Anju Didi is the cook of Khana Sabailai Social Project, the community kitchen of the NGO Hugging Nepal in Kathmandu.
I was lucky enough to enter her life and discover her story: the story of a great little woman that is an example of determination and redemption.
Born with legs malformation in a poor and very large family, she was unable to walk. Being female and one of the last born, she never had the support of her parents to be cured and she started walking only after several years. Even now her legs converge towards the inside, causing pain in her knees, but this does not prevent her from doing everything with apparent normality.
Anju Didi is now 40 years old, and she is the mother of two children aged 15 and 18. Her alcoholic husband abandoned her 13 years ago, disappearing for a long time. Now, however, he has come back because has found a temporary job in Kathmandu, and occasionally goes to sleep at her house and asks her for money. He has never helped with their children, and they don’t talk to each other since he left home, but she can’t get a divorce because in Nepal it is considered a social shame.
Anjudidi has never been able to study and before being a cook she was working as a cleaner in downtown hotels for a few rupees a day. In Nepalese male chauvinist society, it is seen badly for a woman to be in charge of a restaurant kitchen and at first, even in the social kitchen, there were frictions with some staff members for this position of responsibility. In addition to working in the kitchen, she bought a washing machine to do the laundry for the people she knows, and she also produces and sells bathroom cleaning products to supplement her salary. Thanks to her work, she can now afford to rent a house consisting of two small rooms and a bathroom located behind the social kitchen and to pay for the school for her sons.
She has a very strong character that never gives up, and she does everything she can to allow her children to study and build a better future.