A Walk To Beautiful
Ayehu, Almaz, Zewdie, Yenenesh and Wubete suffered through prolonged, unrelieved obstructed labor in a country with few hospitals and even fewer roads to get to them. Although they survived the often-fatal childbirth experience, they were left with a stillborn baby and feeling, as Ayehu tells us, that “even death would be better than this.”
The obstructed labor has left each of them incontinent. We discover Ayehu, 25, living in a makeshift shack behind her mother’s house where she has hidden for four years, shunned by siblings and neighbors alike. She hesitantly begins her journey on foot, but once she arrives at the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, she realizes for the first time that she isn’t the only person in the world suffering from this problem. At the hospital we meet Almaz, a woman also in her 20s who was abducted by her now-husband in a village market and has suffered from double fistula for three years.
Zewdie, 38, has five children longing for their mother to be well. Though abandoned by her husband, Zewdie is supported by the strong extended family that surrounds her. As for Wubete and Yenenesh, both 17, early marriage and their small physical stature (the result of undernourishment and heavy labor) determined the tragic outcome of their first pregnancies.
For these two girls a cure is not simple. We’re with them as they struggle with disappointing news and later as their youthful determination triumphs. We follow each of these women on their journey to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, where they find solace for the first time in years, and we stay with them as their lives begin to change. (Excerpt from walktobeautiful.com)
Watch the full documentary now
What Marvelous endeavors we could achieve, If we man kinds comes to gather spite of race & instead of one dictating the other………
Jahlove.
Truly wonderful! I really wanted to watch this so I kept watching even though I needed to pee until I coughed and peed in my undies . . . truly! ;-) I have sympathy for them after two children of my own, but I don’t have a fistula, thank God! :-)
God bless those people who dedicate their time and effort to those who are in need of help.
Ness:
Thank’s for sharing that with us, truly! :D
Hey Dread… I understand your sentiment, but reading your other comments I can see you are perhaps part of the problem. Please tell us who this “white man” you mentioned in another post is? Could you be a racist hiding behind the mask of the victim? Such a massive generalization such as the “white man” could not come from someone without some prejudice. Do you understand?
Any man who would abandon his wife or lover to a “hut” for the rest o her life “to die” alone and in shame after not being able to give birth to his child is hereby cordially invited to have my “fistula” firmly emplanted in his insensitive “facetula”! :-(
Can this be posted as a featured doc? Every man especially needs to watch and know this story.
KK
I watched this Doc.
It is heart wrenching. I knew about fistula’s, but not quite in this way.
I had no idea what a fistula was until I watched this doc. How horrifying it would be to have pee constantly pouring from your ******, or poop, or both! :-o That’s how I understood it. After your baby was stillborn, nonetheless.
The men who abandoned thier wives after this happened to them need to be castrated so that they can never impregnate another!
Oh, I noticed the hopspital was a Christian out-reach, by the way, or I think so. They called that one lady “sister” I believe. You might not always like Christians and what they believe, but many of us are truly “servant-hearted” and that is the truth.
I have never heard of this problem before. So many women, so few doctors. The numbers are more than the time that the few that are helping can deal with. I challenge any Gynecologist out there to volunteer some service to this poor country. If each doctor in the country went for 1 week to assist many would be cured in no time flat.
Poverty sucks, and causes so much pain in so many ways. Please share your gifts.
Charles Christians want to be known by their love. They do nice things from their heart in private not for recognition or for others to blatenly point it out to rub in anothers face. Have Christian grace and stop being so rightous. You know god will seek the non believer out at his will. He knocks.
1959. Come on Canada. Step Up.
Karen: That was rude. No I shall not stop being “righteous” in any way. I was just pointing out that much of the kindest and the most giving among us are Christians whether you like us or not and “or not” seems to be more than prevelent on this particular website.
Have a little Christian grace of your own and discern the heart of one who loves people and does his best to encourage as many as he can in every way he can. You actually hurt my feelings with that one. Honestly.
Karen: Upon a night of further contemplation, I think “Yes, I could be more gracious and humble hearted” in this particular case. I’m only human. Nonetheless, I would also suggest so could you. To suggest that anyone be less “rightous” is very bad in my opinion. Perhaps you meant “self-righteous” which is not a positive attribute while true “righteousness” is.
I think that local development offices in ethiopia could make the video of this documentary and shown in all the rural areas, so that those vulnerable women are educated. The people in the rural areas could better learn that the sickness/illness is curable and it’s not born out of godly sins so that they have to be segregated as non-human. This kind of situation prevails not just in ethiopia’s countryside but in lot of other underdeveloped countries. So, it would be nice if all those privileged could give some hand to the unprivileged. Even a small step could make a difference.
Vlatko:
Thank you for adding this documentary to your featured docs. The picture of Wubete with the child after her surgery and new life is very moving. I think this is the most heart-touching documentary I’ve seen so far on this website. You are very much appreciated!
KK
It’s truly amazing and touching. Waht a walk to beautiful. Should the birth control has been introduced to those families, there will be much less tragedy like Futsula happen. They also need feminists there for those poor women.
B Liu: Yes, birth control would be very helpful here, I agree.
On the other hand, I don’t think birth control is really practical here in this situation. The men especially wouldn’t go for that. Women are made for making babies, especially in poor countries. A woman that can’t have a baby is almost worthless. I noticed they told the women “WHEN the next baby comes and you feel the baby walking in your stomach, then you start walking to this hospital.” I thought it sad they didn’t even say “If” you have another baby, but “when”. I assumed for a c-section.
I think the solution here is better health care in general and education of basic problems of childbirth and what to do when a woman can’t bring that child into the world. Just think of all the women that must have died in childbirth there as wel that we didn’t even hear about. This really is a wonderful documentary.
KK
This is a powerful piece. It’s very sad at times but it is extremely uplifting at others. Healthcare and education is the answer to this problem. These women are pushed into adulthood to fast. The culture in the rural areas is outdated and must be changed.
This was a sad yet a touching story of how some people are God Earth Angels, helping other threw Love and Kindness.
A bit extreme but wonderful representation. The biology of Festula is simple but its social and psychological impacts are very complex and often hard to explore.
Please donate and work on changing peoples’ perception and attitude about Festula at the community level side by side helping the suffered.
Very sad indeed. Special thank to the producers.