I was supposed to meet Vidya at Thamel, the heart of tourist activities in Kathmandu. Having talked quite a few times on the phone, I was looking for her as she waved her hands, smiling ear to ear. As I met her, she greeted me with a hug and introduced herself. It did not take long to guess that she was an avid talker. We went to the Garden of Dreams, a historical palace garden at the entrance of Thamel, for the interview, she offered to pay; of course, I did not let her. We sat amidst the greenery. She exuded a warm, friendly, happy aura, which seemed to make others want to talk to her.
As we eased into the conversation, she started turning the pages of her life. It had been 10 years that she had been working in tourism. She had taken a tour guide training and license for the Visit Nepal 2020. She had been planning to open her own company for a long time and was going to finally execute it just when the pandemic struck. Many people she knew had invested a lot in the event. “While attempting to do more, the lockdown was imposed, it has devastated everything”, she said.
Hearing her one could tell she loved her work. She explained cheerily about her work and what she did. For her the fact that she earned well and her impression in her family was good mattered the most. Even though work kept her occupied, she did not complain. Instead, she used to love her hectic lifestyle.
She enjoyed the initial days of lockdown in early 2020. She got to spend more time with her family. Gradually, family time seemed excess, the corona was all over the news, and sitting idle seemed suffocating. For the first three to six months, there was some online work but with time, the online work stopped too.
Gradually, managing finances started becoming difficult. She and her husband are the only earning members of her family; even her husband is employed in a tourist handicrafts store. It has been more than a year and a half that they have been running their home through their savings, without a cent of income.
“We never had income problems till date, we used to spend lavishly. Now, I think a hundred times before spending even a rupee.”
The decrease in COVID cases in early 2021 gave her a glimmer of hope. With everything slowly going back to normal, she believed Nepal is ready and safe to intake tourists. However, with the news of the second wave, she feels like her hopes are fading away again. Regardless, she is still optimistic. With a small smile she says, “If everything gets normal, I will soon open my company”.
The second wave of COVID-19 has hit Nepal and South Asia particularly hard in recent weeks after the interview was conducted. The silver lining that Vidya and many entrepreneurs like her had hoped for seems to have faded uncertainly.