Women cooking in a mountain house in western Nepal

Women cooking in a mountain house in western Nepal

In Nayathanti, Nepal, an elderly woman sorts through a bunch of broad-leafed mustard greens while a young woman works over the hearth. They are probably cooking food for the trekking tourists and their porters. The smoke from cooking and heating the home is trapped inside the kitchen and the house. As it is almost always the exclusive responsibility of women to cook and prepare food, women in Nepal often suffer from respiratory diseases due to continuous exposure to firewood smoke in the kitchen.