Early in February 2020 I left Kathmandu for a five week work trip to Europe at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic had registered less than 30,000 cases worldwide. It was becoming more of a news item, but in Europe there were only a handful of cases, and it seemed at the time that there was little to be concerned about.
Before I left, I would take my daily walk around Boudhanath Stupa, a haven for thousands of visitors a day from around the world, including many Chinese rubbing shoulders with locals doing their circumambulations, and of course me. On the 6 February, I took the first of 10 flights, transiting through seven international airports, that would eventually bring me back to Nepal on 12 March, just two days before Nepal stopped issuing visas on arrival to visitors.
In those five weeks as the virus started to spread around the EU, I spent time in Finland, Istanbul, Latvia, Denmark, Ireland and the UK coming into contact with thousands of people in airports, planes, and shops. It never occurred to me that I was coming in close contact with thousands of people, it was the norm. I was, as most people were in those days, quite unaware of the risk I was facing.
Journey to the mountain of the spirit, Claire Burkert
By the time I arrived in Nepal, worldwide cases had jumped to 130,000 and at Tribhuvan International Airport I was stunned to see a virtually empty arrival hall with just one luggage belt operating. The impact of COVID-19 was clearly being felt. I was happy to be back, but had a nagging feeling that Nepal would be facing more tough times ahead. Having read more about the asymptomatic transmission of the disease, I self-quarantined in my apartment in Boudha, except for brief visits to a local baby clothing project near where I live.
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In 2015 I experienced the earthquakes of 25 April and 12 May In the days that followed I became acutely aware of the impact that events of that magnitude can have on a developing country poorly equipped to handle widespread loss of life, the destruction of homes, schools and heritage sites, not to mention the stress on remote communities largely cut off from urgently required support.
It was the efforts of individuals and youth groups that caught my attention at the time, proving to me that with few resources at hand, the willingness to serve the community was deeply ingrained in the Nepali psyche. While the government was struggling under the enormous weight of implementing disaster recovery, I witnessed a remarkable effort by these highly motivated young people to do whatever they could to bring medical aid, food and provisions for temporary shelter to all of the affected districts.
That particular crisis was plainly visible, and unlike this virus, nothing was hidden from view. What needed to be done was clear for everyone to see, and the country was unified in its fight to mitigate the disaster. I helped in my own way through photographic posts in social media, helping to raise funds from abroad and with that money was able to support a local initiative run by a close friend of mine.
On 24 March this year with only two diagnosed COVID-19 cases in Nepal, the government implemented a comprehensive lockdown following the rapid spread of the disease in Europe. Flights in and out of the country were suddenly stopped and for the first time since I came to Nepal, the skies above my apartment were silent.
As a photojournalist from Finland and armed with a press pass, I ventured out on my scooter in the following days to record the impact this new situation was having on the city. Police and army checkpoints were everywhere. The streets, once bustling with cars, bikes and pedestrians were ominously empty.
Not a single shop was open and the streets of Kathmandu were populated only by the police standing idly, street dogs sleeping in the sun and the odd strolling cow, with a scattering of stranded tourists, wandering about in their shorts and backpacks in the hot sun looking for ATMs.
During the earthquakes of 2015, a close friend and colleague, Rewati Gurung, had implemented two relief projects on her own initiative from her home near Boudha. The first of these provided tea and eggs to two hospitals in Jorpati over a ten day period immediately following the disaster, and the second focused on providing new school bags filled with books, pencils, and sandals to thousands of school children in remote communities worst affected by the earthquakes. The project is now five years running and continues to address the needs of school children in remote areas of the country.
In the summer of 2015, Gurung, a development studies researcher by education, attended Helsinki University Summer School on the theme ‘Gender, Culture and Politics’, exposing her to a variety of successful Finnish initiatives that have made a significant impact on Finland’s social welfare system.
Inspired by the story of the Finnish maternity package provided by the government to all mothers on giving birth, Gurung started her own commercial enterprise in early 2018 – Kokroma, making baby clothing and accessories from 100% cotton woven by Nepali prisoners and sewn by women in her neighbourhood in Kathmandu. Gurung’s aim was to create a unique brand with raw materials sourced from Nepal in a market saturated with cheap imports from China and India.
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With the arrival of COVID-19 Nepal’s dependence on imports has highlighted the vulnerability of a supply chain that relies heavily on the free movement of goods between Nepal and its neighbours.
In the last two years I have seen Kokroma grow, attending dozens of promotional and networking events focused on supporting startups in Kathmandu. The aftermath of the earthquake inspired young professionals and fueled new enterprises. The range of initiatives varied enormously from IT and web-based services to consumer products of all descriptions including craft production and tourism related industries.
At the start of Nepal’s lockdown, Gurung like several others in my network were faced with the prospect of staff redundancies and loss of income. For an established enterprise this would be a tough call, but for a fledgling it could be devastating. Businesses that were solely dependent on tourism were among the first to suffer losses.
My landlord, Chhewang Lama at Boudha Residency runs a trekking business as well as AirBnB, both of which evaporated overnight in the wake of the lockdown. In the weeks that followed Chhewang and his team wrote off the entire Visit Nepal 2020 program with cancelled or postponed bookings stretching to the end of the year.
Faced with a new reality and looking toward a foggy future, he began to offer online virtual tours to Nepal on a one-to-one basis to generate interest with potential clients stuck in lockdown around the world.
For many entrepreneurs, the sudden loss of income has been catastrophic. A significant number of people in Nepal rely on day to day income, and the impact of lockdown is evident in the long queues of people I have witnessed in communities around the city receiving daily prepared meals by youth organisations, religious institutions and private individuals.
Helping the helpless during lockdown, Marty Logan
Philanthropy during the time of pandemic, Shristi Karki
Travellers stuck in Nepal help locals in need, Sonia Awale
For Gurung, the lockdown provided an opportunity to take time to assess the potential impact on her business. Well stocked with raw material from the prison, and already in the planning stages of product development, she gave her staff two weeks paid leave and set about pattern making for new products to be made when lockdown ended.
By continuing to work from home, and proactively working on new designs, looking toward an uncertain future, she maintained a positive attitude. By keeping up to date on the global situation, and the evidence from WHO that face masks were helping to prevent the spread of the disease, Gurung realised that she could make a positive contribution in the early stages of the pandemic by shifting her production from baby clothing to masks. At the end of the two weeks, she was geared up for production with the first order of 1,500 destined for shipping to the USA on a repatriation flight from Kathmandu.
Through her social media channels word got around, and in the last six weeks she has shipped more than 6,000 cotton masks to NGOs, religious institutions, children’s homes and private individuals in Nepal. She has received donations from abroad and also donated directly from Kokroma’s profits to those in need in her community. Her staff are fully employed and working from home, staying safe and delivering completed masks once a week to the office. Just eight weeks ago this would have seemed impossible.
As a journalist, I have been able to record the efforts of communities around the city to maintain distance and observe best practices. Many of those in need and stuck in lockdown were unable to arrange to pick up the masks. Gurung applied for a vehicle pass, but this was not forthcoming and so I was able to deliver packages to recipients while out on my photographic excursions.
As a backdrop to the challenges Nepalis are facing, this city has undergone a refreshing period of detoxification in the last two months. While the Department of Transport has been busy paving the worst of Kathmandu’s dusty roads and laying pipes and cable lines underground while vehicles lie idle in their homes, the air quality in the city has somewhat improved.
No other situation has provided the kind of insight into the potential beauty of this city than this lockdown has provided. The views of the snow covered Himalaya are the very ones that the tourists dream of seeing when they land at Tribhuvan International Airport. The uncluttered avenues lined with brightly flowering green-leaved shrubs shine against a deep blue sky and as spring turns lazily into summer and the rains wash away the last of the winter’s dust, the country settles into another month of lockdown while the Jacaranda trees burst into bloom like silent fireworks in the parks and avenues of the city centre and paint pale blue indigo patterns as they fall on the empty streets below.
Read also:
Kathmandu turns into flower city, Manish Paudel
When the air is clean, Abhushan Gautam
Gary Wornell is a Canadian permanent resident of Finland, author of the book Treasure of Nepal and a photojournalist. He has been in Nepal since 2013.
Covid-19 and Kokroma
Since the Nepal government issued lockdown here in Nepal on March 17th, Kokroma’s seamstresses have been working from their homes producing thousands of face masks and newborn baby packs for mothers in need here in Nepal.
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