Namdrik

There are only two hospitals for the entire Marshall Islands region. One is in majuro and the other is in ebeye/Kwajalein I believe.  All the other islands have a clinic with a nurse practitioner who treats conditions to the best of their ability. If a person's condition is too great for a nurse practitioner, they will come to Majuro to get treated at the hospital.  

The ministry of health also sends teams to the outer islands periodically (at least once a year) to do well baby checks, immunizations, health/nutrition education, etc.  Chinilla and I got invited to go to some atolls to do hearing screenig and see deaf children on the islands. The one that finally worked out was namdrik and we went there on Monday. I was very excited because there are two volunteers on island and they had told me that there are two deaf children that they know of. 

We boarded a two propeller plane with about 24 seats run by Air Marshall Islands and flew over to Namdrik.  The plane ride took 50 minutes over mostly the blue ocean. We flew over two other islands/atolls. 

Bye Majuro!  It is from the airport looking towards Rairok, Delap and Rita.

Can you see the land through the clouds?

Jaluit atoll! (Hey to Taylor, Veronika and John!)

Then we spotted a small island.  It was Kili island!  I didn't realize that it was so close to Jaluit. It is a bit hard to see in the pictures because it is so small haha.

Look to your left of the propeller almost exactly in the middle of the picture.  That is Kili.  Close up pic below. 

Approaching Namdrik.  I was so surprised to see so many trees on the island, compared to Majuro. 

The water looks so clean! 

I also tried to find the runway.... Nope... Landed on a strip of grass. 

Off the plane! 

When we got off the plane and walked to the "airport", a bunch of people (police officers, etc) walked towards us and shook our hands. 

Damn, I have to bring the life jacket with me.  World teach requires us to have a life jacket and beacon anytime we travel on a boat.  I was hoping I could leave the life jacket on the plane.  

Welcome to the airport which is basically one room building with bathrooms. 

Then we got on a boat to go across the lagoon to the village.  The airport is about 5 miles away from the village on a dirt road through the "jungle".

Of course I had to get "christened".  While getting on the boat (pontoon boat), my shoe came off in the water and then I slipped when I put weight on the foot without the shoe and gave myself a nice bump on my shin.  That is Namdrik' gift to me, haha. 

Namdrik's lagoon and pontoon boat

Namdrik' postal service. Packages come on planes a few times a week, then it is put on a wagon, loaded onto the boat and delivered to residents.  Everyone knows when planes come so they wait by the water to see if they got any mail. 

Sailing over the crystal clear waters across the lagoon on plastic lawn chairs 

A selfie!

You can see the village in the distance. 

Village with a welcoming committee of children and adults. I immediately found the two volunteers.  The guy has a white tank top and red/white hat, the lady has a blue floral dress.  They are standing near the yellow building. 

They were very surprised to see me.  They were standing there because they were waiting for some packages to arrive.  They were very excited to show me their life on island.  I saw their home, their school (see below), and just the village. 

They also pointed out the two deaf children immediately, who were surprise, surprise, waiting to see who came to visit. 

About 400 people live in this atoll.  There used to be about 1,000 but most of them moved to America. 

Dirt road through the island, this view goes towards the airport. There is only one vehicle on the island and it was broken when we arrived so that is why we rode the boat. Most people get by on bikes. (See below)

We worked in this building.  It is a community center and the clinic is right behind it in cream/maroon colored building. 

People waiting for their turn in the community center to get whatever they need done. 

Chinilla doing hearing screening on a baby in a clinic room.

Deaf girl! Tolplynn.  She was fascinated by me but also shy (like most Marshallese people).  She would nod her head anytime I tried to get her to sign so finally I just pointed to her hands and had her copy me. At the end of the day, she wouldn't leave my side and had learned maybe 10 signs! 

Rebekah teaching middle school students the alphabet. They were very excited to spell their names to me. 

The girl in the blue shirt is Deaf.  The girl in orange shirt is her classmate I think.  They both were glued to me all day. 

Namdrik Elementary school.  It is k-8 school, there is no high school on island. High school students go to Jaluit high school. 

Another view of the path. See two poles with a rectangular thing on top? It is solar panels.  Most homes are powered by solar electricity on Namdrik. 

2 Deaf kids and I... The boy is quite hilarious, very theatrical.  He is able to communicate with people using gestures and is very easy to get along with.  He did know a few signs.  He watched us teach the alphabet and show some children how to spell their names.  He understood that we were talking about names and would point to different people to get their names spelled out.  Finally, I pointed to him and asked "what".  He didn't know so I found out his name and taught him how to spell his name.  He was thrilled and memorized it after one try. At the end of the day, I had Chinilla ask him and he spelled it all by himself.  He was very proud. 

One of the last babies we tested's mom has an older brother who is deaf.  I asked her about him, seems like he does not have any formal language.  I wanted to see him, but she said he lives too far from the village to be able to go and come back quickly.  

Just some Namdrik kids.

Kids on dock waiting for us to leave.

 Bye Namdrik! :-(

Thanks for a great day!

Back to the airport

Shot of the full plane 

As we were leaving the village, Chinilla saw the pilot standing among the residents (argh!) so we had to wait at the plane til he was ready to leave.  Thankfully it wasn't too long of a wait.  Welcome to Marshall Islands! 

Waiting... Group shot

I really enjoyed myself seeing how the people on outer islands live.  There are only two "stores" that sell canned meat, personal items, and some candy.  There is no phone or Internet service although some of the other outer islands do have Internet service.  

We all were exhausted and most people slept on the plane ride back.  I couldn't sleep because I was too excited to see what I would find in the water underneath me (nothing major). I took a good cold shower when I got back to my room.  It was very hot with very little breeze so we all were soaked within 15 minutes of arriving