Ethiopia with love (Kerry)

It was the rhythmical action of the Chinese woman knitting on the train that had first caught my attention. Needle through, wool around, needle under, off; needle through, wool around, needle under, off. The woman herself was serenely oblivious to anyone else; totally engrossed in her stitch-by-stitch activity.

When she paused to start a new row I asked her what she was knitting. Her response was a surprising one.

“I’m knitting squares for the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa,” she replied brightly. “It’s for the ABC’s Wrap With Love project. Some others sew the squares into blankets and they’re sent all over the world wherever they’re needed.”

I knew then that I wanted to visit Ethiopia and the amazing hospital in the capital, Addis Ababa. I was particularly interested in the Australian doctor in charge of the hospital, the eighty year old Dr Catherine Hamlin. I wanted to meet her. I wanted to understand what motivated her to leave her own country and spend her life working in Africa among the poor and underprivileged.

It took several months to organise the visit but I have just finished my first week at the hospital. I am running art classes for the women. They are already being offered classes in nutrition and needlework, as well as reading and writing.

There is such a feeling of love and goodwill in this place. The patients are so grateful to be here. They love having other people to talk to. They are totally accepted for who they are, not judged by their condition. It is a new experience for many of them who have spent years in isolation, living virtually as hermits.

Many of the women who are treated here remain at the hospital as staff. As I look out the window of the classroom I see several women, some draped in colourful knitted wraps, walking around the gardens in pairs or sitting chatting happily in groups. Noticing one woman, Mariam, sitting by herself, I wander out and sit quietly beside her. She is knitting.

I have been told some of Mariam’s story. Like many young girls in Ethiopia, she was married when she was only thirteen and became pregnant soon after. She had a difficult labour without medical assistance and was badly injured during the birth. When it was apparent that she had developed a fistula, she was rejected by her husband and his family and left to wander the countryside. It took her ten years to save the money to pay for the hazardous 500 km bus trip from her home to Addis Ababa. Mariam is cured, but because she is unable to have more children, she doesn’t want to return to her husband. She now works at the hospital.

I speak to her in my halting Ethiopian. “Hello. How are you?”

Miraculously she understands. She adjusts her wrap around her shoulders and replies with conviction and a broad smile, “I am here. I am here.”

_______________________
Postscript
I had seen a documentary on TV of the remarkable work of Dr Catherine Hamlin and had heard an interview with her on the ABC. She totally inspired me. She and her husband, both doctors, had gone to Ethiopia in the 1950s to work with women who suffered from the condition called obstetric fistula. It is a condition that is rampant in Ethiopia and many other countries with the lethal combination of poverty, poor education and poor obstetric care. A tear in the bladder or rectum wall during difficult births causes a chronic problem of leaking urine or faeces. The women are ostracised by their community and are often left to fend for themselves. Dr Hamlin is involved with surgery once a week on Thursday mornings to keep her hand in and to keep in touch with the residents and her staff. She spends a lot of her time raising funds for the hospital and making people around the world aware of the tragedy of obstetric fistula. She is determined to have the hospital financially secure before she dies so that women can continue to be treated here for free. She is also training women to be mid-wives and nurses to ease the shortage of people with medical skills throughout the country.