A Walk to Beautiful (review)

Abstract

A Walk to Beautiful (2007) Directed by Mary Olive Smith and Amy Bucher Engel Entertainment (85-minute version), walktobeautiful.com PBS / NOVA (54-minute version), pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beautiful/ Obstetric fistulas remain largely unknown to women living in Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, where medical care or other professional assistance such as midwives is available to women before, during, and after childbirth. In parts of the world where medical care remains unavailable, however, this problem is much more common. Obstetric fistulas develop during obstructed childbirth, when a baby's larger head exerts pressure on a woman's smaller pelvis, cutting off the blood supply and damaging tissues. In obstructed childbirth, women without access to regular medical care endure labor for ten days, with the baby dying in the process. As the damaged internal tissues die, they leave behind holes called fistulas. These fistulas often occur between a woman's bladder and vagina or between a woman's vagina and rectum, resulting in permanent incontinence of urine, feces, or both. In addition to the health problems fistulas create, these women endure public shunning from their spouses and families, and personal humiliation. But this traumatic condition can be resolved in part through surgery and education, at least according to Mary Olive Smith and Amy Bucher's documentary A Walk to Beautiful. The 54-minute NOVA version chronicles the journey from shame to dignity for three Ethiopian women suffering from obstetric fistulas. Ayehu is 25. She lost her child in childbirth, and her husband left her after the incontinence began. Ayehu also suffers embarrassment because her own mother refuses to allow her in the house because people might come visit. As a result Ayehu sleeps in a makeshift hut attached to the back of the main house. Ayehu talks openly about wanting to die, and her situation seems hopeless until her friend, Fikre, suggests she take the journey to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. The journey requires several hours of walking and bus riding, but Fikre claims the trip changed her life. The hospital offers hope fora normal life for Ayehu and other fistula sufferers. Smith and Bucher show the hospital as an oasis, with helpful staff and beautiful grounds. Fistula surgeon Dr. Ambaye Woldemichael explains that just in coming to the hospital, fistula sufferers begin healing because they realize they are not alone. Along with counseling and surgery, the women receive education about their condition's causes and preventions. Women recovering successfully from the surgery also receive new clothes and bus fare home. Along with Ayehu, two other women seek help at the hospital. Twenty-yearold Almaz suffers a double fistula, and she undergoes surgery to correct the problem. Seventeen-year-old Wubete is returning to the hospital for the third time because previous surgeries failed to fix her problem. …