Moving Right Along...

It's been about a week since the military assumed authority of Thailand. Since my last post, schools have resumed their normal activities, most television stations are back on air, the curfew has been relaxed (now effective from midnight to 4 am vs 10pm to 5am), and the king has endorsed the new leadership. Thai people have great respect and reverence for their King and "no coup in Thailand has succeeded" without his blessing. I'm glad that schools are back in session, and since I don't really watch Thai television and I'm in bed by 10pm every night anyway, I was personally unaffected by the restrictions.  As far as military presence goes, there was a check point and armed soldiers on the way to a sporting event that I went to earlier in the week, but that's extent of what I've seen so far.

 



Military tank. It was lunch time.

 



Soldiers on the corners of major intersection

As most of the movement is concentrated in Bangkok, there is (thankfully) very little to be seen in my neck of the woods, and the same is true for the majority of the country. As it has been established that news sources (print, television, radio) are being censored, many people have taken to social media for real coverage. Although it's common knowledge that social media is also being censored, there's still a lot to be seen across this medium that will probably never make it to any official news source. This was shaken up yesterday when Facebook was temporarily unavailable across the country. The incident was supposedly a glitch or a misunderstanding, and life was back to "normal" within a couple hours thirty minutes, according to censored official news sources.

  

In other news, I finally have a routine, and although things might change, it's nice to have an idea of what will be happening from day to day. If you know me well, you know how important it is for me to have structure in my life, and honestly, that has been lacking for the past month or so. So from famine to feast, moving forward, I will be working in six schools. Mondays and Fridays are my hub days where I plan, debrief, do paperwork, and/or activities with my SAO (Subdistrict Administrative Organization/City Hall/Hub). Tuesday through Thursday are my school days, where I will spend four hours at each school doing activities. I'll get into this more in a subsequent post, but I'm loving every challenge, except maybe the exhaustion of my thirty minute bike ride in 102º weather, but hey, I'll take it. Saturday is my day of rest, and I'll be tutoring on Sundays.

  

 


At a sporting event with my hub workers and our cheerleaders :-)

 


One of my classes. I came to observe fifth and sixth grade, but I ended up teaching fourth through sixth graders English.
Good thing I had a couple PowerPoint lessons prepared for tutoring sessions!!

Life seems to moving right along, even with Peace Corps Volunteers remaining on "Standfast" status (which might be lifted soon) it can be easy to forget that the country is under military rule. This status basically means that I'm not allowed to leave my community, and as I'm now settling into the routine of schools and everything else, I can't think of anywhere else that I'd like to be. I'm not oblivious to what the country is going through, but Facebook incident aside, it hasn't consumed much of my thoughts since the initial announcements. I continue to pray and hope for the restoration of peace in this country, and I hope that you will do the same.

Current Happenings

Thanks to all who have expressed concern regarding the political situation here in Thailand. It's headline news that there has been a dramatic influx of political activity over the past few weeks and that the military has most recently launched a Coup D'état taking over The Government of Thailand.  Peace Corps Thailand has once again activated a nationwide "STANDFAST" which means that volunteers are to be vigilant, remain in respective communities until further notice, and make preparations to leave at a moment's notice if necessary.

Under conditions of the coup, the country has been placed on a curfew from 10pm to 5am, the constitution has been suspended (don't know the full implications of this), schools are closed, all television programming has been suspended, and political gatherings of more than five people are banned. There has been talk about censoring or even banning social media and shutting down the internet, but this has been deemed an impossible feat due to the fact that many ISP's are outside of the country and many social networks are global and easily accessible via said ISP's. Even so, there is no internet at my site, and I am currently accessing the internet from my mobile network (which is spotty, due to network overload).
  

Otherwise, things are relatively peaceful in my neck of the woods, I am twelve hours away from Bangkok, the nation's capital where all of the "big action" is taking place. There is virtually no military presence in my community and the greatest concern that I've heard is basically an annoyance of not having TV or internet. Peace Corps is sending us updates periodically, and in doing my part to remain vigilant, I am also keeping my eye on the Bangkok Post and BBC News.

Here's a quick clip from BBC about the coup:

In other news, it has been a little while since my last post and honestly, life has been a series of roller coasters the past few weeks. For a moment, I felt like things were getting on a steady track, but you know, here we are. So we'll see how this goes and how long it lasts. I hope to be back soon with another update, meanwhile, please keep us in your thoughts and pray for   the restoration of peace in this country.

Bun Bang Fai/Rocket Festival 2557

Bun Bang Fai is a Rocket Festival that takes place in the North Eastern (Isaan) region of Thailand. The festival takes place over the course of three days, the first day being a parade followed by two days filled with fun, food, music, blast-offs, and much like most competitive sports (think car or horse racing) gambling. Bun Bang Fai is celebrated in my community once every two years. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to participate in this year's events. I think the pictures below tell the whole story. Enjoy!  

  



We decorated floats the night before the parade.

 

Day 1: The floats varied in style and extravagance.



The King is honored in all that is done

With some of my crew :-)

 



 Characters Welcome:



(It is what you think it is lol)



 The Troupes

 

And then we got rained out. The most rain I've seen since I've been in this country.
We got completely drenched, but it was fun..

 

Days 2 & 3 The Rockets

Preparing the rockets for flight

3,2,1 - Blastoff!!

Or not.

Sometimes just a blast.

I didn't get many good shots, but I did manage to capture the difference between a successful and unsuccessful launch



I also enjoyed:

Band Performances



Making new friends

Conversations with cool people

Beautiful Sunsets

Maw-Lam-Sing

 

Overall, I really enjoyed my Bun Bang Fai experience. Twas a great weekend :-)