Dealing with Covid-Coup in Sagaing
Real Stories Not Tales (RSNT) is a dedicated team in and out of Myanmar that aims to bring awareness to the reality of young people’s lives since the Myanmar military staged a coup on February 1st, 2021. Stories are collected through interviews with each protagonist by the team, either in Burmese or in English. Each character is drawn by a professional illustrator bringing a visual context to the story. RSNT is a anonymous name that is used by the group to guarantee security to all parties involved in the collection of the Stories. These posts are part of collaboration between Tea Circle and Insight Myanmar to publish Real Stories Not Tale's Report #2. To read Report #1, visit Tea Circle or Insight Myanmar. Two additional stories from RSNT’s Report #2 will be published on Tea Circle at a later date.
Zapata is a social worker. She was interviewed on August 17th.
“Afghanistan is a good example of why we should not rely on other people or nations to build our country. That is why we—the people of Myanmar—need to help each other.”
"Before the coup, I was busy teaching and developing learning materials for children. I used to send regular donations to children in Shan, Karenni, and Karen State, and medicine to poor communities in my home Sagaing Region. I enjoyed my life as an independent social worker. After the coup, my life became chaotic. Like many others, I felt depressed and lost.
Shortly after the coup, I joined a group of young protesters. We organized ourselves, and I was in charge of recruiting other youths to join the movement. Some days later, the military began using violence, and we had the dreadful experience of running under gun fire. One day, I was in the front line with the defense group. We were standing behind sandbags and could hear the military shooting at us. At some point we started running, and a person behind me got shot.
After that, I stopped participating in protests, but I was still involved in the resistance against the coup in other ways, such as collecting money and supporting people joining combat training in the jungle. Actually, I wanted to go to the jungle too, but I have asthma, so I decided to stay. The police announced the names of those who had participated in the demonstrations through a loudspeaker, so I had to be very careful. Soldiers were patrolling around, and some "dalan" (informer) spying on us gave the information to the police. Because of the dalan, some people in our group were arrested.
At the moment, I am living with my family and teaching children, although I do not have as many students as I had before the coup. Still, my students are the only thing that keeps me going. Because of Covid-19, I have to teach online, although I prefer face-to-face classes much more, so I can really show warmth to the children. At the same time, I have noticed that I am pretty sensitive these days, and I get mad easily, even at my family. The change is quite apparent. I got married last year, and so the beginning of our life together is quite tough: Covid, coup, and now 'Covid-coup'.
When it comes to my future, I don't have a specific plan. I was pretty busy before the coup, and had no time to think ahead. The education system in our country has been poor for decades, so I would like to work on improving it. I wish to travel around the country with a backpack, and teach children in different areas. Sometimes I regret not having stayed in the U.S. with my 'adoptive' American grandparents. I met them years ago while teaching in a monastic school here in Sagaing, and they invited me to stay with them. I visited for a couple of months but decided in the end I wanted to come back to Myanmar, to get involved in helping children here. Life in the U.S. is so different from Myanmar.
When I think about the future of Myanmar, at least I feel like our situation is not as bad as in Afghanistan, since I don't need to flee the country with all my belongings as I saw on the news yesterday. Afghanistan is a good example of why we should not rely on other people or nations to build our country. That is why we—the people of Myanmar—need to help each other."