美国国家公共电台 NPR Transgender Women Of Indonesia Have A Champion In A 26-Year-Old Doctor

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Indonesia is as wide as the continental¹ United States, and it's diverse. In the far west, Sharia law governs Aceh province. To the east, Hinduism dominates the island of Bali. There are pockets of Christianity and Buddhism². And this week, we are looking at some of the things that bind³ this democracy together.

(LAUGHTER)

SHAPIRO: In the college town of Yogyakarta, a 26-year-old named Sandeep Nanwani is recently out of medical school, and we met him in the field. He works with a group of patients that you can find in every corner of this sprawling⁴ country.

SANDEEP NANWANI: So you will have it Aceh, Timor, in Papua. There is in Papua and Sulawesi - the whole Indonesia.

SHAPIRO: He's talking about warias, transgender women in Indonesia who often do sex work or sing on the street for tips. Both of those jobs are technically⁵ illegal but often tolerated. Warias have been part of Indonesian society for as long as anyone can remember.

NANWANI: So that's, like, a national identity. Everywhere is the same.

SHAPIRO: That's interesting that while there might be divisions between Muslims and Christians⁶, people of Chinese descent, people of Arab descent, these threads of waria go through the whole country.

NANWANI: Because they are - of course they are because they are marginalized by everyone (laughter) in a sense.

SHAPIRO: Dr. Nanwani takes us to an informal housing complex where he provides medical care to a group of warias.

NANWANI: We are in the space - like, an abandoned land behind a strip of hotels where a lot of warias live. And most of them are pengamen or ngamen or buskers.

SHAPIRO: They sing on the street for tips. In the courtyard, chickens peck at the ground, and a neighbor kid gets water from a pump. Nanwani is here to check in on a waria in her late-60s who goes by the name Madame Wiwik. She has a bulbous nose and eyebrows⁷ drawn⁸ on in dark pencil.

In a dark concrete room, Wiwik sits on a mattress⁹ on the floor. The doctor asks her to raise her arms overhead. She struggles to lift them above her shoulders.

NANWANI: Up, up, up.

SHAPIRO: Madame Wiwik recently had a stroke. Even though I don't speak the language, I can tell that her words are slurry.

NANWANI: She has no medication at all, not even aspirin¹⁰ to prevent future strokes, nothing.

SHAPIRO: Madame Wiwik wants to go busking again tonight. Ngamen is the local term for it. Dr. Nanwani thinks it's a bad idea, but he knows that she needs the money.

NANWANI: I am a bit scared about that she goes ngamen. So I have told her, like, you have to go ngamen with - accompanied by someone, not alone - get stroke in the middle.

SHAPIRO: I can imagine somebody saying, why spend your time and talents on a population of people who are doing sex work, living on the streets?

NANWANI: They provide care for me as much as I provide care to them. Waria endure suffering through, like, humor and laughter. And I just love that.

SHAPIRO: Can you give us an example of that?

NANWANI: So if they get caught by the police and there's a lot of media and so on, they will literally¹¹ go to the media and, like, strut¹² their stuff. They're shameless. I just love how you survive through being shameless, right? It's so amazing (laughter).

SHAPIRO: And there's another thing that he loves about the warias. They create chosen families. That's true of marginalized groups in a lot of countries. But in Indonesia, these families of choice have official recognition and legal power. Nanwani explains that one way Indonesia creates a national identity is through formal family networks. Everybody in the country has a card listing their biological relatives. It's like a social security card, but it ties everyone to a community. And you need that card to get health care.

NANWANI: What unites Indonesia is a nuclear family. So everybody's registered through the family card. So everybody has a family card.

SHAPIRO: So what happens if your family cuts you off and kicks you out?

NANWANI: So zero care. So, like, that's how they - the waria movement started to work together with the state to find some form of care.

SHAPIRO: Warias are often disowned by their families. That cuts them off from the community they were born into. So some of the elders have created waria families complete with the official legal card. It became really necessary when the HIV epidemic¹³ exploded here in the early 2000s. Dr. Nanwani brings us to a group home for people with HIV.

VINOLIA WAKIJO: (Foreign language spoken) Vinolia.

SHAPIRO: It's so nice to...

An older waria named Vinolia Wakijo established it a decade ago. Nanwani calls her Mami.

NANWANI: Like, Mami's whole generation of people completely - just all of them died.

SHAPIRO: Today Mami is 61, and she's effectively the matriarch of warias in the city of Yogyakarta.

WAKIJO: (Through interpreter) I consider them my family because as warias, they are my responsibility.

SHAPIRO: In the 10 years that you've operated this house, how many people who have come here have passed away?

WAKIJO: (Through interpreter) Forty-six people with HIV-AIDS have died here.

SHAPIRO: Dr. Nanwani points out a wall in the front room of the house full of certificates and awards from places that have recognized Mami's work.

NANWANI: She goes, gives lectures every year in the medical school, psychology¹⁴ school.

SHAPIRO: I ask Mami to show us her family card.

NANWANI: Yeah, this.

SHAPIRO: She reaches into a file folder¹⁵ and pulls out a full-size sheet of paper.

How many children list you as their mother on their family card?

NANWANI: (Foreign language spoken).

WAKIJO: (Through interpreter) Three where I take full economic responsibility for them. They're all street kids.

SHAPIRO: The family in this house is growing. For the first time, there is a baby living here, an 11-month-old girl named Nira. Her mother was a sex worker who died of AIDS, and the warias have taken her in.

(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)

SHAPIRO: Less than 20 percent of Indonesians with HIV get the drugs they need. That's partly because so many people in this community live outside of society's formal networks. So Dr. Nanwani is trying to connect warias with a place like the clinic in a hospital where he works.

NANWANI: I used to hang out here every time as a medical student and just gossip with all the people here (laughter).

SHAPIRO: His mentor¹⁶ walks in, the woman who runs this clinic, Dr. Yandri Subronto.

(LAUGHTER)

YANDRI SUBRONTO: Welcome to the (unintelligible) clinic.

SHAPIRO: Dr. Subronto jokes that as a straight woman, she is a minority in HIV research circles. She started doing this work when her colleagues were afraid to interact with people who had AIDS.

SUBRONTO: You feel the thing as a doctor. This is where I'm needed.

SHAPIRO: Dr. Subronto has a no-nonsense demeanor¹⁷. She starts to tell us about her first AIDS patient who died. And suddenly she begins to lose her composure.

SUBRONTO: They help me to understand life. Why should I not respect them? They're the one who - yeah, they live in a hardship. Because of those problems, they don't have identity. They cannot get access to medications. They cannot get access to treatment or whatever.

SHAPIRO: When you say your patients teach you how to understand life, what do you mean?

SUBRONTO: Acceptance - it's accepting people as they are. Just embrace your life. You understand that it's all beauty. Everyone feels each other. You know, it seems like God teach me that the world is so colorful, and you just have to accept - you know, don't reject what is there. Just try to understand it.

SHAPIRO: That night, we go to a highway underpass with airplanes flying low overhead. This is where the buskers do their work. At brightly lit food stalls, college students eat fried noodles and spicy¹⁸ chicken stew¹⁹. Out of the shadows, one of the warias we met earlier in the day steps into the light. Madame Ruly has woven palm fronds²⁰ into her hair to create a headpiece that crowns her sparkly pink outfit²¹. She sings along with the music coming out of her small makeshift boom box, and she looks beautiful.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MADAME RULY: (Singing in foreign language).

1 continental   

adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的

参考例句：

• A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
• The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。

2 Buddhism   

n.佛教（教义）

参考例句：

• Buddhism was introduced into China about 67 AD.佛教是在公元67年左右传入中国的。
• Many people willingly converted to Buddhism.很多人情愿皈依佛教。

3 bind   

vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬

参考例句：

• I will let the waiter bind up the parcel for you.我让服务生帮你把包裹包起来。
• He wants a shirt that does not bind him.他要一件不使他觉得过紧的衬衫。

4 sprawling   

adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着）

参考例句：

• He was sprawling in an armchair in front of the TV. 他伸开手脚坐在电视机前的一张扶手椅上。
• a modern sprawling town 一座杂乱无序拓展的现代城镇

5 technically   

adv.专门地，技术上地

参考例句：

• Technically it is the most advanced equipment ever.从技术上说，这是最先进的设备。
• The tomato is technically a fruit,although it is eaten as a vegetable.严格地说，西红柿是一种水果，尽管它是当作蔬菜吃的。

6 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。

7 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。

8 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

9 mattress   

n.床垫，床褥

参考例句：

• The straw mattress needs to be aired.草垫子该晾一晾了。
• The new mattress I bought sags in the middle.我买的新床垫中间陷了下去。

10 aspirin   

n.阿司匹林

参考例句：

• The aspirin seems to quiet the headache.阿司匹林似乎使头痛减轻了。
• She went into a chemist's and bought some aspirin.她进了一家药店，买了些阿司匹林。

11 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

12 strut   

v.肿胀，鼓起；大摇大摆地走；炫耀；支撑；撑开；n.高视阔步；支柱，撑杆

参考例句：

• The circulation economy development needs the green science and technology innovation as the strut.循环经济的发展需要绿色科技创新生态化作为支撑。
• Now we'll strut arm and arm.这会儿咱们可以手挽着手儿，高视阔步地走了。

13 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

14 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

15 folder   

n.纸夹，文件夹

参考例句：

• Peter returned the plan and charts to their folder.彼得把这份计划和表格放回文件夹中。
• He draws the document from its folder.他把文件从硬纸夹里抽出来。

16 mentor   

n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导

参考例句：

• He fed on the great ideas of his mentor.他以他导师的伟大思想为支撑。
• He had mentored scores of younger doctors.他指导过许多更年轻的医生。

17 demeanor   

n.行为；风度

参考例句：

• She is quiet in her demeanor.她举止文静。
• The old soldier never lost his military demeanor.那个老军人从来没有失去军人风度。

18 spicy   

adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的

参考例句：

• The soup tasted mildly spicy.汤尝起来略有点辣。
• Very spicy food doesn't suit her stomach.太辣的东西她吃了胃不舒服。

19 stew   

n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑

参考例句：

• The stew must be boiled up before serving.炖肉必须煮熟才能上桌。
• There's no need to get in a stew.没有必要烦恼。

20 fronds   

n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You can pleat palm fronds to make huts, umbrellas and baskets. 人们可以把棕榈叶折叠起来盖棚屋，制伞，编篮子。 来自百科语句
• When these breezes reached the platform the palm-fronds would whisper. 微风吹到平台时，棕榈叶片发出簌簌的低吟。 来自辞典例句

21 outfit   

n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装

参考例句：

• Jenney bought a new outfit for her daughter's wedding.珍妮为参加女儿的婚礼买了一套新装。
• His father bought a ski outfit for him on his birthday.他父亲在他生日那天给他买了一套滑雪用具。