Okay, so I was flipping through the stations at home on TV and guess what I saw!? It was a documentary on the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where I visited!! For 2 months I lived within a mile or two of this place, and I visited there myself and took a ton of photographs! In the film they kept saying all the phrases and greetings that I remember too, and it was so weird to hear it. It's crazy to see something on TV that you think hardly anyone knows or cares about...in a place that tourists generally don't go to visit.

I have a picture of Catherine Hamlin like the one here, the gorgeous older woman who started this hospital, and she was the one on TV! I talked to her! And I saw all these places that I STOOD and took pictures! The picture above in the header is one that I took, and I saw the railing that I leaned against to get that picture! I'm using a lot of exclamation points!! Sorry!!

What is an obstetric fistula, you might be wondering? Well it's basically an extremely painful and tragically embarrassing thing that happens to women after childbirth that has been neglected. There are like 60 gynecologists for the entire country of Ethiopia (70 SOMETHING MILLION PEOPLE!!!!), and most of them are in the big cities. So women who get prego in the country have to figure out childbirth for themselves. Sometimes they can be in labor for 4-6 days! So because it totally trashes their muscles and basically it.... okay, I'm not gonna type out what it does cause it's kinda nasty, but I will tell you that it leaves them with no way to control their bladder and feces. Women are usually shunned from their community after this happens. Not to mention it always takes their baby's life as well.

SO this hospital is for women who have these complications, and sometimes women have to walk days and days to even get there- so IF they get there without dying, then they have to go through surgery and sometimes rehab because the fistula can cause nerve damage in the legs too. I have pictures of this nerve damage.

Okay, I wasn't gonna explain all that but I'm just so excited that the word is getting out about this epidemic and people are opening their eyes to this. Watching it is so hard for me because I love Africa, and I love Ethiopia and the people so much and I just want to get on a plane and help them now! People may say that to feel good about themselves, but I'm really serious. Every time I see them my heart breaks a little cause I can't be right there! Okay, I keep on rambling!!

Check out these links, they're amazing! Now I wan to dig up all my film photos from this hospital...

http://www.walktobeautiful.com/ Here's the film's main website
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beautiful/program.html I think you can watch some of it here