One day last October, a young woman named Ayelech was brought to CURE Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with her newborn baby girl. Ayelech appeared poor, dirty, haggard and dejected. Her baby, only 10 days old, was clearly suffering from malnutrition. Meheret, who was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, weighed less than 4½ pounds.

Before giving both of them a bath and some food, Judy Norman (serving with SIM in Ethiopia) made an initial medical assessment. She learned that Ayelech was sick, but Meheret’s condition was critical. CURE is a pediatric surgical hospital, but is not equipped to handle acute medical problems. Nevertheless, Ayelech and Merhet were admitted.

In early 2007, Ayelech had come to Addis Abeba from Gama Gofa, a region in the far southwest of Ethiopia, to find work while living with her uncle. After a few months her uncle returned home and she was left to fend for herself. There is a common perception among rural folk in much of the developing world that the key to economic prosperity involves moving to a big city. What they don’t realize is that there aren’t very many well-paying jobs. Most jobs require particular skills and a basic education, and the cost of living in the cities is much higher than in the countryside.

The only employment Ayelech could find was as a “wood carrier” at the north end of Addis Ababa. This job involves gathering small branches, bundling them up and carrying them down from the forests of Entoto Mountain. Many women are so employed because in most Ethiopian homes, cooking is done over an open fire. As you can see from the photograph (not of Ayelech), the load is heavy. It is typically carried from an elevation of around 1,000 ft down to the edge of the city at 9,000 feet or lower, a distance of 2 miles or so. For such work, a woman can earn about 10 Birr a day (currently about 75 U.S. cents).

More hardship for Ayelech

One day early last year as Ayelech was gathering branches in the forest alone, she was attacked and raped. It wasn’t until six months later that she realized she was pregnant. This discovery made her very sad and she cried a lot. Soon she was unable to continue this work to support herself. She found shelter in a small one-room house with seven other people and a man gave her work helping to prepare cotton so that it could be woven into cloth.

Ayelech delivered Meheret at home, helped by a friend from her village. When she saw that Meheret was very small and had an extensive bilateral cleft lip and palate, she thought she would die. Since babies born with a cleft palate cannot suck, most of them born in Ethiopia do die—only at CURE Hospital in Addis Ababa is surgery for a cleft palate available from a resident staff. She tried to feed her cereal and water with a spoon, but this was clearly insufficient. Ayelech wanted her baby to live but had little hope of her survival. Not only was she unable to feed her, she felt that she was under a curse because of the circumstances of Meheret’s conception.

Healing begins

Two of her neighbors heard Meheret crying and came to investigate. They had heard of CURE Hospital and brought Ayelech and Meheret in. They were admitted and the hospital staff began to treat Meheret’s infection and both of them for malnutrition, including methods to increase Ayelech’s milk supply, which provides the best medicine for a baby.

Ayelech was encouraged to speak about her experience to CURE’s Ethiopian chaplain, but because Amharic was not her native language and because of her resistance to share much about the experience, the most that we could offer Ayelech was loving care. After ten days, mother and child were healthy enough to be discharged from CURE’s inpatient program, but there was considerable concern about the mother’s ability to take care of her daughter. Judy feared that she would not show up for her out patient care or that she might even abandon Meheret and expect the hospital to find her a home.

This proved to be an incorrect assessment. When she returned the following Monday morning, Ayelech appeared to be a new young lady. Since then she has come in twice each week to increase her milk supply using the hospital’s breast pumps (this is necessary because a child who cannot suck is unable to stimulate her mother’s milk production). These visits also allowed the hospital staff to monitor her progress and gave her the opportunity to pay for the supplemental formula (prohibitively expensive for poor Ethiopians) that Meheret needed through working at the hospital. While Ayelech worked in the laundry, Meheret took a nap. In addition to the two days at the hospital, Ayelech also used a manual pump at home.

Each day that she comes to the hospital she receives a nutritious breakfast and lunch. Short parenting and Bible classes are also provided. At the hospital, she is also with other mothers who have a child with a cleft lip and/or palate. Together they form a very beneficial mutual support network.

In cases like Meheret’s where the bilateral cleft lip is relatively severe, two lip surgeries are required. The second was delayed until June because of a serious case pneumonia. Palate surgery is scheduled for the end of August. Ayelech is a very committed mother and is looking forward to returning to her community to raise her child.

Pray

Please pray for Meheret's upcoming surgery on her palate and for the CURE Hospital staff who work so diligently to bring hope and healing to those who come to them.