Sri Lankan tea pickers' dreams shattered as nation faces economic crisis

The Covid-19 pandemic severed the tourism lifeline of the Indian Ocean nation, already short of revenue in the wake of steep tax cuts by the government.

On a lush plantation in Sri Lanka, Arulappan Ideijody deftly plucks the tips of each tea bush, throwing them over her shoulder into an open basket on her back.

After a month of picking more than 18 kg (40 lb) of such tea leaves each day, she and her husband, fellow picker Michael Colin, 48, receive about 30,000 rupees, worth about $80 after the island nation devalued its currency.

"It is not close to enough money," Arulappan, 42, said of their earnings, which must support the couple's three children and her elderly mother-in-law.

"Where we used to eat two vegetables, now we can