Diary Entry - Day 6

By Shanaz Mohamed 
Photos by Amanda Sangeetha Thomas

Having almost the entire evening free the previous day, we were all quite refreshed when we headed for breakfast. After we energized ourselves with toast, porridge, and omelettes, we left to check out the M.B.R. Sporting Goods Co., Ltd. 

M.B.R Sporting Goods Co., Ltd. is a textile and shoe manufacturing factory. Amusingly, we were allowed to take pictures of the inside as long as it was taken from the outside. The manager gave us a tour around the different blocks of the factory which made different products. Although we did not get to enter the factory, we were shown samples of their products such as children’s bed sheets, shoes, lingerie, and even Calvin Klein shirts. We were curious enough to ask whether they sold the reject shirts there, only to discover they sold them at the mini mart a few minutes away.  

By the time we were done there, our vans were waiting to take us to the Bata factory. This particular factory was not owned by Bata, but by the locals. However Bata is their biggest buyer and their products are labelled Bata.  There are 150 workers in the factory. As most of the population in Buriram were women, many workers were female as well. They used division of labour for production; while some were stitching up the soles, others were attaching them to the shoe.  

Unfortunately for them, they face the issue of younger generations leaving to work in factories in Bangkok where their wages are higher than theirs. But they intend to raise their wage rates by the January.

Here’s a fun fact for you, if you look for the number on the Bata shoes, and if it says 455, then they were made in Buriram. 

Our last stop was the Baan Paeeng Puay School. We gathered in the library, where two of their students showed us around the school. The kids told us that they were allowed to borrow books from the library for 7 days per book. 

They also had a ‘tree of good deeds’ in the library where if the students did community service, they wrote what they did on a piece of paper and their parents would sign for verification purposes. Then, these papers were hung from a make shift tree.

The school ran a programme called ‘school bird programme’. This programme is funded by Skoll, Population and Community Development Association, and The Mechai Vravaiya Foundation. Under this programmme, students grew vegetables like mushroom, chilli, eggplant, lime, and mints. They also raised frogs and cat fish. When they were ripe enough to eat, the students gave them to the school and sold the leftovers. The students who grew the mushrooms managed to earn  about 13000 baht. Parents helped to design the program and since the students sold it, the whole community benefited from it. It also goes well with the rice plantations that the rest of the community does. 

Interestingly, the school had decided that they would re-use the old toilet bowls as pots for their plantations.

We came back to C&C to have lunch. And we were packed up and ready to go back to Bangkok by 1:30pm. It was then the realisation, that it was our last day in Buriram, sunk in. I’d say it was bitter sweet, but really, I was really looking forward to bathrooms which weren’t ant infested, or clogged. But we would all definitely miss the greenery, and the carefree life style that the people in the village displayed.


Before everyone went their separate ways for dinner, we had a cultural night practise session. I’d tell you what the dances are, but you’ll just have to wait for the big night to see our dances! But let me tell you this, our dances truly are awesome.

So here we are, back in Bangkok, looking forward to another exciting day

Shanaz Mohamed, 19 is a Psychology and International studies major, a dedicated doodler, collector of quotes, and a comic book geek, among other things.