The weather was unbelievably hot, but the people were wonderful. “My Bangladesh” was designed for use in childrens educational settings. This is a personal favorite from my ELCA days.

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Have you ever wondered how silk is made? Outside Saidpur, Bangladesh I toured a silk production facility. The small factory is a non-profit operation (RDRS) that provides jobs and economic opportunity for women in this poor nation.

The silkworm is the caterpillar of Bombyx mori, the domesticated silk moth. The silk moth is entirely dependent on humans for its reproduction and no longer occurs naturally in the wild.

At the factory, the women, dressed in colorful saris, collect and sort huge piles of golden silkworm cocoons. Once sorted, the cocoons are immersed large into vats of boiling hot water.

This is bad news for the silkworms inside the cocoons! The hot water sparks a chemical reaction that allows the spun cocoon to unravel. Silkworm cocoons are natural bobbins made of one continuous strand of silk thread. After boiling, the cocoons are cooled and taken to a loom and unraveled.

The raw silk thread is then wound onto a spindle, dried and shipped to a textile factory.

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The Buriganga River runs through Dhaka, Bangladesh. Friends and I visited the Sadarghat Boat Terminal. Bangladesh is a nation of rivers. Much of the country is under water. During the monsoon, nearly all of it is under water. Bangladesh has a lot of boats. Thousands of crafts congregate at the Sadarghat Boat Terminal. Big ships, little ships and tiny dugout canoes ferrying goods and people across a river as wide as the Mississippi. The entrance to the terminal is a simple opening in the fence. Commuters stream through a gate and down a muddy slope to the water?s edge. Men sitting at an old wooden table collect a fee of 10 Taka (5 cents US). A marching band dressed in full uniforms with green caps and gold epaulets appeared. They carried their instruments as if ready to strike up a tune. I asked them to play, and for a few Taka play they did! Not good, but they sure could make noise. The scene at the waters edge is a bit like a cabstand. Hundreds of hand-paddled gondola similar to those you might see in Venice crams onto the beach. We climbed aboard and sat on straw mats thrown on the deck as the oarsmen shoved off. His one oar provides the power. It was like bumper cars. The big ships don’t pay much attention to the little ones. Our canoe constantly crashed into other canoes, or dodged the larger ships, which were trying to squeeze in. It is amazing to see how much stuff they can cram onto their boats. Some vessels were so full of cargo, water nearly came up over the gunwales. Why they don’t sink is a mystery. Larger boats with diesel motors can carry passenger or cargo. After several near collisions we returned to shore.

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Have you ever wondered how silk is made? Outside Saidpur, Bangladesh I toured a silk production facility. The small factory is a non-profit operation (RDRS) that provides jobs and economic opportunity for women in this poor nation.

The silkworm is the caterpillar of Bombyx mori, the domesticated silk moth. The silk moth is entirely dependent on humans for its reproduction and no longer occurs naturally in the wild.

At the factory, the women, dressed in colorful saris, collect and sort huge piles of golden silkworm cocoons. Once sorted, the cocoons are immersed large into vats of boiling hot water.

This is bad news for the silkworms inside the cocoons! The hot water sparks a chemical reaction that allows the spun cocoon to unravel. Silkworm cocoons are natural bobbins made of one continuous strand of silk thread. After boiling, the cocoons are cooled and taken to a loom and unraveled.

The raw silk thread is then wound onto a spindle, dried and shipped to a textile factory.

The post Micro Enterprise and Silk Production in Bangladesh appeared first on Tim Frakes Productions.