In Ethiopia, a Brother’s Determination

At 14 years old, Asfew is too embarrassed to speak to some Operation Smile volunteers. He’s embarrassed at how he will sound if he tries to talk and how he looks if he holds his head up. Asfew was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate and has spent his life rejected by his own mother and father.

He and his older brother, Hasan, have traveled for two days to the Jimma University Hospital where a group of Operation Smile medical volunteers are holding a training surgical program. Here in Jimma, Hassan is hopeful the medical team can help Asfew live a better life.

“The people, they discriminate,” Hasan said, through a translator. “He doesn’t go to school. People laugh at him, assault him; he leaves school and doesn’t want to go back.”

When Asfew was born, his family wanted to disown him. His mother and father did not take care of him, leaving Hasan, who was only 8 years old at the time, to take care of his younger brother himself.

Hasan, now a school teacher in his village, said his parents are not educated. He blames their lack of education for denying Asfew the love and care he deserved as a baby. He thinks if his family knew that Asfew’s cleft lip was not a curse, they would have loved him and raised him as their son.

“I am an educator,” Hasan said through a translator. “I will go back and tell everyone this is not a disease. I will teach not only my family, but the community about this condition. I will teach them not to discriminate.”

Hasan said he first heard of Operation Smile a few years ago and has been saving his money to pay for the transportation to bring his brother to get surgery. Every penny was worth it, he said.

In the recovery room after surgery, Hasan looks at his brother’s repaired lip, smiling with tears in his eyes. Whispering to let his brother rest, he says: “This is your new life now.”