Shubashini
Follow a Silk Worm
Hi! My name is Shubashini. Welcome to my village! Here we make silk.
Silk is a very beautiful and expensive cloth used to make clothing. When my family is finished with the silk, it is a golden color. We can then dye it. When we dye it, it turns many beautiful colors.
Silk comes from worms! We first collect many silk worms and give them their favorite food: mulberry leaves.
Once my brother ate some mulberry leaves.
Does your brother or sister ever do anything silly?
My job is to climb the trees and pick the leaves - but only the big ones!
Do you like climbing trees?
Once the silk worm grows, it will make a cocoon for itself.
Do you know what a cocoon is?
A cocoon is a protective shell that the silk worm makes before it becomes a moth. The cocoon is what is made of silk. We need to boil the cocoons to loosen the thread from the cocoon.
The next step is for the threads to be pulled off the cocoon and put onto a spinning wheel. Some people do this by hand in their house.
Sometimes a machine does the work. We put the threads onto a minifiliature. That's a BIG word! A minifiliature is a machine that unravels five cocoons at once and makes one thread out of it!
Silk is not only beautiful, but it is also very, very strong. In fact, one strand of silk is stronger than one strand of steel.
Once the silk threads have been made, the silk needs to be wound up, just like kite string on its rod. And now you know how silk thread is made.
Then we weave the threads together to make soft, strong cloth which we can sell. Some of it is made into clothes that people wear in Bangladesh and in America.
Is your shirt made in Bangladesh? Look at the tag inside.
My family is happy, but life can be tough. When I was little, we sometimes didn't have enough food to eat. My dad caught fish, but he didn't make much money.
In Bangladesh, there are many familes who work hard but don't earn enough money to eat well or send their children to school. But things are getting better.
My parents and others in my village worked with Lutherans in the United States and around the world. Together we found a way to make life better by making silk.
My mom now works part of the year making silk. She and other women in my village earn money to help buy what we need. Thanks to silk worms, there is enough money for me to go to school!
And the money people earn making silk helps familes eat better. $1 buys a meal for my whole family - even a family with four people! How much food does one dollar buy in the United States?
Isn't it great how much good we can do when we work together? Thanks for being a friend and helping. I'm glad you and your church care!