REPORTER: Olivia Rousset
I am on my way to one of the most extreme places on earth, the Afar region of Ethiopia. Very few foreigners ever come here, even Ethiopians mythologise this part of their country as a harsh land of savages.
I'm looking for an extraordinary Australian woman who has made her life here. She told me I would find her in Konaba, in the mountains on the edge of the Afar.
Here Valerie Browning is Maalika, a name which means angel in Afar. For nearly 20 years Valerie has travelled amongst these nomadic people, and now they see her as one of them.
VALERIE BROWNING (Translation): How's your land? Are you expecting rain?
WOMAN (Translation): Yes, we are. Come inside.
Valerie first came to Ethiopia as a missionary nurse during the famine in the early '70s. She was only 20, and what she saw changed her forever.
VALERIE BROWNING: I'd had children die on my knee. I remember one woman, all three of her children died on my knee in the space of a day and I had never thought about that as a 20-year-old training in a suburban hospital in Sydney. And I was confronted with it in such a raw way I had to do something, you know.
17 years ago, Valerie moved to Ethiopia from suburban Sydney and married Ismael, an Afar elder. Together they have devoted their lives to helping the Afar, a forgotten people at the bottom of the ladder in one of the poorest countries in the world.
VALERIE: In the whole Afar region we don't have one doctor in the whole Afar region we have one engineer who is an Afar. I think we are in some form of race here for the survival of the Afar as an identified nation. I think they are one of the people on earth who are in danger of becoming extinct as a people.
Afar women in particular have incredibly difficult lives and do most of the physical work. They are seen as a possession in marriage and suffer traditional practices such as female circumcision - all things Valerie's determined to change.
VALERIE: Ah, Olivia.
REPORTER: Yeah?
VALERIE: Now the plan is we go to Ferris Daggi to see if we can pick up some women. These two girls will stay and Ali will stay, I think.
For the next couple of days Valerie will travel from village to village looking for 14 women to train as leaders and teachers. They will then show other women that they too can improve their lives.
VALERIE: If you knew, honestly, the root of the misery of these women, I mean, as a woman myself and you, yourself, I mean, we shouldn't tolerate it. I have had all the opportunities as a woman, I can rush up to anything and say what I please. I've got the confidence to do that but these girls no, no. They repress it, they repress it, they repress it until they hurt themselves, kill themselves.
When we arrive in the village of Ferris Daggi Valerie gets her message across bluntly and as often as she can.
MAN (Translation): Hello. How are you?
VALERIE (Translation): Fine, thank you. And you?
MAN (Translation): How's the land?
VALERIE (Translation): The land is fine.
BOY (Translation): How are the people?
VALERIE (Translation): Great, if you stopped circumcising the women. If you circumcise them, it's no good.
MAN (Translation): Seriously?
VALERIE (Translation): Of course. You're making the women sick. Is that good?
MAN (Translation): You're right.
VALERIE (Translation): Make it right, then.
All Afar practice female genital mutilation, or FGM - part or all of a young girl's external genitalia are removed and then she is stitched up to a small hole.
VALERIE: Mostly it is done between the age of 2 days to 10 days. In some societies of the Afar they do it as late as 6-10 years old. In fact, we make films ourselves and we do a lot of awareness raising by films, and using a generator, and we have made a film on FGM.
We went to a part of the Afar where that part said they particularly like the practice and they wanted to continue it. So we said to them, "If you want to continue, then show us," and they said, "Welcome," so we filmed them, we filmed them doing it.
And it absolutely appals and disgusts, and a lot of people can't watch the film because it is so horrible and it really shows. And Afar people have said they didn't realise that this is what they actually do - it's an actual mutilation of part of the girl's body. It is very, very horrible.
And she has got no anaesthetic, no nothing and they are cutting and cutting, and cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting. It's horrible, quite horrible.
It's an enormous job to try to change Afar culture but because of her unusual status Valerie is able to speak up and challenge the taboos.
VALERIE: One man told me, one time - I was laughing - he said... There is a thing in Afar called Mablo which is judgment, which is mostly supposed to be directed by men, and he told me to get into the Mablo, and I said, "I can't, I'm not a man." And he said, "What do you think you are then?" And I said, "Well, I thought I was a woman." He said, "You're not a woman, that's for sure", and I said, "Well, what am I then?" and he said, "Well, I don't really know." So I think I am the third sex. I come between.
This region is on record as being the hottest inhabited place on earth. A large part of the Afar is below sea level and never gets rain.
VALERIE: Water is the biggest need of the Afar, the greatest need. And people die every year of thirst, every year. Recently somebody died not far from where I was.
REPORTER: Of thirst?
VALERIE: Yeah, of thirst, of thirst.
A river like this and the chance to bathe are a rare treat.
VALERIE: This is beautiful. This is close to heaven.
We are on our way to Balbal, the only village which hasn't replied to Valerie's request for women. But with rugged terrain and no roads to speak of, our cars come to a standstill.
MAM (Translation): We'll get the car through here.
VALERIE (Translation): We don't want that, thank you. The car will stay here. The car will go nowhere. It will stay here. We'll go on foot. I'm more than happy to walk. We can walk 10 kilometres or more.
Despite temperatures that regularly reach 50 degrees, like the Afar, Valerie does a lot of her travel on foot and she's hard to keep up with.
VALERIE: Oh, for me I like the heat. I think I wouldn't do well in cold climate. I think I'd die. I once went to a meeting in Sweden, an Afar meeting in Sweden, and it was the funniest thing because they had Afar from the government who went and all sorts of Afar, and they are standing on the street in Sweden in the middle of Christmas and one is saying to the other, "Now touch that stuff!" And the other one says "Well, you do it first." And the other says, "No, no, no! I am not going to touch it. I really refuse." And they were just looking at snow and they were...
REPORTER: So where are we going right now? What is happening here?
VALERIE: I think they are burying a person. I think that is what is going on.
REPORTER: Prayer time?
VALERIE: A 5-year-old child died. We are discussing the fact that in fact this little boy, he probably died of malaria. The father said he had a terrifically blown-up stomach. It was probably from anaemia.
VALERIE (Translation): How many children have died this year?
MAN (Translation): Lots. Of many diseases.
VALERIE (Translation): What type of diseases?
MAN (Translation): Malaria, TB and diarrhoea.
VALERIE: What a sad day, eh?
They are discussing our situation. They want to make the road in, bring the cars in so we can sleep here tonight.
I think I was put here almost. That seems a bit stupid to say. I, myself have a very strong belief in God and I think that maybe the weird character I have is something that can be used for the Afar. I am not frightened to do things. And I have had the enormous privilege through living here, of learning right inside what is poverty. And that is amazing because there are very few Western people who really, honestly know what is poverty.
Poverty is not just a material low, it is a mental power low. It's powerlessness, it's speechless. You can't...nobody is going to listen to you. Why?
The people of Balbal have heard Valerie can help their sick children. With the nearest clinic several days walk from here, they're keen to have their children treated.
VALERIE: This is, it's a very quick check but it's a quite an easy check of nutrition of a child. This one is a little bit borderline.
VALERIE (Translation): Are you the mother? Really? Are you breastfeeding? You are? Well done. Well done.
For the past five years these people have suffered a terrible drought. Most of their livestock died and the animals left stopped producing milk, an essential food source for the children who are now malnourished and sick.
VALERIE: He's not too bad at all but if he got sick, he would go down the chute very fast. Wouldn't you. eh?
The infant mortality rate in the Afar region is a shocking 35%. Nearly all the children in this village have malaria, and many more will die without treatment.
VALERIE: Malaria makes them vomit, it gives them fever at night, this one has got the beginning of anaemia. The little baby is vomiting a lot so we'll see. All we have got with us is chloroquine tablets.
ALI (Translation): Could you look at this one too? Now I'm past it, I'm raising this one to have 36 children like me.
It turns out that this old man is father, grandfather and great-grandfather to most of the children Valerie is treating.
ALI (Translation): You're only treating the girls. Why not the boys? They'll have to father children. We are raising this boy to father lots of children.
VALERIE (Translation): He's my friend, I'll take him. You have too many children.
ALI (Translation): I'll keep 30 and give you six. Unlike in Europe, in Africa we want to increase our population.
VALERIE (Translation): Don't do that. It's not beneficial.
ALI (Translation): I want three more children.
VALERIE (Translation): No, don't! Enough, no more. I'm telling you, enough is enough.
Tonight we go to bed like everyone else in Balbal, on the hot earth, exposed to malaria-carrying mosquitoes. In the morning, the men have gathered to discuss sending women to study with Valerie. Respecting custom, Valerie waits on the sidelines with a couple of her teachers. They share her ambition for change but not her confidence.
AMINA (Translation): We have to make them understand us.
VALERIE (Translation): We will. And then we can join them. Afterwards. We'll sit with them and ask why women can't participate.
AMINA (Translation): We can't ask why.
HASNA (Translation): Maalika will ask. She stands for us women.
VALERIE (Translation): Let's go.
YOUNG AMINA (Translation): We're going there?
VALERIE (Translation): We can't do much if we don't.
Valerie doesn't stand on ceremony for long. Afar men need to be convinced women's education is in their interest. They are sceptical about offers of help from outsiders. They have bitter memories of the time they moved thousands of rocks under instructions from the World Bank.
MAN (Translation): In order to divert the river, our women and donkeys carried stones on their backs and suffered health problems. Many of those who carried the stones died. Others now suffer from crooked backs.
They just scratched the surface and said they'd be back, and disappeared like a bird in a cloud. This means they misled us. Whenever we hear people are coming to help us we provide whatever support we can possibly give. And we're left with absolutely nothing.
Unlike Maalika's people, who keep our language alive.
Although they are nervous about her request, these men respect and trust Valerie. They know that she lives like them and shares their suffering.
VALERIE (Translation): Through education we can improve our health but this land has never had this opportunity. We have to work together to make this happen. A woman should support her fellow woman with regard to health, particularly women's health.
We want to talk with you and make you understand. So you have to choose someone involved in your community. Don't you? Someone who can work, who can strive, who loves her community.
AMINA (Translation): Never think that the women who leave this village will learn bad things. You hear? They won't. Neither will they learn other religions or cultures. It's their religion, their culture. On their return they'll be exactly as they were when they left only better educated. They'll learn nothing to distance them from their culture or religion. You have to know this. Thank you very much. I've finished.
In the end, patience and perseverance paid off - every village Valerie went to sent two of their women.
VALERIE (Translation): This is how we know a woman is ready to give birth. You put your hands here, then here, then here.
A few days later, Valerie's students have gathered in the village of Wahadis for their first lesson.
VALERIE (Translation): As you pull the baby out like this, we tell her, "Push! Push! And we say "Breathe, breathe! And the baby's head appears and we glide it out like this. When the baby cries like this we put it on the mother's breast. And she can breast-feed it.
Possibly the most important job these young women will learn is to make childbirth safer for the people in their villages. More than 10% of Afar women die when they give birth.
VALERIE: The worst experiences are pulling out a live baby from a dead mother. Things like that are horrible. And you know, you try hard, you eventually find the head, pull the head out, get the child out. The child is alive and the mother froths blood from the mouth, nose and dies. She goes into heart-lung failure. That's shocking. Shocking.
Valerie can't imagine ever living in Australia again. Despite the heat and the hardship here, or perhaps because of it, there's nowhere else she'd rather be.
REPORTER: How long do you think you will be doing this kind of work?
VALERIE: I don't know, I couldn't say, but I don't look to a retirement age or a retirement time. My daughter keeps saying, "What about it?" But I think one day they will just find me dead and put some stones on top. I think that is the case. Yeah. And I am quite happy with that. That's fine.
I am on my way to one of the most extreme places on earth, the Afar region of Ethiopia. Very few foreigners ever come here, even Ethiopians mythologise this part of their country as a harsh land of savages.
I'm looking for an extraordinary Australian woman who has made her life here. She told me I would find her in Konaba, in the mountains on the edge of the Afar.
Here Valerie Browning is Maalika, a name which means angel in Afar. For nearly 20 years Valerie has travelled amongst these nomadic people, and now they see her as one of them.
VALERIE BROWNING (Translation): How's your land? Are you expecting rain?
WOMAN (Translation): Yes, we are. Come inside.
Valerie first came to Ethiopia as a missionary nurse during the famine in the early '70s. She was only 20, and what she saw changed her forever.
VALERIE BROWNING: I'd had children die on my knee. I remember one woman, all three of her children died on my knee in the space of a day and I had never thought about that as a 20-year-old training in a suburban hospital in Sydney. And I was confronted with it in such a raw way I had to do something, you know.
17 years ago, Valerie moved to Ethiopia from suburban Sydney and married Ismael, an Afar elder. Together they have devoted their lives to helping the Afar, a forgotten people at the bottom of the ladder in one of the poorest countries in the world.
VALERIE: In the whole Afar region we don't have one doctor in the whole Afar region we have one engineer who is an Afar. I think we are in some form of race here for the survival of the Afar as an identified nation. I think they are one of the people on earth who are in danger of becoming extinct as a people.
Afar women in particular have incredibly difficult lives and do most of the physical work. They are seen as a possession in marriage and suffer traditional practices such as female circumcision - all things Valerie's determined to change.
VALERIE: Ah, Olivia.
REPORTER: Yeah?
VALERIE: Now the plan is we go to Ferris Daggi to see if we can pick up some women. These two girls will stay and Ali will stay, I think.
For the next couple of days Valerie will travel from village to village looking for 14 women to train as leaders and teachers. They will then show other women that they too can improve their lives.
VALERIE: If you knew, honestly, the root of the misery of these women, I mean, as a woman myself and you, yourself, I mean, we shouldn't tolerate it. I have had all the opportunities as a woman, I can rush up to anything and say what I please. I've got the confidence to do that but these girls no, no. They repress it, they repress it, they repress it until they hurt themselves, kill themselves.
When we arrive in the village of Ferris Daggi Valerie gets her message across bluntly and as often as she can.
MAN (Translation): Hello. How are you?
VALERIE (Translation): Fine, thank you. And you?
MAN (Translation): How's the land?
VALERIE (Translation): The land is fine.
BOY (Translation): How are the people?
VALERIE (Translation): Great, if you stopped circumcising the women. If you circumcise them, it's no good.
MAN (Translation): Seriously?
VALERIE (Translation): Of course. You're making the women sick. Is that good?
MAN (Translation): You're right.
VALERIE (Translation): Make it right, then.
All Afar practice female genital mutilation, or FGM - part or all of a young girl's external genitalia are removed and then she is stitched up to a small hole.
VALERIE: Mostly it is done between the age of 2 days to 10 days. In some societies of the Afar they do it as late as 6-10 years old. In fact, we make films ourselves and we do a lot of awareness raising by films, and using a generator, and we have made a film on FGM.
We went to a part of the Afar where that part said they particularly like the practice and they wanted to continue it. So we said to them, "If you want to continue, then show us," and they said, "Welcome," so we filmed them, we filmed them doing it.
And it absolutely appals and disgusts, and a lot of people can't watch the film because it is so horrible and it really shows. And Afar people have said they didn't realise that this is what they actually do - it's an actual mutilation of part of the girl's body. It is very, very horrible.
And she has got no anaesthetic, no nothing and they are cutting and cutting, and cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting. It's horrible, quite horrible.
It's an enormous job to try to change Afar culture but because of her unusual status Valerie is able to speak up and challenge the taboos.
VALERIE: One man told me, one time - I was laughing - he said... There is a thing in Afar called Mablo which is judgment, which is mostly supposed to be directed by men, and he told me to get into the Mablo, and I said, "I can't, I'm not a man." And he said, "What do you think you are then?" And I said, "Well, I thought I was a woman." He said, "You're not a woman, that's for sure", and I said, "Well, what am I then?" and he said, "Well, I don't really know." So I think I am the third sex. I come between.
This region is on record as being the hottest inhabited place on earth. A large part of the Afar is below sea level and never gets rain.
VALERIE: Water is the biggest need of the Afar, the greatest need. And people die every year of thirst, every year. Recently somebody died not far from where I was.
REPORTER: Of thirst?
VALERIE: Yeah, of thirst, of thirst.
A river like this and the chance to bathe are a rare treat.
VALERIE: This is beautiful. This is close to heaven.
We are on our way to Balbal, the only village which hasn't replied to Valerie's request for women. But with rugged terrain and no roads to speak of, our cars come to a standstill.
MAM (Translation): We'll get the car through here.
VALERIE (Translation): We don't want that, thank you. The car will stay here. The car will go nowhere. It will stay here. We'll go on foot. I'm more than happy to walk. We can walk 10 kilometres or more.
Despite temperatures that regularly reach 50 degrees, like the Afar, Valerie does a lot of her travel on foot and she's hard to keep up with.
VALERIE: Oh, for me I like the heat. I think I wouldn't do well in cold climate. I think I'd die. I once went to a meeting in Sweden, an Afar meeting in Sweden, and it was the funniest thing because they had Afar from the government who went and all sorts of Afar, and they are standing on the street in Sweden in the middle of Christmas and one is saying to the other, "Now touch that stuff!" And the other one says "Well, you do it first." And the other says, "No, no, no! I am not going to touch it. I really refuse." And they were just looking at snow and they were...
REPORTER: So where are we going right now? What is happening here?
VALERIE: I think they are burying a person. I think that is what is going on.
REPORTER: Prayer time?
VALERIE: A 5-year-old child died. We are discussing the fact that in fact this little boy, he probably died of malaria. The father said he had a terrifically blown-up stomach. It was probably from anaemia.
VALERIE (Translation): How many children have died this year?
MAN (Translation): Lots. Of many diseases.
VALERIE (Translation): What type of diseases?
MAN (Translation): Malaria, TB and diarrhoea.
VALERIE: What a sad day, eh?
They are discussing our situation. They want to make the road in, bring the cars in so we can sleep here tonight.
I think I was put here almost. That seems a bit stupid to say. I, myself have a very strong belief in God and I think that maybe the weird character I have is something that can be used for the Afar. I am not frightened to do things. And I have had the enormous privilege through living here, of learning right inside what is poverty. And that is amazing because there are very few Western people who really, honestly know what is poverty.
Poverty is not just a material low, it is a mental power low. It's powerlessness, it's speechless. You can't...nobody is going to listen to you. Why?
The people of Balbal have heard Valerie can help their sick children. With the nearest clinic several days walk from here, they're keen to have their children treated.
VALERIE: This is, it's a very quick check but it's a quite an easy check of nutrition of a child. This one is a little bit borderline.
VALERIE (Translation): Are you the mother? Really? Are you breastfeeding? You are? Well done. Well done.
For the past five years these people have suffered a terrible drought. Most of their livestock died and the animals left stopped producing milk, an essential food source for the children who are now malnourished and sick.
VALERIE: He's not too bad at all but if he got sick, he would go down the chute very fast. Wouldn't you. eh?
The infant mortality rate in the Afar region is a shocking 35%. Nearly all the children in this village have malaria, and many more will die without treatment.
VALERIE: Malaria makes them vomit, it gives them fever at night, this one has got the beginning of anaemia. The little baby is vomiting a lot so we'll see. All we have got with us is chloroquine tablets.
ALI (Translation): Could you look at this one too? Now I'm past it, I'm raising this one to have 36 children like me.
It turns out that this old man is father, grandfather and great-grandfather to most of the children Valerie is treating.
ALI (Translation): You're only treating the girls. Why not the boys? They'll have to father children. We are raising this boy to father lots of children.
VALERIE (Translation): He's my friend, I'll take him. You have too many children.
ALI (Translation): I'll keep 30 and give you six. Unlike in Europe, in Africa we want to increase our population.
VALERIE (Translation): Don't do that. It's not beneficial.
ALI (Translation): I want three more children.
VALERIE (Translation): No, don't! Enough, no more. I'm telling you, enough is enough.
Tonight we go to bed like everyone else in Balbal, on the hot earth, exposed to malaria-carrying mosquitoes. In the morning, the men have gathered to discuss sending women to study with Valerie. Respecting custom, Valerie waits on the sidelines with a couple of her teachers. They share her ambition for change but not her confidence.
AMINA (Translation): We have to make them understand us.
VALERIE (Translation): We will. And then we can join them. Afterwards. We'll sit with them and ask why women can't participate.
AMINA (Translation): We can't ask why.
HASNA (Translation): Maalika will ask. She stands for us women.
VALERIE (Translation): Let's go.
YOUNG AMINA (Translation): We're going there?
VALERIE (Translation): We can't do much if we don't.
Valerie doesn't stand on ceremony for long. Afar men need to be convinced women's education is in their interest. They are sceptical about offers of help from outsiders. They have bitter memories of the time they moved thousands of rocks under instructions from the World Bank.
MAN (Translation): In order to divert the river, our women and donkeys carried stones on their backs and suffered health problems. Many of those who carried the stones died. Others now suffer from crooked backs.
They just scratched the surface and said they'd be back, and disappeared like a bird in a cloud. This means they misled us. Whenever we hear people are coming to help us we provide whatever support we can possibly give. And we're left with absolutely nothing.
Unlike Maalika's people, who keep our language alive.
Although they are nervous about her request, these men respect and trust Valerie. They know that she lives like them and shares their suffering.
VALERIE (Translation): Through education we can improve our health but this land has never had this opportunity. We have to work together to make this happen. A woman should support her fellow woman with regard to health, particularly women's health.
We want to talk with you and make you understand. So you have to choose someone involved in your community. Don't you? Someone who can work, who can strive, who loves her community.
AMINA (Translation): Never think that the women who leave this village will learn bad things. You hear? They won't. Neither will they learn other religions or cultures. It's their religion, their culture. On their return they'll be exactly as they were when they left only better educated. They'll learn nothing to distance them from their culture or religion. You have to know this. Thank you very much. I've finished.
In the end, patience and perseverance paid off - every village Valerie went to sent two of their women.
VALERIE (Translation): This is how we know a woman is ready to give birth. You put your hands here, then here, then here.
A few days later, Valerie's students have gathered in the village of Wahadis for their first lesson.
VALERIE (Translation): As you pull the baby out like this, we tell her, "Push! Push! And we say "Breathe, breathe! And the baby's head appears and we glide it out like this. When the baby cries like this we put it on the mother's breast. And she can breast-feed it.
Possibly the most important job these young women will learn is to make childbirth safer for the people in their villages. More than 10% of Afar women die when they give birth.
VALERIE: The worst experiences are pulling out a live baby from a dead mother. Things like that are horrible. And you know, you try hard, you eventually find the head, pull the head out, get the child out. The child is alive and the mother froths blood from the mouth, nose and dies. She goes into heart-lung failure. That's shocking. Shocking.
Valerie can't imagine ever living in Australia again. Despite the heat and the hardship here, or perhaps because of it, there's nowhere else she'd rather be.
REPORTER: How long do you think you will be doing this kind of work?
VALERIE: I don't know, I couldn't say, but I don't look to a retirement age or a retirement time. My daughter keeps saying, "What about it?" But I think one day they will just find me dead and put some stones on top. I think that is the case. Yeah. And I am quite happy with that. That's fine.