Inuvil, Sri Lanka

Sundaram Baladevan plows the soil at a tobacco planation in Inuvil, a village in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Egrets, a type of heron, wait to eat the earthworms and insects he uncovers.

Erdenet, Orkhon Province, Mongolia

From left, Munkh-Erdene Dalantai, Molor-Erdene Munkh-Erdene, Enkhzaya Bayanjargal and Enkhtsatsral Munkh-Erdene play shagai, a traditional Mongolian anklebone game, in Erdenet, a city in Mongolia’s Orkhon province. The object of the game is to make an alag melkhii, or multicolored turtle. The family plays shagai every night to temporarily distance the children from television and mobile phone screens.

Harare, Zimbabwe

Innocent Murawa paints the ceiling of a home in Harare, Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe’s recent lockdown restricted many people’s ability to work. But individual contractors like Murawa have managed to find work painting and plastering homes.

Mexico City, Mexico

Rosa María Guerrero and her 7-month-old cat Rosita wait their turn at a free sterilization clinic at Felipe Ángeles Park in Mexico City. The local government started the sterilization campaign to cut down on the number of stray dogs and cats. “Rosita and her siblings were abandoned in the street,” Guerrero says, “and my son rescued them.”

Inuvil, Sri Lanka

Ursup Mohmad Savul Hameadh sells toys outside temples in Inuvil, Jaffna district, Sri Lanka. “There is no place in Sri Lanka where I have not set foot on,” he says. “I go wherever temple festivals take place.”

Masvingo, Zimbabwe

Richard Notho Chapwanya hangs necklaces on a makeshift display at the arts and craft center in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. His business, which relies mostly on tourists, plummeted after the coronavirus lockdown began. He says he used to make $30 per day, but now he sometimes goes home with just $3 – or nothing at all.

Umnugovi Province, Mongolia

An abandoned camel, whose foot froze after it was left for 20 days without food on the side of a road, gets a foot massage from Suvdaa Tumurbaatar, left, and Zorigtbaatar Bolormaa in Umnugovi province, Mongolia. When Suvdaa heard about the injured camel, she brought it home and bandaged its foot with medicinal herbs and a melted butter called “shar tos.”

Oaxaca, Mexico

Edgardo Pacheco, left, and Jesús Vásquez weave a palapa, a common roof structure on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. Typical palapas are crafted with wood and palm leaves, usually from a variety called royal palms.

Adampan, Sri Lanka

Samathu Mohamathu Muharsin spreads fertilizer and pesticides on his paddy crop in Adampan, Mannar district, Sri Lanka.

Sornapuri, Sri Lanka

Farmers Anthonipillai Asaippillai, left, and Sebamalai Dilsan clean an irrigation canal in Sornapuri, a village in Sri Lanka’s Mannar district. The volunteers remove grasses and shrubs when they begin to block the canal, which transports water from Kattukarai, the area’s largest reservoir.

Jaffna, Sri Lanka

Kanthiah Pusparaja makes a flower garland to sell for personal and religious occasions in the city of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Pusparaja has been selling garlands since he was 7 years old.

Oaxaca, Mexico

Rutila Osorio Rodríguez carefully assembles bouquets of sunflowers that she grew in Santa María Colotepec, a town in Oaxaca, Mexico. “People from the community are buying them from us,” Osorio says. “Even people who are in the United States are sending us orders to be delivered to their relatives who are here.”

Emmanuel Palavecino arranges donated books in a mobile library cart at Plaza Almagro, a park in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The mobile library travels to the city’s markets to make literature more accessible to residents.

Mexico City, Mexico

Gerardo Alejo makes two doves appear during his magic act at a traffic light in Mexico City, Mexico. Alejo, who has been a magician for 10 years, started to perform here to raise extra money for his university education. After COVID-19 began, this work became his dominant source of income.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Tserenjav Uuganbat patrols the area around the Tolit secondary school to make sure citizens comply with lockdown measures during the strict quarantine in Songinokhairkhan, a district in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. Since there aren’t enough police officers to enforce the lockdown, 27,000 civil servants were brought in to help.

Cheddikulam, Sri Lanka

Ravichanthiran Nalayini makes household items with palm leaves at her home in Cheddikulam, a town in Sri Lanka’s Vavuniya district. Her palm leaf products include boxes, string-hopper trays, winnows, mats and sacrificial trays.

Kisangani, DRC

Geaorge Kitimbili cuts the fruit from an oil palm tree on his land about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Kitimbili extracts the oil from the fruit to sell.

San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico

From left, Porfirio Santis Gómez, 6, Claudia Santis Santis, 12, Angel Santis Gómez, 12, and Maria Santis Santis, 9, inspect one of the succulent plants they have been caring for at their homes in Tlaxcala, a neighborhood in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico. The children learned to grow succulents so they can sell the plants for 15 Mexican pesos (73 cents) each.

Kathmandu, Nepal

In Gairidhara, a neighborhood in Kathmandu, Nepal, Binay Kumar Bista and Barsana Bista, 1, write on the Saraswati temple’s walls with white chalk during Saraswati Puja, a festival that marks the arrival of spring. Barsana is celebrating the festival for the first time, and Bista prays to Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, for the infant to gain wisdom.

Ensenada, Argentina

Fabián Moriano cuts through the waves on his kiteboard outside the clubhouse of the Grupo de Aficionados al Surf a Vela, a local windsurfing and kitesurfing enthusiast group in Ensenada, a municipality in Argentina’s Buenos Aires province. “I’ve been kitesurfing for 10 years. During the months when I couldn’t go into the water because of the quarantine, I felt a lot of anxiety,” Moriano says. “Any sport with this [much] adrenaline resets your mind.”

Orkhon Province, Mongolia

Oyunbaatar Narantsogt arranges the altar at Holy Lama Gandan Shadduvlin Monastery, the Buddhist center in Orkhon province, Mongolia, for Tsagaan Sar. The traditional Mongolian holiday celebrates the arrival of spring after a harsh winter and marks the beginning of the lunar calendar.

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.

Guaniquilla, Puerto Rico

Muralist Elvis Arroyo paints the Puerto Rican flag on a gazebo roof in his community of Guaniquilla, Puerto Rico. Community beautification organization Los Guardianes de la Costa de Guaniquilla commissioned the rooftop mural, which will be visible to the airplanes that fly over the coast.

Kisangani, DRC

Boyemba Bakumi and his daughter Jeanne Gradi Bakumi, 13, paint a mural to raise awareness of malaria in Kabondo, a neighborhood in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Their mural encourages families to sleep under insecticide-treated bed nets and advertises the next public net distribution.