A Walk To Beautiful (EMMY AWARD WINNING DOCUMENTARY) | Real Stories

A Walk to Beautiful (Emmy Award
Winning Documentary)

[opening credits]

[on-screen text: Debola Village, Ethiopia,
a 6-hour walk to the nearest road.]

[A few women in simple dresses work in an area in clearing among thatched-roof shelters.

One of the women wears a brown dress and a necklace with a Christian cross.

She is later identified as Ayehu's mother.]

>AYEHU'S MOTHER: I, her mother,
made her live out back.<

[Inside one of the huts, a young woman in
a blue patterned dress lies on the ground

with a 5-year-old child who is later
identified as her daughter, Mimi.

The woman will be will identified
as a fistula patient named Ayehu.]

>AYEHU: I was very upset at having to deal
with people's disgust and disdain for me,

so I decided to go and make a
shelter and wait for certain death.<

[on-screen text: Ayehu, 25 years old.]

>AYEHU'S MOTHER: If she were not sick,
I would not have her separate from me.<

>AYEHU: The labor lasted for a week.
The baby died in my womb.

After the doctor took it out,
I felt something leaking.

I was living with my husband
when I got this problem.

He told me to leave and
he married someone else.

So I took my daughter and came
to live here in this condition.<

>AYEHU'S MOTHER: It's very difficult to let her
stay in the house, because people come to visit.<

[Ayehu, sits outside of her hut
that is behind her mother's hut.

Women who pass with their water pots
and children by do not acknowledge her.]

>AYEHU: I have no married life. I don't have a job, I don't mix with people.

I live here hidden away from others.

This is not life.
Death would be better than this.<

[Ayehu absently tugs at pieces of
straw from an indoor wall of the hut.]

[A woman with medium length black hair
wears a white and green wrap around her.

As she walks briskly down the road,

she is identified on-screen as Ayehu's friend,
Fikre, who is a former fistula patient.]

>FIKRE: The baby had died in my womb.
The doctor took out the body piece by piece.<

>AYEHU: I started sleeping on the ground,
because I was wetting my bed.

For 10 years, I lived like this.<

[Fikre approaches Ayehu's hut to greet her.
The two women embrace.]

>FIKRE: Good morning. How are you?<
>AYEHU: I am fine.<

>FIKRE: Are you feeling better?<
>AYEHU: I'm okay.<

[Fikre and Ayehu sit on the ground and visit.]

>FIKRE: I remember when everybody
used to shun me, especially on the bus,

where people covered their
noses because of the stench.

I would get so hurt and ashamed.

After the surgery, I have become a normal person,
wearing new clothes and mixing with friends.<

>AYEHU: You were opened up?<
>FIKRE: Yes.<

>AYEHU: You didn't feel anything?<
>FIKRE: They know what they're doing.<

>AYEHU: How can they bring you back to life?<

>FIKRE: They know how. Will you go
to the hospital now, in Addis Ababa?<

[The sun sets and the village grows dark.
A rooster crows and the sun rises.

Ayehu's mother walks back to her, unwraps something small, and hands it to her.]

>AYEHU'S MOTHER: Here, have this.<

>AYEHU: What are you untying? Why do I need this<

>AYEHU'S MOTHER: Keep the
money safe in your dress. Don't cry.<

[The women kiss each other on both cheeks.]

>AYEHU: I am not going to cry.<

[Fikre and Ayehu kiss each other on both cheeks.]

>AYEHU'S MOTHER (to Fikre):
May God bring you home safely.<

[Ayehu leans down to kiss her child,
who is sitting outside of the hut.

Ayehu uses her shawl to wipe her face.]

>AYEHU'S MOTHER: Focus your heart.
Don't cry. Just go.<

[Ayehu's mother turns and
leads Ayehu away from the hut.

Then Ayehu walks barefoot and alone
down a road that leads out of her village.

At first, the road is lined with a few trees,

then the landscape changes
to wide-open desert.

Ayehu continues walking until sunset or later.

In the next scene, some people
gather in the moonlight near a bus.

The location is identified as Bure,
17 hours to Addis Ababa.

Ayehu boards the bus with her shawl
covering her head and shoulders.

Passengers include men and women.

As the bus starts to move, the camera shows liquid
on Ayehu's lower legs, which may be her urine.]

>AYEHU: I thought about drinking poison,

but my family told me not to because
my soul would burn in hell.

They said this to scare me.
If I die that way, my soul will not rest.<

[The bus drives through the night
on a mountain road into daytime.

After driving through the mountains,

the bus arrives in a city that is
identified as Addis Ababa.

Most of the traffic in the city is made
up of small white and blue buses.

Ayehu walks away from the bus
stop with a few other people.

She approaches a sign for Fistula Hospital.

The next scene shows a nice home-like building

that is surrounded by flowers,
shrubs, and a backyard

where some women and their children
are seated on blankets on the grass.

The building is part of a hospital.

Indoors, a doctor named Catherine
Hamlin tends to a woman in a bed.

Other women are in beds in the same ward.

Dr. Hamlin is the co-founder of
Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital.

She is a middle-aged blonde woman with a pink
short-sleeved button shirt and light-colored pants.]

>DR. HAMLIN: These women are
not welcome in a general hospital.

They can't often get in because of

the tremendous pressure on the
hospitals for other more urgent things.

Also they are not welcome because
they're smelling, and they are poor,

and they are often turned away
by the guard at the gate.

This is really why we built the hospital.<

[Ayehu approaches the Fistula Hospital sign.]

[on-screen text: Ayehu after a 23-hour journey.]

[A man in a light-blue lab coat directs her
toward him. He is later identified as Getu.]

>GETU: Come over here.
Where do you come from?<

>AYEHU: Gojam.<

>GETU: What happened to you?<
>AYEHU: I'm sick.<

[The man leads her to a bench
to sit with other women.]

>GETU: Have a seat here.<

[A woman with short hair, a tunic, and a skirt walks up the steps outside of the building.

She is identified as Ruth Kennedy, the hospital liaison officer.

She enters carrying a human baby doll and speaks to the women who are gathered.]

>RUTH KENNEDY: This is a foreign child.
Say "hi" to him. Say "hi" to him.<

[The women giggle as Ruth walks around to
have each woman shake the baby doll's hand.

Ruth picks up the pelvic portion of a
skeleton and shows it to the women.

With the baby doll, she shows how a baby
exits the mother's body when it is born.]

>This is like your bone.
And the baby comes out like this.

But in your case it was not coming out.
And then it died.<

>DR. HAMLIN: Some help is needed when the baby can't be born in the usual 12 hours that takes to have a baby.

Usually it is due to a small pelvis or a mal-position of the baby inside the mother's uterus.

It occurs all of over the world.

In five percent of all labors, help is needed.<

[Ayehu enters a doctor's office and
sits across from the doctor's desk.

He is Dr. Workineh Getaneh, a resident.]

>DR. GETANEH: What happened to you?<
>AYEHU: I leak.<

>DR.GETANEH: Are you incontinent of feces?<
>AYEHU: No.<

>DR. GETANEH: You leak only urine?
Does it leak constantly?<

[Ayehu nods.]

>When did it start?<
>AYEHU: Some six years ago.<

>DR. GETANEH: How long were you in labor?<

>AYEHU: For a week.<
>DR. GETANEH: For a week?<

[Ayehu nods.]

>Was the child alive?<
>AYEHU: No, it was not.<

>DR. GETANEH: Did you have a pelvic
delivery or a Cesarean section?<

>AYEHU: They pulled it out.<

>DR. GETANEH: Now I need to
perform a pelvic examination.<

>DR. HAMLIN: She starts labor and she expects
to be perhaps delivered by the evening,

if it's the morning, early morning, but the
day goes by and she hasn't had the baby.<

>NURSE: Ayehu, we just need to see
where the leak is coming from.<

[A staff member pulls a privacy
curtain around Ayehu.]

>DR. HAMLIN: The village women encourage her.

The second day goes by and even the third and fourth.

Up to 10 days I have had a woman in labor.

By that time, the little girl is
exhausted, dehydrated,

and she finally pushes out a dead baby.

But she wakes up to a worse horror.<

>DR. GETANEH: Ayehu, there is a hole between
your birth passage and bladder. Okay?<

[Ayehu nods.]

>Like through ripped cloth,
that is where the urine flows.

It will be sewn up. So the size of the
fistula is two by three centimeters.

Now you will be given a bed.<

[After Ayehu changes out of her clothes into a hospital gown,

she carries her belongings down the hall.]

>DR. HAMLIN: Every time a uterus contracts, it pushes the baby's head against the bone of the pelvis. The blood supply of that area is cut off. So that lump of tissue that's being squashed will die and it just drops out. So this means that she's lost some of her bladder or some of her rectal wall.<
[A woman is identified on screen as Dr. Ambaye Woldemichael, fistula surgeon.]

>DR. WOLDEMICHAEL: The fistula patients, it's not only physical trauma that they are suffering of. It's social and then the psychological. In the countryside, being a woman is being able to be a wife, bear a child, too, and have a family. But when they fail to do that, they consider themselves that they are not like any woman.<

[Ayehu continues down the hallway past other women, then she walks outside of the building.]

>DR. HAMLIN: The husband, he said "You go back to your family." And he'll just send her off with a bundle on her back. They run out to welcome her, thinking that she coming home with a baby, and they find her in this state. Her life is ruined. So they will build her a little hut outside, and there she will stay 'til death, unless she hears that she can be cured.<

>AYEHU (to the camera): It was a makeshift home, made from sticks and straw against the house. It was just to protect me from being eaten by hyenas. My brothers and sisters, they even hated me for staying there.<

[She rubs tears from her eyes.]

>There on the floor, I would lay out the wood and sleep. I spent the night sitting.<

[She wipes more tears. Then she is brought into the ward and given a clean bed to sleep in.]

>I am very surprised. I never expected there to be a lot of people like this. Everybody is sick. I thought it was only me.<

[Ayehu smiles.]

>DR. HAMLIN (in voice-over): Most peasant women in the developing world have to do all the hard work. They have to do the cooking, the grinding of the corn, the collecting of the water from the well, carrying sticks from the forest. So, all her energy has gone into work instead of into growth. She hasn't had enough nourishment.<

[Women and girls are shown, some strapping ropes over their backs to carry large water-carrying pots, and some carrying large bundles of long sticks.]

>RUTH KENNEDY: If we take someone like this little girl, what has happened is at the age of two, she started carrying a jar of water. By the age of eight, she's carrying something that I can't lift. But all those years, she's been eating a good diet, but not enough calories. What happens is she grows short. Now if I stand, you'll just see how short she is, and I'm an average height, I'm five-foot-three.<

[The girl is shown to be about 8 inches shorter than Ruth.]

>DR. WOLDEMICHAEL: A girl, especially a girl in the countryside, they are too small for their age. So if she gets pregnant at the age of 14, definitely, the baby would be too big for her, for this to pass through during delivery. So she will end up in obstructed labor.<

[Outdoors, a woman is pointing to an easel, saying single syllables that the girls and women repeat after her. She may be teaching them to read. One of the girls looking on is identified on-screen as Wubete, 17 years old. She is also a fistula patient.]

>WUBETE: It was so painful, I passed out. On the fifth day, I got to the hospital and delivered. They said it was a stillbirth, but I didn't see it. I was told to vacate the bed because they had more patients than beds. I got up to change my clothes, and I wet myself. I went home, but I didn't get better. Six months after delivery, I came here. From my home to the bus, it was a six-hour walk. Once I got on, I wore trousers and used cloth as padding. The bus got hot and the cloth started to smell. I felt so terrible but I had to make my way here somehow. It's beautiful here, everything from the clothes to the beds. I've started making friends. People aren't revolted by me here.<

[Women and girls sit outside visiting with each other. Each of them has a warm blanket wrapped around her, and some of them are smiling.]

>DR. WOLDEMICHAEL: They usually think that they are the only person in the world who leaks urine. So being at Fistula Hospital is a part of psychotherapy. They discuss their problem with other women. They start to understand that there are other women with the same kind of problem.<

>DR. HAMLIN: So this is very important to nurse them together. And they have a social life together. We see them talking, and they feel at home. They feel they are not being ostracized from their society. And they're loved, and they feel welcome. So this is where the healing process starts, of the mind, and this is very important.<

[on-screen text: Ayehu, two days since her arrival.]

[Ayehu is in her hospital bed.]

>AYEHU: Half of me is afraid; the other half, I don't know. Fikre told me a lot. She told me not to be afraid and said, "You won't be left sick while I am cured."<

[Ayehu's head is covered and a sheet is placed over her before she is wheeled to surgery. She sits up, then an anesthesiologist rubs iodine on her lower back.]

>ANESTHESIOLOGIST: You will feel some cold.<
>DR. ABEBAW: You will be injected now.<

>ANESTHESIOLOGIST: You are brave.<

>NURSE: Enough, enough. Hold her.
Hold the bed firm.<

>ANESTHESIOLOGIST: Relax your legs. Are you okay? You are brave.<

>DR. HAMLIN: We've got this girl with her whole life ahead, and if she is not cured it is going to be a misery and a horror to her forever.<

[Dr. Woldemichael performs surgery while Ayehu is conscious. Ayehu's eyes are open, but she's probably sedated. She speaks to her staff in English.]

>DR. WOLDEMICHAEL: The fistula is not very big, well-mobilized now, and I am going to close it.<

>DR. HAMLIN: This is the fascination of fistula surgery. To make a new life for a young girl that suffered more than any women should be called on to endure.<

>DR. WOLDEMICHAEL: We just finished closing the fistula now, and then we are going to do a dye test to make sure that the suture line is watertight. So we put the dye, if there's any hole, the dye comes through the hole. Now there is nothing coming through the wall. This means that the hole is closed completely.<

[Ayehu is wheeled out of surgery.]

>DR. HAMLIN: We leave her with a catheter draining for 12 or 14 days. And we hope that she is going to be able to pass urine normally.<

[Nighttime in the ward, then morning is signaled by a rooster crowing. Wubete stands next to a pole outdoors while wearing her blanket.]

[on-screen text: Wubete, one week since her arrival.]

[The head nurse, identified as Ejigayehu Wold, speaks to some girls by a table of clothing.]

>NURSE WOLDE: Choose.<
[A few girls hold up brightly colored fabrics and seem delighted to look at them.]

>NURSE WOLDE (in English):The new clothes, it's a symbol for us. They're cured. They are going to start a new life.<

[Girls wearing their new clothes walk through the ward smiling.]

>WUBETE: Because they are going home, they are being given clothes. It's lovely. I feel happy that it'll be me soon. I hope to get better like them. I stayed here for a month and got treatment, but the leaking didn't stop, so I went back home. I came back and got treated again, but there was still no change. They gave me a third appointment, and now I have come back for that. When others say they are cured after their second or third visits, I begin to think I will be too.<

[A couple doctors and a couple nurses approach Wubete, who is sitting on her hospital bed. One of the doctors is a gynecologist named Dr. Biruck Tafesse. He speaks to Wubete.]

>DR. TAFESSE: Wubete?<
>WUBETE: Yes.<

>DR. TAFESSE: You are Wubete, yes? (to another doctor) A fistula?<

>OTHER DOCTOR: Yes, a fistula. She was operated on but now has stress incontinence.<

>DR. TAFESSE: Urodynamics. We'll take her today.<

>(to the camera, in English): The fistula, that is the hole in the bladder, is closed. And now the bladder function is not restored. So we're going to do certain examinations, run certain tests, and see where the problem actually is.<

[Wubete lies on an exam table near a machine that clicks as it prints out a graph.]

>(to the camera): This is a urodynamic examination. This is a machine which measures the intra-abdominal pressure, and it also measures, at the same time, the pressure inside the bladder. And then the machine will give us the bladder capacity, how much the bladder can hold.<

[After the test, Wubete sits up on the exam table and Dr. Tafesse tells her about the results.]

>(to Wubete): The problem is, when you were in labor, your bladder was ruined. Most of it was destroyed.<

>(to camera) According to the results, she has reduced bladder capacity. It is reduced by half as compared to a normal person. But the good thing is that there is some regeneration capacity of the bladder that we hope, with time, her bladder capacity will increase to some extent.<

>(to Wubete): Now, while you are here you will stay with us for a little bit. There are some exercises that we will need to do. Sister Azeb will show you, okay?<

[Wubete looks down at her lap and speaks softly.]

>WUBETE: I don't want to go back to my village.<

>DR. TAFESSE: Wubete, dear.<
>WUBETE: Yes?<

>DR. TAFESSE: Wait outside now, okay?<

[Wubete wraps the blanket around her
and slowly leaves of the exam room.]

>WUBETE (to the camera): I didn't want to get married. They would find a husband, throw a party, and send me away. I ran away many times. I refused to go back, but my father kept beating me. I was about 10 or 11 years old. I kept running away until I finally stayed with the fourth one because I got pregnant. I told my father, "You beat me and kept sending me back and look what has become of me." If my mother were alive, she wouldn't have let this happen. I won't go home without being cured because no one will accept me. My other choice is to kill myself.<

[Wubete covers her face with her hand and looks away.]

[In the ward, a woman with a blue kerchief over her hair is identified as Almaz, age 20. She is another fistula patient. She combs the hair of one of the young women.]

>ALMAZ: I was married at 15. My husband abducted me while I was going to a market. There were many of them. I was overwhelmed. They separated me from the other girls and took me. He kept me somewhere for 14 days and then brought me to his home. After that, I gave birth to a baby in less than a year. That's all I had, and it died. For three years, the injury of my body affected my life badly. I could not work or be productive. My life fell apart.<
[Almaz lies on an operating table and is prepared for surgery.]
>If I get cured and go back home, I would like to dress up like my friends, walk like my friends, live a normal life like my friends.<

[A fistula surgeon named Haile Aytenfishu scrubs his hands for surgery.]

>DR. AYTENFISHU (to the camera, in English): Almaz, she was found to have a double fistula. Double fistula means a hole communicating between the rectum and the vagina and bladder and vagina. You don't have to be a woman to understand a woman's problem. If someone's incontinent and cannot control her feces and urine, it's simple to predict what is going to happen to her in the community and the family. So to relieve such a problem is a very, very...I mean, good, good job.<

>ANESTHESIOLOGIST (to Almaz): Relax, you are fine.<

[Almaz is conscious during surgery. Her eyes are open, but she's probably sedated.]

>DR. AYTENFISHU: I've repaired the bladder, and now I'm doing the rectal fistula repair.<

[Surgeries for a few patients are happening at the same time in the same operating room.]

>NURSE: Done, okay?<
>ALMAZ: May God bless you all.<

[Almaz is wheeled out of the operating room. Several patient files are stacked in thick piles.]

>DR. HAMLIN: We are able to close the fistula in about 93 percent of cases. We are able to operate on 30 women a week, and so we hope this year that we'll be able to do 1,500 operations. But we estimate that there are over a hundred thousand waiting, in the countryside, in Ethiopia. My husband and I came to Ethiopia in 1959. The previous gynecologist that we replaced said to my husband, "The fistula patients will break your hearts." And that's really what they did. We didn't plan to stay, but as we began to cure them, of course, more and more came to us, so we stayed on. I have been here ever since. My husband would still be here if he was alive.<

[Wubete sits in an office with a nurse named Azeb. The nurse takes notes during the conversation. They sit near each other, facing each other.]

>AZEB: Dr. Biruk saw you yesterday, and what did he say to you?<

>WUBETE: He said I might get better and to come see you for a follow-up.<

>AZEB: Being in labor for five days strained your muscles.<

>WUBETE: Yes.<

>AZEB: Now, I will show you the exercise that will help change your life. Do you remember learning this exercise the last time you were treated?<

[Wubete wipes her tears with the blanket she has wrapped around her shoulders. Nurse Azeb puts her hand on Wubete's shoulder to console her.]

>Wubete, we're all here to help you.<

[Wubete is tearful as she talks.]

>WUBETE: I did what I was told for the last six months, and there was no change. They told me to do the same type of squeezing exercises. I didn't see any changes.<

>AZEB: Your bladder is very small. It needs time. You're very young. You are only 17, so give it time. Wubete, do you understand?<

>WUBETE: Fine, but I don't have a mother and no one to look after me. Back home, the work is very hard. I have no one, nothing. They were repulsed by me while I was there.<

[Nurse Azeb puts her hand on Wubete's knee.]

>AZEB: It takes time, and you must not give up. You can't think of all these things now. Please don't cry, Wubete. Don't be so heartbroken. Have faith, tomorrow is another day. There will be change. Okay, my dear?<

[Wubete sits on the steps outdoors. She looks sad as she pulls up her blanket from her shoulders to cover up over her head.]

>DR. WOLDEMICHAEL: Fistula, it's a hidden epidemic; it's a silent epidemic. Nobody talks about it, because it's a problem of the poor woman; it's a problem of woman. But it's 100 percent preventable. Lack of good obstetric service, this is the main cause of fistula.<

[About a dozen women are shown in an Ethiopian village strapping ropes over their backs to carry large water-carrying pots, then they walk together on an unpaved road.]

>DR. HAMLIN: For a population of 77 million people now in Ethiopia, we've only got 146 gynecologists and obstetricians. And most of these are in the cities, so the countrywomen are just completely neglected. This is a tragedy.<

[on-screen text: Ayehu, two weeks after surgery. Dr. Woldemichael approaches Ayehu, who is in bed.]

>DR. WOLDEMICHAEL: Ayehu, the catheter will be removed, and if the bed is dry, then you will be able to leave.<

[A nurse is identified on-screen as Eligayehu Wolde, the head nurse. She speaks with Ayehu and reads her medical chart.]

>NURSE WOLDING (to Ayehu): Okay, my dear, good morning. Did you sleep well?<

>(to camera) If there is not any leakage on the bed, that means they are dry. Up to now she is dry, and we hope that she will be okay.<

[Ayehu walks into her village. A few children are playing in the area. One of them is a 5-year-old child in a blue dress who was sleeping next to Ayehu at the beginning of the film. Ayehu's mother calls her by the name Mimi.]

>AYEHU: I never thought I would ever get cured. I just assumed I would die. It's great, it's wonderful. All is well now.<

[Ayehu is greeted warmly by a few women. She bends down to kiss the cheeks of the child.]

>AYEHU'S MOTHER: Welcome back home. This is wonderful. Mimi, your mother is here. Come and kiss her.<

>AYEHU (to Mimi): Come in.<

[Ayehu's mother and the other women walk into her mother's house, which is more substantial than the thatched hut that Ayehu was living in before surgery. Inside the house, five women clap in rhythm as they sing together. Mimi dances with the music.]

>Back when I was still beautiful, I was married off. I was eight or nine, I think, very young. For my daughter I want her to choose, to grow up and decide for herself. I do not plan on getting her married anytime soon, just school.<

[Ayehu and her mother disassemble the hut where Ayehu used to live with her daughter.]

>I built all of this out of necessity. I am not going back there. We'll tear it down. I won't be living there anymore.<

[In the Fistula Hospital, fistula surgeon Dr. Aytenfishu speaks to Almaz at her bedside. It has been a week since her fistula surgery.]

>DR. AYTENFISHU: How are you? Almaz are you okay? Is the bed dry? It looks fine.<

[Almaz smiles brightly.]

>ALMAZ: Okay.<

>DR. AYTENFISHU: You will be fine and cured.
They are helping you, right?<

>ALMAZ: Yes.<

>DR. AYTENFISHU: She is on the eighth post-operative day, and until now, she is okay. So she will be here for another week. So after that we will check whether the bladder is healed or not and the rectum is healed or not. If it is okay she will go home.<

There is no problem. We will give you money for transportation. All of you who come here -- you, her, and her -- will all go home.<

[A patient in a bed nearby waves to the doctor.]

> PATIENT: May the Lord give you long life.<

>DR. AYTENFISHU: You are going to get better. That's for sure.<

[Almaz takes the doctor's hands.]

>ALMAZ: A blessed man.<

[A doctor directs Wubete into an exam room. He is identified as Dr. Andrew Browning, fistula surgeon. He is accompanied by Nurse Azeb, who spoke with Wubete earlier. She shows Wubete a small, narrow plastic plug that is about an inch long.]

>AZEB: We are trying a new thing today. It goes into your bladder and act as a plug. When you go to the bathroom you'll need to open it. You'll do it yourself.<

>WUBETE: Yes.

>DR. BROWNING: And then, when she feels her bladder full, she will pull this out and then...and then the urine comes away.<

>AZEB: When you go to the bathroom,
you pull this out.<

WUBETE: This part right here?<

>AZEB: This part inserts it.
After that you can pull it out.<

WUBETE: That piece?<

>AZEB: Yes, the rest stays inside. For some women it works, for some it doesn't. Are you willing to let us try it with you?<

>WUBETE: Sure.<

>DR. BROWNING: Usually, it's very difficult for these girls to learn how to put these plugs into their urethra. It's a very small spot to try and aim for, but she got it at first go. First time I've ever seen anyone get it at the first go. So I'm sure she'll be able to manage it very well.<

[Wubete approaches the nurses' station to speak with the head nurse. This is the nurse who had shown new clothes to some of the girls.]

>WUBETE: I don't want to go back home. Is there is any possibility of work here?<

>NURSE WOLDE: We will discuss
all that with the doctors, okay?<

>WUBETE: Okay.<

>(to the camera): I am not going back home. I have no one there, so I'm not going back. I guess I will have to find a place to live, then look for work as a nanny. If that doesn't work I'll need to keep searching or begging, even.<

[on-screen text: Almaz, three weeks since surgery. A couple of staff members help her out of bed. Almaz is smiling.]

>DR. AYTENFISHU: How are you now?<
>ALMAZ: I am cured.<

[Dr. Aytenfish extends his hand to her. She takes his hand then embraces him.]

>DR. AYTENFISHU: You're so brave.
Are you happy?<

>ALMAZ: Yes.<

>DR. AYTENFISHU: She is happy. I can't explain it. I have no words. I mean, I am happy, very much happy. I mean, to make a lady who has been incontinent for both urine and feces, to make her continent, I mean her happiness is the prize that I am getting now. Okay.<

[Women in a bus sing together.
They may be returning to their homes.]

>DR. HAMLIN: As soon as they are cured, we talk to them about their future. We tell each patient they must get to the hospital for the next baby. We give every patient a card with a description of the operation, with all the findings. So we say, "When you feel the baby walking in your stomach, you start walking towards the hospital."<

[Almaz approaches her house. A few adults and a couple of children are there to greet her.]

>ALMAZ: Oh, in the name of Jesus, what does the house look like? Why didn't he clean the house and sprinkle water on the dust?<

>WOMAN: He was lost and
didn't know what to do.<

>MAN: Should we go find your husband?<
>ALMAZ: Yes. Let's go now.<

[Almaz kisses a man on his cheeks.
This may be her husband.]

>The house was such a mess. In the name
of the Lord, what is wrong with you?<

[The man looks down.]

>My father has come. Come here.<

[Almaz's father embraces her.]

>Father how are you?
How have you been?

I have come home cured. Share my joy.<
>

ALMAZ'S FATHER: Are you completely cured?<
>ALMAZ: Yes, definitely.<

[on-screen text: Tigray Region, 550 miles from Addis Ababa. A preschool-aged child in a flowered dress climbs up by an inactive military tank.]

[on-screen text: Grace Village,
home for orphaned children.]

[Inside the building, toddlers and preschoolers
are playing. Wubete holds one of the children.]

[on-screen text: Wubete, three months after
leaving the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital.]

>WUBETE: At the hospital, I was upset that I had nowhere to go. Then Sister Ruth [Kennedy] told me I could come here. She told me that a friend of her works with children and that I could come here. I said, "Of course I will go." I stayed there for a while and then came here. Now I am very happy here.<
[Wubete smiles to the camera, then blots her tears with her hand and her head scarf.]

>I am just remembering the situation. There is a big difference with the plug. I have to go to the bathroom a lot, but it's fine.<

[A woman is identified on screen as KARIN VAN DEN BOSCH, Founder of Grace Village.]

>KARIN VAN DEN BOSCH :The children are orphans because their parent died of H.I.V. We've given Wubete four children to take responsibility for, and we told the children, "This is going to be your Mom.<

>Already, in the little ones, you can see that they love her, so the bonding is starting.<

[Wubete holds a toddler. A large turtle
and a baby turtle crawl on the floor.]

>WUBETE: I love them.>

[Wubete laughs as a toddler enters the room.]

>Iyassu, he pouts!>

[She laughs again. A couple of toddlers are
outside, sitting on toilet-training seats.]

>KARIN VAN DEN BOSCH: I think just to have some future to look forward to has made her grown up, and now she has work to do. And she is learning.<

[Wubete sits at a table and looks at a book with another adult who might be a tutor.]

>It makes people grow, giving them responsibility. It helps them enormously.<

["Amazing Grace" is sung in a voice-over as Wubete carries a child and holds the hand of another child as they go for a walk together. A moment later, the children hold each other's hand. Wubete looks out over the hilly and mountainous landscape.]

>WUBETE: I grew up too fast and then was made small and helpless. And now I have become an adult again.<

[Singing continues during the following on-screen text: The hospital is building five outreach centers around the country for women who cannot make the journey to Addis. Throughout the world, two to three million women suffer from obstetric fistula.]

[Closing credits roll.] END