Love at First Sight

One day, on my way to work, I passed by a woman who was dropping off her niece at school

MrBob members

I will tell you a story about love at first sight when I was living in Jakarta in 2003. One day, on my way to work, I passed by a woman who was dropping off her niece at school. After her niece entered the schoolyard, she waited on a small bridge. I began to approach or hit on this woman and started a conversation with her.

At first, she gave me a cold shoulder, but I didn’t ignore her and kept talking to her. I intended to get her phone number. Luckily, she finally asked for my phone and wrote her number down. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any credit at that time, so I couldn’t make a miscall.

When I arrived at the office, I used the office phone to call her. I introduced myself as the man who met her at the school. We talked for a while, and she told me her name was Maya. We arranged to meet again.

In the evening after work, I called her and asked if she was available to hang out. She said yes, and I felt like a lovebird.

Maya was my first love. I fell in love with a woman who had a face similar to the Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh. She was my lovers. We had a strong desire for each other, like a match made in heaven.

However, as time went by, it turned out that Maya and I were not meant to be an arranged marriage. Our love story was on the rock, and we split up. I returned to Aceh, and Maya started to ignore me. Since then we have not keep in touch each other again.

For your information, let me explain why I was in Jakarta in 2003 and could meet Maya. In May 2003, the Indonesian government declared a state of military emergency in Aceh after the Tokyo Meeting between the Indonesian government delegation and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) failed to reach an agreement.

As a person involved in the Aceh Referendum movement, I was on the hit list of the authorities, the one who would be arrested for supporting GAM. I managed to escape when the security forces raided our secretariat at the Islamic University of Ar Raniry. Two months later, I managed to escape to Jakarta and worked at a human rights defender organization, PBHI, and met Maya.[]

Task: speaking in 3 minutes.