Caroline Wanjala got her first baby at the tender age of 17. She did not stop at that and went ahead to conceive a second child at the age of nineteen. Complications with her second delivery brought about the fistula, which she lived with for 1 year 3 months. Due to prolonged labour, the baby died and she had to undergo an operation.

“This ushered in a new page of suffering in my life”, she recounts. After being discharged from hospital she recalls leaking urine uncontrollably. She went back to hospital and was repaired for fistula hoping that the problem would go and was later discharged. She went back to her Mashielo village in Bungoma district (about 250km West of Nairobi) but the situation did not improve.

Caroline could not attend to her duties of farming and household chores as she used to before getting fistula. “My friends even deserted me not mention my in laws who started mocking me.  We all live on the same compound with my husband and my in laws so I isolated myself. No one wanted to associate with me because of my condition….”

She could not get a job in the village because of her condition. The only thing that gave her hope was her loving husband who stood by her through that trying time. “Words cannot express my gratitude to AMREF God bless you so much”.