red shirts, blood, and graduation

Our school was closed on Monday and Tuesday, thanks to the protests. It was really nice to have a few days to sleep, sit by the pool, eat, and relax.

Since last Friday, protesters have been streaming into the city via bus, truck, and motorbike. I got to watch some of it from the smoothie shop windows as the neverending parade headed toward Victory Monument. It was kind of like watching a high school pep rally. People were decked out in red clothes and accessories. They stood in truck beds and clapped, waved, shouted, sang, danced, and held their red flags high.

Yesterday, protest leaders organized a blood drive. In a bizarre attempt to make some kind of point, they poured the blood out at the four gates of Parliament. There are several videos about it on CNN's Web site. They're supposed to be doing it again in front of other government buildings today.

We were really hoping graduation would be canceled. I mean, would you come to work if a crowd down the road was dousing buildings in blood? But there hasn't been any violence, so I guess the show must go on. We're at school today for graduation rehearsals.

Thursday is Prathom's graduation and Friday is Mattayom's. Tomorrow, if he ends up attending, we'll curtsy before the Crown Prince of Thailand. Fancy-shmancy.

politicking

I never thought I'd be so excited about political unrest. We have this Friday off for another round of Red Shirt protests.

As glad as I am to have a free day, I know it'll be hard to go anywhere, because traffic will be extra-horrible. I wanted to go to the Red Cross Queen Sirikit Snake Farm. You get to watch them milk the snakes' venom!

Speaking of politics, I finally got an idea of the kinds of little power struggles that go on in our department.

Ake came to me yesterday afternoon with nothing to do, wanting to improve his English. Specifically, he asked, "What are some words that Thai people say wrong?"

Sure, yeah, just hold on a sec while I pull out my handy list of every mispronunciation I've heard in the last 10 months.

I went to the bookshelf and pulled out a bedtime stories book from the '60s. He read aloud and I corrected him. After working a bit on pacing and intonation, he told me that some teachers were asking why he was teaching English here. He studied art, not English, in university, and has been teaching computer classes at the school.

"But Sukjai asked you to come teach English, right?"
"No, Ajarn Mina [the head of Prathom]."
"Right, so then, you're supposed to be teaching English. I don't understand."

Then he asked who the best English-speakers were in the department. We named off three teachers, all of whom are only part-time. He wanted to know who was the best of the full-time teachers. Alyssa, Mariela, and I thought for a minute, and then ventured that Sukjai was probably the most fluent.

He kept dancing around what he really wanted to say and went on to tell us he wasn't sure he should be teaching English. I assured him that yes, he definitely should be. Alyssa told him straight up, "Your English is better than Sukjai's, hands down."

He was vague about which teachers were gossiping about him -- we don't know if it's an English teacher or someone in another subject. He's only 27, so my theory is that one of the older teachers feels threatened by his English abilities and is trying to cut him down.

Maybe it's not a bad thing we don't know Thai. There's no telling how many times a week these petty battles are fought.