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.