After the flood, a story of hope in Muang Dang Tai

By Esha Kaur Tiwana, Sarah Sunmin Kang, Jatupat Wittayapraparat, Pawika Dhammalongkrot and Patrick Brischetto

In the shadows of a violent civil war in neighbouring Myanmar, Muang Dang Tai village in Mae Sai sits just inside the Thai side of the border and is home to a large community of Burmese immigrants.

But it is not the war they have fled from, but poverty, and their circumstances have left them more susceptible in the low-lying fringes of the town to natural disasters, which Muang Dang Tai is currently reeling from after being devastated by floods.

The fog-shrouded mountains of Myanmar’s Shan State form the backdrop for this tiny village of nearly 1,300 people. It’s the kind of place you can walk around in 30 minutes, criss-crossing dirt roads and dodging mopeds, dogs, cats, and children playing.

At the top of the village down one of these dusty roads lies a warehouse made of corrugated iron, where migrants from Myanmar are hard at work in the garlic factory.

My mum was stuck inside for around 4-5 days from when it first happened, and she still couldn’t get out.

Before you even reach the factory, the smell of garlic is imposing. Inside, dozens of women are peeling thousands of cloves, whilst the men move 20 kilo sacks of the processed garlic from one shed to another.

One of these women sitting on the dusty floor with her two children is Yetan. The 40-year-old has been living in Thailand after leaving her home in Myanmar’s Mandalay region.

It is a common story to hear of Burmese citizens crossing the border into Thailand, especially after the coup of 2021, but Yetan didn’t flee because of war.

In fact, she has lived in Thailand for 15 years since 2009, and is here for better working opportunities and living conditions. She has married since arriving and has two children: May Thuzar, 13, and Lin Let Ling, 11.

 

It is a similar story for Wine Kyit. The 45-year-old moved to Thailand 14 years ago. She also hails from Mandalay. Despite her concerns for language preservation and harsh working conditions in the garlic factor, she prefers living in Thailand and doesn’t plan on returning to Myanmar. Her daughter Lawinmay, 13, is currently attending school, but helps her mother peel garlic in the afternoons.

The workers only earn 2 baht per kilo of garlic they produce — just 9c in Australia — and live in dilapidated shacks at the back of the factory with little electricity and walls made out of sheets of metal and cardboard.

 

But Yetan and Wine Kyit earn around 300 baht per day ($13) with their children helping them, which is six times more than she earned working in agriculture back in Myanmar.

It’s not easy work. Sometimes the women toil for 12 hours processing bag after bag of garlic, and her children will sometimes be asked to join in on the weekends.

 

Working conditions in the factory are spare with minimal provisions for staff. Still, the women work relentlessly every day.

And they have to, their visa and living status in Thailand depends on their full time work status. Many are also sending money back to family in Myanmar. Yetan has siblings and parents in her home country that rely on her income in Thailand.

“If I could, I would extend the visa,” Yetan says through an interpreter.

“I do not want to go back home, because the work is not as good [in Myanmar].”

Her remark in itself is telling, especially considering what they have been through in the past few months as floods ravaged Mae Sai.

September, October, and November saw large amounts of rainfall, causing the Sai River to burst its banks on multiple occasions, and wreak havoc on the low lying border regions, including Muang Dang Tai. In Chiang Rai province 16 people drowned or were killed in mudslides and more than 100 were injured. About 27,000 households were directly affected, while clean-up teams removed more than 4,500 cubic metres of mud from towns in the area in the weeks after the flooding subsided.

On one such day, the area where the workers lived was engulfed by flood waters, forcing 50 workers, mostly women and children, to flee towards the garlic factory and seek refuge on top of the large piles of garlic sacks in the warehouse.

Most of the women were working in the factory at the time of the floods. Some of the children were at school, whilst others were playing in the village as the women worked in the factory.

One of the women, Soso Aye, 44, remembers waiting two days in the warehouse before being rescued by the military, during which time they had no food or water.

When she returned, her home was gone, destroyed by the flood waters. She lost all of her belongings, with only her government ID card remaining. As Soso is not a native Thai citizen, she is afraid to ask the Thai government for help rebuilding. The caretakers of the garlic factory instead have promised to rebuild her hut by the end of December.

Fon, 12, was at her friend’s house when the floods started and had to ask her uncle to pick her up. After helping her mother secure their home with sandbags, her uncle took her to his house while her mother stayed behind.

“My dad saw that the road was about to collapse so he had to move those cars to somewhere else,” says Fon. “My mum was stuck inside for around 4-5 days from when it first happened, and she still couldn’t get out. Then there were soldiers who had to come help her get out from the inside.”

 

The villagers, many of whom are Burmese immigrants from the same area, have banded together to try and recover from the impact of the floods.

Sergeant Pongpreeda Panjakan, the village’s headman, organises community support through government funding and uses his network on Facebook to appeal for international aid.

The community centre in Muang Dang Tai is a focal point for villagers to congregate but also a support mechanism for residents.

 

Sgt Panjakan is grateful for the support received through government and the private sector but wants the government in Bangkok to promote more awareness around floods and how to better prepare for natural disasters.

Surada, 20, a young mother with a family who runs a business selling roti, is grateful to the village leader for providing support to her family.

Donations have provided lunches, groceries and household items for flood victims. 

The children’s lives may seem harsh, living in a flood affected community, where they attend school and work with their parents in factories afterwards. However, they play happily and are content with the feeling of community built by the mix of migrants and native workers.

Sgt Panjakan bought an outdoor gym from village funds to support recreational development, giving the children an opportunity to unwind.

It is particularly popular, and despite it being a hot afternoon when Central News visits Muang Dang Tai, 11-year-old Lin Let Leng revels in playing on the different equipment, laughing and smiling in the Sunday sun, despite it being severely damaged by the floods.

Phoo Phoo, 14, is one of the beacons of light in the village. While her mother works in the garlic factory, she attends school, where English is her favourite subject. 

A multilingual student who learns Thai, Chinese, English and her mother tongue, Burmese, she hopes to become a journalist one day, fuelled by her love for stories and storytelling. 

 

The village embodies the strength, hope and optimism felt by much of the Burmese community in Mae Sai. 

“We are unsure of our future, but we are satisfied with what we have now,” a man working and living at the garlic factory says.

Main image of Phoo Phoo, 14, who aspires to be a journalist with her love for English class, by Esha Tiwana.

UTS journalism students travelled to Thailand as part of The Foreign Correspondent Study Tour, a University of Technology Sydney programme supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s New Colombo Plan, and working with Chiang Mai University strategic communications students in association with Chiang Mai University.