gyna Lydiana]

hehehe...
:)

[Jean-Louis Lamboray]

Many thanks for sharing your story, Gyna.

Let us all open our eyes to our common humanity

[Sunil]

Great story, and thanks for sharing.

[Lawan Vejapikul]

Nice sis!!!!

I still remember how you shared this story in the group and how we helped each other to find the title for it : )

Miss ya.....

[Gyna Lydiana]

Ooh, almost forgot,

Double hug from me !!

[Gyna Lydiana]

thank you Laurence
I'm very glad my story can inspiring my friends too,hhe :)

Thank you..

[Laurence Gilliot]

Waw, Gyna, wonderful sharing! Thank you so much!
You are so young and already so open-minded :-) that is great! I think that to awaken is to 'unlearn' many things... we have been domesticated by our environment and parents ( who did their best). But I feel I have to free myself, every day, from the norms ( what is considerred normal) to open my mind to differences...

One friend told me last week: "understanding is love... and love is understanding."

Hug from smoggy Chiang Mai
Laurence