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Published: September 28th 2006
Captain Max
Getting ready for his 4th birthday party.Although there has been a coup in Thailand, very little has changed day to day for those of us living in Bangkok. I have only seen a few soldiers and no tanks. In fact, if I didn't know there had been a coup, I never would have guessed it based on what I see. Bangkok appears to remain quite safe and some even say that violence has been thwarted because if the coup hadn't happened, there could have been a violent clash between those loyal to Thaksin (the former PM) and those opposed. Although Thaksin was undeniably corrupt and caused many problems and rifts in Thailand, at the same time, the mass support for the coup is somewhat unnerving as even intellectuals and students seem to be happy to have lost their democracy in order to get rid of Thaksin because they believe that Thaksin distorted the Thai constitution for his own purposes (hmmmm - could this be like any other administrations we know?). Of course, their expectation is that the military will give the democracy back and the argument is that if the military hadn't stepped in that violence and chaos would have happened, but it seems very contradictory to
have a pro-democracy military coup and I think poor Thailand has taken a huge step backwards, much more so than many here currently realize. In any event, for the time being we feel quite safe and business, school, etc. has all returned to normal. As an example of how stable things are, the Thai Baht (the Thai currency) has now been going up in value against the dollar, even more than it was before the coup happened (not so good for us Americans!). Anyway, we appreciate all of your well wishes during this time.
On a lighter note, the Saturday before the coup we celebrated Max's fourth birthday party. The theme was a pirate party at Max's request and we had it in our apartment. Among the activities were a treasure hunt, a pirate cave, and walking the plank. Actually, I had a lot of fun planning it and Chinatown in Bangkok has amazing stuff you can buy for parties (and Halloween, which helped for the pirate theme) for absolutely dirt cheap. We have attached some photos of the party here.
Max is really enjoying his school. He especially loves that they swim twice a week and that
Building a track
All on their own, the children started assembling a train track for Thomas the Tank Engine that led into the tent...I mean pirate cave. once a week he can check out a book from the school library. His two closest friends in his class who he can't stop talking about are from India - their names are Droov and Katik. Droov was in Max's class at his other school last year.
Jim returned from his trip to New Delhi and I'm going to let him do his own blog entry on that when he has time.
My job at the IRC is ending next week - the end is bittersweet as on the one hand I will miss the work and feel like it was a great project (assisting Burmese refugees to apply for resettlement to the U.S.), but on the other hand I will welcome having more free time. I plan to do more travel, volunteer at Max's school regularly, and continue the Thai and Yoga classes, both of which are several times a week. I know - I live such a tough life!
Hope everyone is doing well and please keep in touch!
Best,
Maddy
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Song Li
non-member comment
Happy to learn that you are safe
Maddy, It is great to learn from you that you feel and are safe. I thought about it but realized right away that there were no concerns as the whole country seemed peaceful and there were no signs of conflits. With love. Song Li