They began in the Northern part of my region last Monday before appearing in my village the next day, where they unexpectedly but unfortunately turned violent. It began the exact same as the protest in a nearby village the day before, with a blockade in the middle of town impeding traffic in both directions. When I walked outside of my house that day, I saw trucks lining the street with drivers climbing out, clearly resigned to remaining where they were for the day.
My house is far enough away from the center of village that I couldn't see the actual blockade, just all the cars at a standstill. Since there didn't seem to be any immediate threat (the previous protests were nonviolent), we held our weekly rice meeting that morning. It was just a little later than usual to give time for the women to walk from town to our meeting spot because they couldn't zem (moto taxi) as they would usually.
I don't fully understand the details of the protest and there seems to be mixed information in the news. But from what I understand, there is an election coming up in April and recently the candidate list has come into question. A political party that thought it would be on the ballot discovered it was not, so people protested in hopes of changing that.
This political party is based from my area, so that's why my village specifically was involved in the protests. Otherwise, my neighbors tell me that things like this usually don't happen in my town and it has never before been violent like this. I could plainly see how scared everyone was, and it was a pretty spooky feeling leaving my village and seeing hardly anyone outside.
It is unclear why things got violent but it resulted in at least 1 death and more than 10 injuries, both civilian and military. The women in my village use one giant GroupMe chat to talk to each other, so my homologue showed me some photos that women had sent of the protest.
There were pictures of military personnel crouched with their guns sticking out the drainage trenches that line the sidewalks, and pictures of people, both military and civilian, with blood on them. She sprung a picture of one of the dead bodies on me before I could close my eyes.
Even though the protest ended up lasting only one day, I've been mandated to stay away while the tension is still there. The day I left I saw military trucks entering my village, and over the days following that, there were several meetings held between the election committee and representatives of political parties to hammer things out. Yesterday, the king in my village met with the military to bid them goodbye, so now I can finally come today!
From what I've heard, the political party is still not on the ballot, and when the election comes around next month, there's a good chance there will be protests again. I will probably be mandated to leave again for a few days, which is frustrating but understandable. I'll be sure to take my dog with me next time if that happens.
This political party is based from my area, so that's why my village specifically was involved in the protests. Otherwise, my neighbors tell me that things like this usually don't happen in my town and it has never before been violent like this. I could plainly see how scared everyone was, and it was a pretty spooky feeling leaving my village and seeing hardly anyone outside.
It is unclear why things got violent but it resulted in at least 1 death and more than 10 injuries, both civilian and military. The women in my village use one giant GroupMe chat to talk to each other, so my homologue showed me some photos that women had sent of the protest.
There were pictures of military personnel crouched with their guns sticking out the drainage trenches that line the sidewalks, and pictures of people, both military and civilian, with blood on them. She sprung a picture of one of the dead bodies on me before I could close my eyes.
Even though the protest ended up lasting only one day, I've been mandated to stay away while the tension is still there. The day I left I saw military trucks entering my village, and over the days following that, there were several meetings held between the election committee and representatives of political parties to hammer things out. Yesterday, the king in my village met with the military to bid them goodbye, so now I can finally come today!
From what I've heard, the political party is still not on the ballot, and when the election comes around next month, there's a good chance there will be protests again. I will probably be mandated to leave again for a few days, which is frustrating but understandable. I'll be sure to take my dog with me next time if that happens.
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