So it happened. The military insisted it was not happening for two days, but it’s happened: a military coup was staged today at 5 p.m. (UTC +7:00). I am safe and sound, far from Bangkok with no plans to go anywhere near there any time soon, but here’s my story and take on what has been going on here.
I’m in my provincial capital for a teacher training that is scheduled to start tomorrow and go until Sunday afternoon. As I arrived, I rode past the large army base that is just outside the city and noticed a tent with some members of the military setting up tables and small piles of sandbags. It thought it probably had something to do with the recently declared martial law.
I arrived at the hotel to find two other Peace Corps Volunteers, who I had invited to help with the training, checked in and chatting with some of the Thai trainers. As we were heading to dinner, Andrew saw an alert on his phone from the New York Times with the headline “Thai Military Declares Coup.” Kaya, Andrew and I looked at each other and nearly immediately began making coup related puns, (a sampling: “Coup, coup, kachoo, Mrs. Robinson,” “Coup let the dogs out? Coup, coup, coup, coup, coup?”)
We went to dinner with my director of English programming, saw naw, for the district and all the Thai trainers. The television was set to a news channel that has been stopped from broadcasting and was showing a place holder, with some announcements from a member of the military. Throughout dinner, each of us received a text from the Country Director informing us of the coup and reminding us of our standfast status (pretty much stay in our communities, unless approved and absolutely no travel to Bangkok). The three of us kept looking at the television and were discussing the situation. My saw naw, saw this and said, “Don’t worry. Not serious. This happen often.”
We got an e-mail with updated information about the situation from the Country Director, informing us of a national 10 p.m. curfew. We hurried to go get pizza at The Mall and got back to the hotel to begin preparing for the training tomorrow. The group of 12 trainers, my saw naw, the three of us and some other people are gathered in the hotel room, doing all of the preparations for the next day. Someone checks their phone and sees that school has been cancelled for the next day through Monday and that gatherings of more than five people are prohibited.
This sent the question of whether the training would be able to happen. After a couple of phone calls, my saw naw turned to us and said, “We cannot canceln. We cannot delete. Because this is for education I think it is OK.” We hear that Internet and phones may be limited so we leave to make some phone calls to family in the States to let them know we are OK.
When we returned, we find out that the status of the training is once again questionable and the director of my PESAO will be talking to the military head of the province tomorrow to try and get special permission for this education event. We were told that we should not wear any red or yellow tomorrow, and I have been avoiding it for a couple months now. We retired to eat some pizza and continue to make some coup related puns before heading to bed.
Tomorrow is another day and there is certainly more on the horizon. Check the NYTimes Clif’s Notes on what’s happening, but know that we are safe and well taken care of. I’ll update as I can.