If Corina were to be President, her first priority would be to make transgender people have a better life.
"I feel pity for a transgender's life. Sometimes I'm crying deep down in my heart to see it. We already have a sin to God, to family, but what can I say? It's fate. It's from deep inside our heart."
After spending thirteen years as a sex worker on the streets. Corina was chosen to be the protector of the group of Waria featured in this exhibit. She is their Mami.
At just thirty-one years of age, Corina is one of the older and wiser transgender women on the streets. He job as Mami is to look after the Waria, ensuring that they wear condoms, educating them about the risk of disease, making sure they take their medicine when they are diagnosed with HIV or TB or Syphilis, arranging transportation of the nightly work, and monitoring who goes in and out of the tent on the street. She also works directly with the street gangsters, paying them for their permission and protection while her Waria work on the streets of gangster controlled areas. In return for Corina being their guardian, the sex workers each pay her a percentage of their earnings. In this way Corina is able to support herself, without having to be active in sexwork anymore, "Now I stay in the apartment with the girls and take care of them. I feel thankful. Inside my heart, I know it's better to treat people well, so I'm taking care of the girls really well. I tell them 'don't ever use drugs, save your money, send it to your village, save it to make a business later, if you get sick, you have the money.'"
In a predominately Muslim country, Corina is one of few Christians, "For Christians it's very easy. About the sin, it is God who will handle it. If you are Muslim it is different." Corina has a large tattoo of an angel on her shoulder, which to her is an example of the way she should lead her life and it also means freedom and protection. Corina is the fifth of nine children in her family and has four relatives who are also transgender. She thinks this makes it easier for her to be accepted by her family, as they view being transgender as more of an inherited trait. Her older brother is an exception, however, "I got hit by him. If he was there, I wouldn't dare stay at home." Corina regrets dropping out of school at a young age (during her first year of junior high school), "Luckily I can read and write. Otherwise I would be a stupid person. Thank God I can do that."
When I asked what her goals for the future are, Corina said, "My parents are sick, so hopefully I can give more money to my family until I die. That's my dream. I don't have any dream to have a car or other things. Hopefully I can make my parents happy. I can't have a child so I think of my nieces and nephews as my children too."
Corina has seen first hand the health risks that exist for transgender sex workers. She has suffered from both Tuberculosis and Syphilis. She spent a month in a coma in the hospital and thought she would die, "I just waited for God to take me. I thank God who gives me life." Corina also talked about her many friends who have died from AIDS, "As a human, I feel afraid. It's because I have already seen with my own eyes the effects of the people who got infected. That's why I was afraid if I didn't use a condom. My friends who are the same age all died. My group has two girls left, and the others died."
