TheJakartaGlobe.com – Ade Mardiyati
On a dreary morning in Yogyakarta, in a brick house, some 10 meters from the main road in Gedong Tengen, Notoyudan hamlet, an 8-year-old girl is folding yellow paper napkins with a friend. They work slowly, whispering comments about boys and giggling as they form perfect little paper triangles.
“Mom, how many of these napkins should I cut and fold?” the 8-year-old calls out to a woman wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and Muslim headscarf.
“Make it 40,” the woman answers. “There will be a lot of people coming today.”
The girl’s mother, Mariyani, is a transvestite.