The real tough life of a schoolteacher in Bannang Sata district
By the News Desk
As teachers in Bangkok remain at home after the government decided to postpone the reopening of all schools in Bangkok for a new semester for a week until May 24, their fellow teaching staffs in the three southernmost provinces are already back to schools as of May 17 despite the fact that one of their colleages was shot dead just ten days ago.
The killing of the schoolteacher has brought the total death toll of teachers slain in the deep South in the past six years to 128.
Despite the threat posed by the current political turmoil, teachers in Bangkok should feel more relieved and safe compared to their colleagues in the deep South who still have to risk their lives traveling back and forth between homes and schools on almost daily basis.
The following is an interview with a female schoolteacher in Bannang Sata district of Yala who described her life as a teacher, the danger she has to face almost everyday and the dangerous experiences she has gone through.
“I am a native of Banang Sata, grew up and studied in Bannang Sata. I have many Muslim friends whom I have known and developed close friendship since childhood. After graduation in the district, I further my undergraduate study at Ratchabhat University in Yala and, after graduation, returned home to teach.
The teacher who refused to be identified said she began her career as a teacher in 1998 in her home district. She has never asked for transfer to other safer districts despite all the violences in Bannang Sata.
“Villagers came to see me and asked me not to leave almost every day. They were afraid that I would feel frightened by the violence,” she said, however, admitting that she was afraid. Indeed, she should be scared after going through a horrible experience when one of her security detail, a soldier, was killed and beheaded by militants and one of the assailants was her former student.
“I was travelling in a car like any normal day along the Kasod-Bang Lang dam road in Tambon Ban Bannang Sata when, out of a sudden, two soldiers who rode on a motorcycle providing protection for the car of teachers disappeared. Then, there were gunshots and the driver immediately stopped the car and told us to get off and take cover beside the vehicle.”
“Afer the gunshots went silient, our car left the scene only to come to a stop shortly afterward when a new round of gunshots exploded. Then a soldier came to tell use to get off and take cover at a bunker. Sometime afterward, a male teenager walked right to me and said sawasdi krab and immediately left.”
The teacher said she hardly believed what she saw because the teenager was one of her former students. “Since that incident, I have kept asking myself did I fail in my duty and I could not make my students good citizens.”
But that was her worst experience. The most serious incident she encountered was when, one day, she was at home with a child when gunshots exploded around her. She said she grabbed her child and ran toward a well in the backyard of her house. She said she jumped into the well which was fortunately dry to take cover. Since that traumatic incident, she told her husband that they had to move to somewhere else which is safer for their child.
The teacher admitted that she used to be warned by phone calls of possible danger on regular basis but the warnings have now disappeared. “I was surprised why the villagers knew in advance of the danger while the authorities were totally unaware of them.”
As a native of Bannang Sata and from her personal experiences with the violence, she appears to believe that the conflicts in the deep South can only be solved by local people.