Mandari Buddha is leaving her Nepalese village in the Himalayan foothills for the first time in her life. She is traveling to have an operation that will end the terrible pain and isolation caused by a condition in which the womb falls out of the body.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), a humanitarian organization, is arranging this trip for Mandari and 20 other women who suffer from uterine prolapse, which is said to afflict nearly one in three women in rural Nepal. Treatment for this condition, a hysterectomy, has not been available for rural Nepalese up to now.

As we set off Mandari is wearing thin canvas shoes and a red wrap skirt. Strapped to her back is her son. The track immediately heads uphill and soon Mandari with her primitive footwear is leaving me trailing behind in my fancy American hiking boots.

Hours later, exhausted, we come across the only settlement - 20 mud huts spread across a steep hillside. Mandari unwraps a canvas sack full of chapattis, chutney and leaves stuffed with rice pudding. She offers her food to everyone.

We continue to climb. Ten hours later, as the sun approaches the hills, we enter a small town on a wide dirt track. A few dozen shops line the street. Old men sit behind wooden tables, sipping milky tea from glass cups, staring at us.

We pass a truck and Mandari stops. She peers in its windows, examining a motor vehicle for the first time in her life. She smiles distantly, an expression I see again as she encounters other firsts - a stereo blasting Hindi film music, fake leather jackets, powdered milk.

The next morning we join 20 other women who have come for surgery. Most have walked for days. None have traveled this far from home in their lives.

I chat with an older couple. He talks; she bites her nails. "She's had the problem for 19 years," he says. For 18 years, they had no idea what was wrong. "We thought she was a mutant," he says. Then last fall they attended a reproductive health clinic run by IRC, the first of its kind in their village.

"Before this trip I thought I was the only one in the world who had this problem. Now I see I'm not alone," the woman says.

But, like Mandari, she is afraid the surgery will kill her.

Over the next few days, I hear this same fear repeated. I ask why they've come if they think they'll die. The answer is always the same: "If I don't have the surgery, I will die anyway."

The bus trip takes two days, from the narrow winding roads of Nepal's hills down to the straight roads of the flat southern plains. As we near the hospital, rickshaws, motorbikes and buses crowd the road. The women point and chatter excitedly.

At last we reach a multi-storey brick complex - the hospital. It smells of curry and urine and Lysol. At the pre-operation ward, white beds line a room the size of a basketball court. The women are checked and re-checked by doctors. They have x-rays and blood tests.

The second night, I come for a visit and hear giggles as I approach. One of the older women is dancing in the middle of the room. She mimes the operation they are about to have, cupping her hands in the shape of a ball between Mandari's legs and then making a cutting action and grunting. The room erupts in laughter, years of suffering in silence released.

By the end of this trip, the women will be able to walk without pain, bend over without feeling ill and make love to their husbands again. But something else happened during the journey too - the women are talking, sharing stories and laughing together. They are no longer suffering in isolation.

On the eve of the operation I return to wish the women good luck.

"Malaii kushi laghyo," Mandari says to me over and over. I am happy.

This is Part 2 of Rosalie's account. To read Part 1 please click here.

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