A Teacher Waking Up from a Nightmare
Dora used to work in the education sector in Karen State before the coup. She was interviewed on July 13th, 2022. At the time of the interview, Dora is in Karen State, still contributing to her community by teaching children.
“Political detainees have a powerful revolutionary spirit and they strike every day in every possible way.”
"Like other young people in Myanmar, I am totally against the military coup and actively participated in protests at the beginning. I contributed to the revolution by organizing donations until I was accused of money laundering and got arrested by the military. I was detained for five months, and every day was dreadful—it was such an awful place. When I was arrested, I was still studying but had to leave everything and felt like I had lost all my opportunities. I had to stop everything I was doing so abruptly.
Before I was arrested, I was running an education program for children in the community who don’t go to government school, aka CDM students. Many children joined the program and we were in the process of setting it up in a more organized way. But then I was arrested and detained in prison. Once released, I saw that some children had joined government schools and others had joined private schools.
Mentally, I’m not okay and don’t feel as active as I used to be. After my release, I took one month to recover from my mental breakdown and tried to heal myself. It is hard to be active like I used to be, and I have even forgotten basic stuff such as how to use Zoom. I can’t make a work plan which I used to be good at, and I cry a lot. I forgot about day-to-day life on the outside and didn’t know what to do next. However, the people around me have supported me a lot when dealing with my emotions and sorrow.
It's hard for me to talk about the situation inside prison because it reminds me of the days I spent inside there. It was a total nightmare. The conditions were awful and the political detainees were treated the same as other types of convicts. There were around 32 people in the room I was locked up in, and all those people had to share only two toilets. The condition of the water was so bad, and the smell was terrible. It was not safe to drink and the detainees’ families had to bring fresh water for the inmates to drink. Some prisoners suffered from vaginal infections because of the poor water quality and bad food. Some prisoners were from other parts of Myanmar, so their family members could not visit them. Thus, the prisoners whose families could visit shared food with others. Political detainees have a powerful revolutionary spirit and strike every day in every possible way. Their determined spirits never failed to fight against the military junta, despite being locked up.
After my release, some parents in the community still wanted me to teach their children like I used to because their children were still not attending government school either. So, I am now teaching again. I am also working on writing a research paper. I want to finish my bachelor's degree as soon as possible for the children's sake. I feel like I need to learn more to be able to contribute better to the community, so I’m planning to apply for a scholarship.
In the future, I still want to contribute to education and community development, whichever is possible. I want to do whatever I can to support people. I believe secession is the best solution for Myanmar. I support separation and the creation of free states; that way, people will get what they have been dreaming of for such a long time."
These stories are collected by the Real Stories Not Tales team. Real Stories Not Tales is a dedicated team in and out of Myanmar that aims to bring awareness to the reality of 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. RSNT is an anonymous name that is used by the group to guarantee security to all parties involved in the collection of the stories.