Kathmandu, Nepal

Sani Pariyar, 17, chops chicken at a shop in Jorpati, a neighborhood in Kathmandu, Nepal. Customers flock to the shop because they only sell local chicken, which they display out front. He says people consume the chicken mostly during festivals and on Saturdays.

Vavuniya, Sri Lanka

Subban Thyagaraja paints cement pottery at his home workshop in Vavuniya, a city in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province. Industries like Thyagaraja’s are seeing a gradual increase in business since they were shut down due to the coronavirus.

Jaffna, Sri Lanka

Cleopas Sivakumari and her son, Cleopas Mayuran, 13, collect sea snails to include in their curry dinner in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. In the evenings, local women often collect sea snails to eat and sell.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Tamiraa Narantsatsral paints a recycled wine bottle at the Natsagdorj Library in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Tamiraa is part of a Facebook group, “Redesigned Fashion. Lifestyle,” that saves and redesigns recycled materials, like glass bottles and clothing, to promote environmentalism.

Bayandalai, Umnugovi Province, Mongolia

Gansukh Sharavsambuu carries fodder to a storage facility in southern Mongolia’s Umnugovi province. The animal feed will be provided to herders who are suffering from a dzud, a Mongolian term for a severe winter in which it is common for a large number of livestock to die.

Kathmandu, Nepal

Chandra Kesari Bajracharya makes cotton wicks for butter lamps near the Jana Bahal temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. Tourists and locals who visit the city’s temples purchase the butter lamps for prayer.

Dhading Bagmati province Nepal

Man Bahadur Magar, 40, sits beside the Pritivi Highway and waits for customers to buy fish caught in the Trisuli River in Dhading, a district in Nepal’s Bagmati province. As vehicles pass, he waves to the passengers, hoping to catch their attention. He occasionally waters the fish to keep them fresh.

Kalviyankadu Sri Lanka

From left, Iyaththurai Sajeeban, 18; Jeral Nishanthan Ninujan, 18; and Selvaratnam Puvikaran, 27, decorate pots in Kalviyankadu, a village in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province. The pots are for Thai Pongal, a Hindu harvest festival celebrated in January.

Oyunsuvd Enkhbold, front, and Mishigsuren Namjil look through binoculars while on a date to a 10-meter-high observation tower in the forest known locally as Tujiin Nars, in Mongolia’s Selenge province. From 1986 to 2002, large fires destroyed 70% of the pine forest. After rehabilitation projects, 70,805 hectares (273 square miles) of the forest were restored. It’s now a national park.

Adampan, Mannar, Sri Lanka

Nasurulla Mohmed Nafras repairs a phone at his shop in Adampan, a city in Sri Lanka’s Mannar district.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Odgerel Bayasgalan paints his graduate thesis painting, a self-portrait titled, “My Story,” in his home in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Odgerel, 20, is in his last year in the painting program at the School of Fine Arts and Design at the Mongolian State University of Arts and Culture.

Erdenet, Orkhon Province, Mongolia

Terbish Munkhbayasgalan, left, a 12th grade student, and Gantulga Odonbyamba, in 10th grade, write in traditional Mongolian script during “Book Festival,” an event to encourage preservation of the script and traditional culture, in Erdenet, a city in Mongolia’s Orkhon province. Terbish and Gantulga both take an extracurricular class at school to practice this writing system.

Erdenet, Orkhon Province, Mongolia

Tuvshinjargal Batsukh, an actress at the Children and Youth Theater in Orkhon province, reads books to children during a book festival held at Amar Square, in Erdenet, Mongolia. Tuvshinjargal participated to encourage parents to read to their children.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

To promote traditional Mongolian script through art, Sergelen Bayasgalan, left, and Togtuun Erdenebileg paint a poem in the script along with a portrait of the author, Rinchen Byambyn, a founder of modern Mongolian literature, on a wall in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The poem reads, “Although there are many beautiful places in this colorful universe / There is no place more beautiful than my native land / Although every language is great to study virtue / There is no greater language than our mother tongue.”

Khuvsgul, Mongolia

Ganbold Lkhamaa compresses cans and plastic bags and containers with a machine at his home in Mongolia’s Khuvsgul province. Since there isn’t a location to recycle waste in Khuvsgul, for the past 10 years Ganbold has bought recyclable waste to compress and transport to a recycling center in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city.

Murun, Khuvsgul Province, Mongolia

Erdenechimeg Enkhbat spots Uranbayar Delgermaa, 10, during a contortion class at the Contortion Center at the Children’s Palace in Murun, a city in Mongolia’s Khuvsgul province. According to a 2013 order from the Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Sports, contortionism is on the national register of Mongolia’s intangible cultural heritages – and urgently needs to be preserved.

Cheddikulam, Sri Lanka

Chandran Sasikaran, left, and Tharmalingam Thileepan construct wire cages for the framework of a new shop in Cheddikulam, a small town in Sri Lanka’s Vavuniya province.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Gegeen Amgalan, 13, fills a bottle with lip gloss at her home in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Gegeen learned how to make lip gloss in March by watching videos online. She’s used her free time during the coronavirus pandemic to perfect her product, adding flower petals to change the flavors.

Vavuniya, Northern Province, Sri Lanka

Thilainathan Thavanesan, left, and Arumugam Rajeevan carve black granite into Hindu deities at a workshop in Vavuniya, Sri Lanka. Thavanesan, the shop’s owner, says he receives orders for sculptures from all over Sri Lanka. “Making the idols is an orthodox task, and the proper moral practice – such as eating vegetarian food – needs to be followed,” he says.

Bayandalai, Umnugovi, Mongolia

During a traditional ceremony, Buyandalai Ulambayar gallops on his horse while offering horse milk to the air with a tsatsal, a ceremonial wooden milk spoon, in Bayandalai soum, Umnugovi province, Mongolia. During the ceremony, he chants, “Tsegeend tsad,” which means, “May we have plenty of food!”

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Uranzaya Jamiyansuren tends vegetables in the greenhouse at her home in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Uranzaya and her neighbor Munkhbaatar Tsogzolmaa built the greenhouse three years ago to grow food for their families’ consumption.

Kathmandu, Nepal

Purushottam Giri Sangeet Acharya, 60, a Hindu holy man known as a sadhu, reads near the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. He says that after the government announced a lockdown and religious sites closed due to COVID-19, many sadhus chose to leave Pashupatinath, where they lived.

Kathmandu, Nepal

A stray dog rests in front of a row of shops near the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. All religious sites have been closed since the end of March due to the coronavirus, including the main gate to the Pashupatinath Temple, a sacred site for Hindus. The shops that line the area are normally crowded with tourists, but owners have seen little business during the pandemic.

Dalanzadgad, Umnugovi Province, Mongolia

Enkh-Erdene Amartuvshin, 2, plays with a baby gazelle at her home in Dalanzadgad, a district in Mongolia’s Umnugovi province. The family rescued the fawn after a dog killed its mother.