Rajanna attends the local community school with her older sister Sarada. She is currently in the Upper Kindergarten class. Like her sister, she is also top of her class and is often the first student on to the stage at school to answer the morning quiz question. She is enthusiastic about all of her subjects at school, has a lot of friends and enjoys her time in the playground. Her ambition in life is to become a pilot, which is probably a result of the proximity to airport to the shelter, where airplanes are regularly heard flying overhead. Rajanna is a little girl with a big appetite and she will proudly tell how she won the biscuit eating competition at school.

Rajanna is very curious about new things and likes to try new experiences. One day she wanted to see if she could pass an eraser through her nose and out of her mouth. She never told anyone about this and she did it outside on the balcony. She pushed it up and up and then that night it started to hurt her and she could not get it out. She thought that it would melt but it didn’t. Still she did not tell anyone.

Around midnight the pain was so bad that she was crying so much that her friends asked her what happened to her. When she told them what happened they called a nurse who works at Women’s Foundation clinic and she told the nurse what she had done. By this time her nose had become very swollen and it took a long time for the nurse to get the eraser out of her nose.

The next day we asked her why she had done this and she said that she was interested to see if she could pass the eraser from her nose to her mouth. After feeling such pain, we don’t think she will ever try this trick again!

Along with the other girls at the shelter, Rajanna is most happy when she is dancing to traditional Nepali music. She shows such enjoyment and enthusiasm for her dancing and eagerly took part in dancing lessons that the Women’s Foundation organised in 2003. One day Renu Sharma, the Secretary General of the WF, asked Rajanna what made her happy, and she replied ” I am happy because you love me.”