Devi Maya Karki, 25, has been working as a maid in Kathmandu for the past eight years. “This is not the life I had hoped for,” she says. She always wanted to be a teacher. She was fascinated by them. But she got married when she was just 17 years old and couldn’t pursue her dreams. “I didn’t want to get married. But saying no wasn’t an option. I didn’t want to burden my parents,” she adds. Born in Champadevi, Okhaldhunga, Karki has always had a difficult life. Her family of seven wasn’t financially stable. She says it was difficult for them to make ends meet with only one breadwinner—her elder brother. Her mother was frequently falling ill and most of the family’s income would get used up in her treatments. “My four siblings and I didn’t get to complete our schooling,” she says. After passing the 10th grade, Karki was married off. She then came to Kathmandu with her husband and they rented a small room in Minbhawan. She thought it would be a new beginning, and was filled with hope. She would work hard in this city of dreams and take good care of her family back home, she thought. But working as a maid in Kathmandu, she quickly found out, was rife with problems. The hours were too long, the work strenuous, and the pay wasn’t even halfway decent.

The mother of two works four shifts daily. Yet, she’s always strapped for cash. She earns just Rs 15,000 and Rs 5,000 goes towards rent. What’s left barely covers their utilities and meals. Her husband, Rajendra, has kidney failure and is unable to work. So, Karki is the only earning member in her family. “My husband came back from the United Arab Emirates in 2015. He used to work in construction. In Kathmandu too, he continued in the same line of work and handled the children’s school fees. But now he’s unable to work,” she says.

Her younger child, who is four, goes to a government school, where thankfully, she says, the fees aren’t so high. Her husband, on the other hand, needs medical treatment that amounts to Rs 19,000 every month at Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital. They have until now been able to manage the money by selling her husband’s only parental property. “I don’t know what we will do when that money runs out,” she says. With daily expenses and rent amounting to more than what she earns, Karki had to stop sending her eldest child, who is only six, to school. What adds to her pain is the fact that she is unable to spend time with her children. Her first shift starts as early as 4:30 in the morning. She rushes to her next shift around 7:00 am. Her husband readies their youngest for school. She comes home for lunch before heading out to work two back-to-back shifts that start at noon and end at six in the evening. “After coming back, I have to cook for my family too,” she says, “Although my children help me, they are still very young.” She gets some respite on Saturdays, which is her only day off. But even then, her workload remains the same. There are just so many things that need to be done at home. She says she does a week of chores from cleaning to washing clothes on Saturday. She cannot afford to take a break that, she says, she badly needs. She is tired and her muscles ache. But she has to carry on, for the sake of her family who depend on her. With the days getting colder, she is worried that work is going to be even more difficult. The water, she says, will be freezing cold, making doing the dishes an ordeal. To make things worse, many of her employers will crib and complain that she isn’t doing her job well. “There are some people who treat me badly as they consider me to be beneath them,” she says. Karki wishes she could fulfill her dream of becoming a teacher. It would earn her the respect she desperately craves. She often wonders how life would have turned out had she gone to school and gotten a degree. Would she be living in her own house? Would her children be going to good schools? “I think my children definitely wouldn’t have to suffer as much as they do right now,” she says. She wants her children to be able to pursue anything they want. Not being able to send her six-year-old to school breaks her, she says, and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to turn her family’s fortune around. “Every mother wants the best for their children. I’m failing in my duties as a parent. I know I must try harder, work more shifts perhaps. I’ll do anything to give my children a good life,” she says.